Tavern on the Meta

ircmaxell

9:06 PM

I have to say.. Wow is all I can say

Rebecca Chernoff

@TimStone, in case you didn't see it, I updated SEKeyboardShortcuts.

Tim Stone

Ooooh, I didn't :)

Michael Mrozek

I approve of this poll title:

2

Tim Stone

@RebeccaChernoff What'dya change?

Rebecca Chernoff

scrolling and initial post selection

Tim Stone

9:19 PM

@MichaelMrozek As do I. Everyone knows that no one has ever done anything useful on a Mac, so attempting to call it a computer would be an insult to the rest of us.

@RebeccaChernoff Ah ha, nifty :) I'll have to grab the latest then.

radp

A woman tells her programmer husband: "Get me a quart of milk? And if they have eggs, get a dozen." He comes back with 12 quarts of milk.

Tweeted by tsykoduk on December 20, 2010 at 2:31 PM

Tim Stone

Heh :P

Rebecca Chernoff

lol

drachenstern

1

A: Any books on IBM MQ series and Oracle DB

For Oracle, you really can't go past Tom Kytes books. Expert Oracle Database Architecture and Effective Oracle by Design. Anyone developing against Oracle should read these books.

ever notice we design "against" other things?

like we code as tho we had to protect ourselves ... (against usually implying a fight or other conflict)

ircmaxell

@radp That's an old one... Still quite good, but old...

drachenstern

9:37 PM

do most people just really use AJAX by gluing bits together?

ircmaxell

I don't

Tim Stone

@drachenstern Only if it's super glue.

drachenstern

ok, I think we can safely (hopefully) exclude most everyone in this room as I expect everyone here knows the difference between JSON and XML (as a mere start)

ircmaxell

There's a difference? </sarcasm>

drachenstern

I realize that knowing the difference between JSON and XML does not indicate the understanding of AJAX, but I do acknowledge that there is a very strong correlation ;) </pedantic>

Coding Gorilla

9:40 PM

JSON who? ;)

drachenstern

JSON PRIESTLY of course ;)

Tim Stone

@drachenstern I'm concerned where this is going, someone didn't know the difference? :P

drachenstern

@TimStone I'm just curious how most people do AJAX when they don't understand the principal parts: Asynchronocity, XML (or JSON), Javascript (or programming), and AND

I think the and part of AJAX is the most important part, but who am I? Some guy who knows how it works? pfft, as if

Coding Gorilla

@drachenstern I think too many people who write "programs" (I use that term loosely) don't really understand what they're doing

drachenstern

Sadly, I concur.

Coding Gorilla

9:46 PM

That's why I'm not found of things like WebMatrix, programming shouldn't be easy, imo

drachenstern

Also, I found candies in my move!!! The worlds best chocolate candies in my opinion. So I have new sugars. :D

Tim Stone

Hooray!

...From easter? :P

drachenstern

replete with wooden table, thanks random google image :D

Yeah, from easter :\ ... not sure what that says

I always buy in bulk tho cos I absolutely love these things, I even hide them from myself apparently ...

11oz of pure diabetic-coma^W^W chocolate :D

Rebecca Chernoff

Hmm, I've been sitting up for the last 20 minutes. Progress! \o/

Tim Stone

More hooray!

drachenstern

9:51 PM

@RebeccaChernoff why would you not be sitting up?

feels as tho he missed something by being overly (??) productive this weekend

Oh, I forgot to share the story of my craptastic 8 hour drive to Dallas and back and wasted life

Rebecca Chernoff

Been sick all weekend.

drachenstern

bummer and yuck

sorry to hear that

So we've had a friend of ours from Portugal staying with us, and she decided to stay for her full 90 days visa (or nearabouts) which was totally cool, except she was supposed to go home this weekend. Flying from SHV to DFW is like $450 even with mega-advance notice, so that sucks. So we were driving to DFW to drop her off and pick her up (which is a full tank there, a full tank back, and need to top off either way, so figure like $100 in gas plus incidentals like cokes and lunch and such)

So we take her this weekend, and they CANCELLED THE FLIGHT

apparently Europe is having some sort of cold weather right now, go figure

Tim Stone

Oh damn, that sucks.

drachenstern

So we get to go BACK to DFW next weekend (which I think I was lucky that I called while standing in queue to talk to an agent and spoke to someone on the phone and got her a ticket back for the day AFTER christmas.

