Tavern on the Meta

4:09 PM

Which crap?

How can we handle this off-topic closed question that really should be migrated to superuser? I ran out of close votes on that day so I was only able to leave a comment but other reviewers didn't pick that up. As it is edited now it has a reopen vote...

Duncan

@rene If you are confident it belongs elsewhere, flag for moderator attention.

I think they can move closed questions.

But generally speaking, questions are only migrated when they are just super-wonderful. Not sure that fits the bill.

Not a whole lot of effort taken by the asker. Not brilliantly formatted, grammar-wise.

GnomeSlice

If the question is bad, don't migrate it, just get rid of it.

rene

I left a flag on it. It is good enough now. It wasn't initially but the OP did improve the question drastically.

Duncan

Does superuser accept questions where people state their requirements for excel formulae but haven't tried anything? On SO at least, that's grounds for closure.

On the basis that the OP didn't bother to try anything.

rene

4:24 PM

Yes, I see. I left a comment now to indicate that to the OP. Let's hope flag handling tempo is low today...and the OP is eager to adapt...

jadarnel27

I don't think that this question warranted closure.

The OP even showed what they tried. Although they weren't very successful.

I even gave it a "leave open" review (as did one other person).

rene

@jadarnel27 I'm not sure. I only see string being created and not a single reference to the OleDbCommand. There is somewhere in the msdn docs at least one example that does something with ExecuteCommand or ExecuteScalar?

Bart

Voted to reopen. Yeah it's a "d'oh" type of question, but it seems fair enough of a mistake to make for a beginner.

rene

Ok, ok, calm down. I also voted to reopen.

Bart

No I won't calm down! This is an outrage. I demand.... wait, I am calm.... never mind.

jadarnel27

4:41 PM

@rene Haha, I definitely see what you're saying. I thought it was weird when I first looked too.

Hey, @Bart - have you ever used libgdx?

I noticed, on SO, you are active in Unity3D.

Bart

Briefly looked at it some time ago, but never really used it.

Yeah, pretty much Unity only these days.

Even my OpenGL is getting rusty now

jadarnel27

Ah, I see. I took one graphics programming class in college, where we used OpenGL.

Then I took some game dev classes where we used XNA and then Unity.

I was just playing around with 3D graphics on Android. And I realize now that I am very rusty when it comes to...all of that stuff.

Bart

Unity is pretty sweet in that respect. But all the sweet abstraction comes at the cost of not really understanding the platform you develop for, if you don't explicitly look for it.

jadarnel27

Yeah, I sort of remember that.

Bart

Our code-base for all platforms (Windows, Android, iOS) is pretty much the same.

jadarnel27

4:46 PM

That's pretty awesome.

Libgdx does that, which is what I found appealing about it.

And it's free. Which I think Unity is not.

Bart

Well, Unity is free up to a point

You can even publish with it using the free version.

But you miss out on some features

jadarnel27

Huh. I didn't realize that.

Really good features?

Bart

Some of the rendering features such as soft shadows, light mapping, some native plugin work, etc.

jadarnel27

I'm having trouble mapping touch points on the screen to objects in the 3D world.

Bart

In Unity?

jadarnel27

4:50 PM

No, in libgdx.

I was going to pick your brain about it, if you used libgdx (which is why I asked in the first place).

I'm sure I'll get it figured out. If not, I can always... shudder ...ask a question on SO.

Bart

Nah, unfortunately don't know enough about it. Surely there is some sort of raycast available?

From camera to world

jadarnel27

Yeah, there is. But I am not sure I'm using it right haha.

Bart

:)

jadarnel27

Hmmm.

Bart

Camera's getPickRay seems to fit the bill. And then something like a World's rayCast? But that's just going off the docs.

Ashish Nitin Patil

5:00 PM

Hello.

Is it okay to go on editing posts to add a new tag? Or that isn't required?

On SO?

jadarnel27

@Bart Oh, I hadn't seen the World's rayCast method. I was using the getPickRay, and then trying to use the static methods in this Intersector class.

But I feel like I'm supposed to do some kind of translation or something before I call those methods.

@AshishNitinPatil Could you give an example? I'm not sure I understand what you're asking.

Ashish Nitin Patil

Just created a new tag multiple-assignment

So, was thinking to add it to posts that fall under the particular tag.

Oded

That is a very meta-ish tag. Shouldn't exist, let alone trivially added to questions that don't need it.

Ashish Nitin Patil

But, it is a very useful syntactical sugar in Python

Oded

So? Java, JavaScript, C#, SQL and many other languages have this feature.