Michael Mrozek

They canceled the flight for a week? That's pretty epic

drachenstern

9:59 PM

So then I remembered what a friend remarked like a month ago, why didn't she catch a puddle jumper to go from Monroe to DFW, and looked online, and that's like $125

@MichaelMrozek no, they cancelled the flight and rebooked people on existing flights where possible

As is, had we gotten there shortly after they found out they were cancelling the flight (within 45 minutes of our arriving there) she might have gotten out a couple days sooner, but no gaurantee

So what sucks #2 is the killing ourselves on driving 8 hours when we could've driven 2 hours and taken her to Monroe for about the same cost ...

So guess what I'm doing this Sunday?

Tim Stone

Sounds like you'll be taking another fun car adventure

drachenstern

It worked out this weekend cos we had to take my nephew and his uncle (9 and 13 respectively) to Dallas to go meet my sis-n-law/mother-in-law so that worked out, but it sucks that we were all stressed about the flight and not ending up with her going home

also +1 wife is ready for her friend to go home. Apparently a month of visit is fine, but 3 months of visit wears on my wife's nerves. Forewarned if you think you're staying at my house for more than a month :p

Link for earlier question on gluing bits together. Apparently the guy was gluing bits together :(

4

A: How to accept an out parameter in Ajax?

I don't believe it's possible. You would be better written a class that contains the response data and returning that instead.

Not sure to upvote the question or not ... I'm not feeling this one as upvote worthy

Tim Stone

@drachenstern Yeah, I have a friend who won't talk to me now after I went to visit for a week. Not really sure what's up with that, since everything seemed fine when I was there. :/

Rebecca Chernoff

...so he's returning "true" as a DateTime? |:

drachenstern

@RebeccaChernoff no obviously he's returning null as a datetime, because I know I love to goto mcdonalds at null ;)

why does the chatroom retain my comment that I'm typing in the box on refresh? Is that chrome looking out for me or the chat function?

Rebecca Chernoff

10:10 PM

chat

Tim Stone

Believe it's all on the browser.

drachenstern

IE: (repro steps) ->
1. Use chrome
2. Start typing a message in this chat room
3. before sending, hit <f5>
4. see message magically be in chat box.

Rebecca Chernoff

they put it into localStorage

Tim Stone

Oh, really?

drachenstern

oooh, spiffy

so it's technically both.

Rebecca Chernoff

10:11 PM

localStorage["chat:draft:89"]

Tim Stone

Hmmm, so I see.

drachenstern

ty @RebeccaChernoff

shame there's no +15 rep here ;)

shall I go make a question and let you answer it? teeheehee private voting rings :D

Rebecca Chernoff

Haha. I don't think that's necessary.

Tim Stone

Firefox was inserting my already-submitted messages back into the text box after I'd restart the browser, so it's possible it does that nonsense on its own. :P

That or the localStorage entry isn't properly removed in Firefox

drachenstern

what am I missing?

18

A: Thanks a lot for this post ... and other first time user curiosities

Hello! Our system automatically detected that you appear to be posting an answer whose main content consists in "thank you". Here on Stack Overflow this type of posts is not allowed, read the FAQ bla bla bla bla. [X] I want to post this answer anyway; I have read the FAQ and believe that ...

@TimStone or the localstorage is doing what it should? Or was it remembering previously submitted entries?

Tim Stone

10:17 PM

In Firefox it was remembering things that I had already submitted.

drachenstern

Also, that's really cool that we can use the browser for that now ... I wanna use that more! Must develop cool new app :D ;) (yeah right, too lazy)

ChrisF

@drachenstern This:

37

Q: Heuristics for detecting a bad answer?

A lot of bad answers are slipping through the cracks on Stack Overflow. You can see some examples at Thanks a lot for this post ... and other first time user curiosities I've been paging through hundreds of these first answers by new users and I've identified a few heuristics that, when applie...

drachenstern

@ChrisF no I mean exactly what am I missing that "Here on Stack Overflow this type of posts is not allowed" because yes it's pedantic, but ... you really can't stop it

Tim Stone

Not allowed = should be deleted.

drachenstern

it's just strongly[1] discouraged, not "not allowed"

ChrisF

10:19 PM

Sorry - my misunderstanding

drachenstern

[1] as in, every fiber of my being asks you to not do it, but I can overlook the very first one if you'll change it shortly thereafter of your own accord

@ChrisF no, I think that's what he means too, and I can't seem to figure out if I'm missing something or I'm just not communicating my intent.

I want to make sure it's not the former

ChrisF

Well when MSO lets me back on (that view my accounts page and get locked out for 5 minutes problem) I'll take another look

drachenstern

@ChrisF what? I've never had this problem. Is it a 10k meta thing?

Tim Stone

@ChrisF I haven't heard of this one before, what happens?

drachenstern

Can I repro it so I feel special?

ChrisF

10:22 PM

No - it's a "only affect Chris's home PC" problem.

drachenstern

Oh, I have those from time to time too...

Rebecca Chernoff

Don't ya hate it when they leave that code in when they publish to production? >_<

Tim Stone

1

Q: Interesting tag highlighting appears random on OR queries

I search for questions through questions/tagged using the OR operator. Here's a screen-shot that shows the problem: My "Interesting tags" selections are not visible but match the query as visible in the upper right. First visible question has three tags that I have selected as interesting t...

bug status-completed tags interesting-tags

I swear to god.

If the OP was the one to down vote me..

It's the expected behaviour. How many freaking times do I have to mention that?

ChrisF

If I try to view my account page I get most of the page, but not the linked accounts flairs. Then when I try to view any other SE site the page load just spins. After a few minutes I can get back in.

Rebecca Chernoff

Geez @TimStone, finding and fixing enough bugs? q:

Tim Stone

10:23 PM

"Oh I have matches but the question isn't highlighted"

rages

@RebeccaChernoff I get bored at that hour of the morning :P

ChrisF

@drachenstern Kop's post was from the 15th Dec, Jeff's is from the 17th. I guess Jeff picked up the dialog idea from Kop's post

Tim Stone

@ChrisF That...is weird.

drachenstern

Props to @TimStone doubletime ;)

Michael Mrozek

@TimStone You realize I have to downvote you now

ChrisF

Yes indeed it is.

drachenstern

10:26 PM

@ChrisF oooh, good catch, perhaps so.

Rebecca Chernoff

Speaking of SOFlair, it bugs me that SOFlair doesn't show the mod diamond. Sometimes on Meta I'll see someone that I think is a mod on another site, but I can't recall which. So I'll look at their accounts. But that doesn't help me anymore!

Tim Stone

@MichaelMrozek Hahah. I just don't understand what the hell is so hard to comprehend about the fact that the questions shouldn't be highlighted, since that feature was changed. grumbles

Michael Mrozek

@RebeccaChernoff If only some visionary had posted a feature request along those lines :)

ChrisF

1

A: Allow faster deleting of obviously bad questions

Is there any reason why flagging for moderator attention is not sufficient? I'd rather increase the number of mod flags if necessary. edit: mod flags have been increased. Everyone has the "standard" number of mod flags, plus one additional mod flag for each 1k rep they have, up to 100 total per...

Rebecca Chernoff

@MichaelMrozek The way to do it is to upvote (like I did) so that @TimStone is all \o/...and then to remove the upvote and downvote.

@MichaelMrozek heh.

Tim Stone

10:27 PM

Hahah, I'm not sure I'm down with that :p

Rebecca Chernoff

Maybe I should just make a userscript that replaces SOFlair urls with StackFlair urls.

Michael Mrozek

@RebeccaChernoff That was my next suggestion

Rebecca Chernoff

Wouldn't work though. It'd be too many api requests at once.

Depends on whether or not the first one gets it into the db before another request comes in and checks the db.

Michael Mrozek

@codinghorror It's mind blowing how FizzBuzz really is a good 1st test. Just had a guy walk out in middle w/o writing a single line of code.

Tweeted by brooklynDev on December 20, 2010 at 3:55 PM

I still haven't been able to bring myself to ask FizzBuzz in an interview

Tim Stone

shakes head

@RebeccaChernoff That sounds scheme-ishly awesome. :P

drachenstern

10:32 PM

@MichaelMrozek nor I, but maybe I should ... I can code it on paper in like three minutes (and if it were transcribed from my paper it would compile)

1

A: Why are users in a hurry to give an answer on stackoverflow

Add a bit of water jQuery and maybe flaxseed Expose to fresh air for 10-15 minutes. Keep dry.