Ashish Nitin Patil

5:06 PM

If so, I would remove it, but then just add your comment on my question on meta

Thanks for the deletion. Will not proceed further @Oded.

Oded

5:18 PM

@AshishNitinPatil - just to say - don't edit questions just to add a tag to them. That is something that the community as a whole doesn't like. It bumps questions up to the front page. If there is a good reason for it (new language, library or such), that's a different matter.

Cole Johnson

Tsk tsk

0

A: We need to improve the quality of our spam!

There's a new proposal on Area 51 to help alleviate this problem: Spam Review There appear to be some super fun party people who are trying to downvote and close this proposal. There's even been SIX people who had the audacity to downvote Jon Spam: We can't let that happen! We can't let t...

Ashish Nitin Patil

5:42 PM

Duely noted @Oded. Thanks! Exactly why I asked first. :)

Oded

Thanks for being receptive and open, @Ashish

Ashish Nitin Patil

TBH it's you who should be thanked, my behavior, though not usual (if I may say so), should be ideal I supose.

Alec Teal

5:56 PM

I must ask but I dare not do it as a question, why was meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/211122/… met with so many downvotes?

Oded

@AlecTeal read meta.stackoverflow.com/help/whats-meta - in particular the section about voting differences.

jadarnel27

@AlecTeal It's sort of ranty. It would have (probably) been better-received had you asked the question more impartially.

Alec Teal

Thanks @jadarnel27

jadarnel27

No problem.

Undo the Snowman

Whoa, P.SO about to launch.

(or Oded says so)

Alec Teal

5:59 PM

P?

Undo the Snowman

portoguese.

(or however you spell it)

Alec Teal

Oh, I thought it was YASES or something.

Undo the Snowman

447

Stack Overflow (in Portuguese)

Proposed Q&A site for professional and enthusiast programmers in Portuguese. Proposta de site de perguntas e respostas em português para programadores profissionais e entusiastas.

Currently in commitment.

Oded

@UndotheSnowman - it is br.stackoverflow.com

Undo the Snowman

Bug: I can't understand any of it ;(

jadarnel27

6:01 PM

@Oded Short for "brown.stackoverflow.com"?

Oded

As you can see, I had a big hand in naming the domain ;)

jadarnel27

Well done =)

Oded

Brazilians tend to be brown, I'll note.

jadarnel27

Makes sense.

Undo the Snowman

Chrome to the rescue!

Jeroen Vannevel

6:15 PM

When a question isn't really sure what he's looking for and has tagged somewhat near the answer, but not exactly it. Should we edit his question and tag appropriately (which coincidentally will also be the answer to his question)?

Case in question:

2

Q: Save different class instances in a list

I'm working on a minecraft plugin and had a general Java question. I've got different 'spell' classes, they aren't made of 1 object because they differ too much. So I created for example 3 classes: called Ice ice = new Ice(); called Hurricane hurricane = new Hurricane(); called Bomb bomb = new...

He tagged it as 'class' and 'instances'. The answer is 'interface'. It won't change anything for him, but it might be easier for future lookups by others. Then again it might be confusing for new short-term readers because his post is tagged with the answer.

Cole Johnson

Tagging posts with what the answer is about, not what the OP thought it was about is usually good. Keeping both is better

Jeroen Vannevel

Alright, I'll just add it then. No removal of the others

n00b

is it appropriate for questions like this one to be closed: stackoverflow.com/questions/417380/watin-or-selenium and if so is it only appropriate after its had some time to get answers or from the instant it was created should it have been closed?

Ive seen dozens of these types of questions that are obviously helpful to the community but are closed because they are "opinion"

Oded

@n00b - that question is from 2009.

Closed 3 years after being asked

n00b

yea, I know its old. im just talking about those type of questions

Jeroen Vannevel

6:28 PM

That closure stems from the great purge. Best to let it rest, we don't talk about those times

n00b

is the standard behavior to close those type of opinion questions after a while. so they dont garner new responses?

Oded

It is best to close and delete them immediately.

They are popular, yes.

n00b

@JeroenVannevel the great purge?

Oded

They may contain some valuable content, yes.

But they are a bad fit for Stack Overflow.

n00b

Are you serious? You think that question should have been deleted in the first place?

Oded

6:29 PM

They tend to garner opinionated answers and votes. They also do not get updated as things change.

Jeroen Vannevel

@n00b The rules got revised and this question (and many similar ones) did not fit them anymore.

Oded

@n00b - yes. They currently end up serving as "but this one is still there. Why was mine deleted. Waaaaah!!!"

Blog - Stack Exchange: Gorilla vs. Shark

Jeff Atwood on August 15, 2011

Who would win in a fight between a Gorilla and a Shark?

OK, maybe you’re thinking that’s a ridiculous question. Perhaps it is. But various forms of this question get asked all the time. Consider this now-ancient Stack Overflow question titled Python v. Perl:

Okay, so I’m finally making the jump into scripting languages and I have decided to focus on either Python or Perl. The problem is: I don’t know which to cut my teeth on.

Most of my programming experience is in C, Java, and C++. There’s no specific task I would be learning Python/Perl for, other that possibly applying it to my dev work to make life easier in general. …

@n00b - that blog post may shed more light on the issue.

n00b

ah. Ill check this out, thanks.

@JeroenVannevel I'm only a year or two really active on SO. are you saying before the rules allowed for such opinion based questions?

Jeroen Vannevel

I've only been here on SO for a year myself, but yes: as far as I understand these were allowed some time ago. You'll notice that each of these questions is at least 3 years old, often from 2009 or 2010. Many got locked in 2012 (from what I see)

n00b

I see. @Oded thanks for the article. The reason I feel a lot of the older questions I have seen (with upvotes) is that although the question is subjective (which is better, or what do you think i should use) the answers and objective and helpful (instead of "chrome is so much faster and looks cooler" it instead lists the uses and strengths of each application and their intended usage).

So it seems today we could get the same kind of information but have to be more specific in our questions. e.g. What are the capabilities of XYZ that ZZZ do not have

Cole Johnson

6:41 PM

@n00b XYZ has an X and a Y, while ZZZ has two more Zs than XYZ

n00b

-1

animuson

9:04 PM

Lol

Jeroen Vannevel

That was a quick delete

animuson

It got 4 flags in under a minute.

jadarnel27

Based on the title, that question probably could have helped a lot of programmers har har har.

Jeroen Vannevel

Could've made an interesting community question though

I can approve of the performance tag

animuson

Someone even took a handy screenshot:

5

jadarnel27

9:08 PM

LOL

That is fantastic.

animuson

Amazon gave me a $10 site-wide credit for being confused about the $5 video game credit I had. :)

Pops

@animuson I don't believe you. Please provide detailed steps to repro.

rene

Stay confused, maybe they do that a couple of times?

animuson

@Pops pastebin.com/mjj3pkGc

Pops

I can't believe that worked.

(My request for instructions, not your initial conversation.)

jadarnel27

9:22 PM

That's some good customer service right there!

GnomeSlice

10:04 PM

@animuson Classic

rene

10:21 PM

Anyone some close votes left for this

animuson

Drats! I'm all out!

GnomeSlice

I can't even close on SO

rene

Hmmm, flag it then?

tnx

jadarnel27

I was clicking vote to close when animuson closed it haha.

animuson

put on hold as not brown enough by jadarnel27 2 mins ago

rene

10:25 PM

@jadarnel27 That is too bad. Now you have to wait for another oppertunity...

jadarnel27

I haven't done all my reviews today, so there's a pretty good source =)

Though I really need to pick a song to sing at this audition tonight.

GnomeSlice

►

There you go

Jeroen Vannevel

10:44 PM

10 days with an active flag, new record!

GnomeSlice

Don't say 'flag' around me, it makes me nervous.

Cole Johnson

11:02 PM

Flag

Request for close

0

Q: How to hide textbox value c#

I'm trying to hide the value of the password textbox. Not the whole lot of the textbox, just the value inside it. And no, I won't be changing foreground colors or anything. Thanks.

c# winforms textbox hide

0

Q: How can I add the gutter along a grid in the 960 css framework?

How can I add the 10 px gutter of a 40px grid(so that it will be 50px) in 960 css framework?

css frameworks grid 960.gs gutter

-2

Q: edited readme online on github

So I am so new to git and github that not even this other thread helped me I edited readme on GitHub, now how do I squash edits I am not familiar with rebase, or --soft, nor do I understand the head -3. But I did that same mistake, edited my README online at github.com and now it won't let me p...

git github conflict

-1

Q: Custom login page in Java for GAE accounts

I have a Java application, and GAE application. Here is what I want to do: I want GAE account users to authorize in my Java application, and I don't want to use "Sign In with..." solution. Instead I want the users to login from my Java application login page ( e.g providing username and passwo...

google-app-engine google-account

Transcript for