@pekka ~ Brillant!!!

Rebecca Chernoff

@TimStone q:

radp

@MichaelMrozek Is asking about jQuery's level of awesomeness enough to vet applicants?

drachenstern

@radp no, because even posers can answer with I see you're trying to create an operating system, I would totally drop that and use jQuery instead or

yo dawg, I know you like to process HTML and CSS with javascript while you're loading your DOM, so I put some jQuery in your $(document).ready() so you can jQuery while you process

Tim Stone

lmao

Good stuff

radp

a) jWhat? Is it a class? (not a programmer!)
b) Oh yeah, I prefer prototype though. (heretic!)
c) Yeah, I know about it, but I prefer to write against the DOM. (mummy!)
d) I use it occasionally in my greasemonkey stuff. (code monkey!)
e) jQuery? I wrote the darn thing! (hired!)

Tim Stone

10:42 PM

@radp The ultimate skillz test.

Moshe

hi all, bye

radp

Bye, hi, er what?

Moshe

Well, i came in to say hi, but my ride leaves now so, bye

I'd love to stay and chat, but unfortunately, i can't.

What's FizzBuzz?

drachenstern

lmao, ask when you get back, we'll answer then I'm sure

Moshe

meh, ok

Rebecca Chernoff

10:46 PM

I keep forgetting that I have the keyboard shortcuts script and catch myself using the mouse. grumble

Moshe

@RebeccaChernoff - Glad to hear you're well enough to use a mouse.

Rebecca Chernoff

Yeah, I hope this time I won't get worse. Whenever I get sick I generally feel more decent-ish in the evenings.

Tim Stone

@RebeccaChernoff Heheh. Conversely, I have a hard time using chat now on computers without the userscript :P

drachenstern

@Moshe ok since you're not leaving, here's the deal: FizzBuzz is like this:

write a program that will print all the numbers from 1 to 100, but if the number is a multiple of 3 or 5, don't print the number, instead print either fizz or buzz or both

except 1, 100, 3, 5, fizz, buzz are all arbitrary

@TimStone same here

Rebecca Chernoff

I need to stop doing it so that I can test the script and see if there are bugs!

Plus, I hate the mouse! (;

Actually, this laptop has one of those track-mice or whatever in the center of the keyboard. So I can use the mouse without moving my hands off the keyboard.

drachenstern

10:51 PM

@Moshe so the trick is to see that they can write a basic program that loops, uses conditionals, and prints out to the screen. You have to admit those are the most basic qualities any of us need to be able to do our job. Everything else is fluff by and large

Rebecca Chernoff

So it isn't so bad. (;

drachenstern

@RebeccaChernoff I kinda don't really like those. Do you mean the eraser point?

that was my first mouse and I liked it for novelty then, but ever since, give me a USB mouse or give me death! (I would actually buy a laptop that didn't have a lower pad built in trackpad)

but of course I'm a dinosaur intended for the stoneage what with all this tapzoomswipe stuff

Tim Stone

@drachenstern Yeah, I very rarely use my touchpad either.

Though my USB mouse on my laptop is crapping out. Should get another one...

drachenstern

Apparently logitech is getting out of the business of basic corded optical mice :(

Rebecca Chernoff

I use the trackpad just as much as a real mouse, ie, I hate doing so. The pointer mouse though is fine.

drachenstern

10:55 PM

logitech.com/en-us/mice-pointers/mice

check "corded"

Tim Stone

I don't think that I've ever found a position in which using the trackpad seemed comfortable.

drachenstern

I have. One.

Tim Stone

I want the one with "Hyper-Fast scrolling", since that sounds sexy.

drachenstern

When it's on the desk in front of you and you're trying to start a presentation and you have your laptop connected to the projector and you want to just start the damned show.

Tim Stone

Yeah, I guess it's not terrible from an elevated position. But then typing becomes more problematic.

0

Q: did someone move my cheese?

Did the icon for CODE change to curly braces?

support

lmao

drachenstern

10:57 PM

Yeah, like I said, only when you merely want to start a presentation with the least amount of fuss. Otherwise...

bbiab

radp

<_<

ChrisF

I so wish that the "noise or pointless" close reason was available on all sites

Tim Stone

:P

Rebecca Chernoff

Speaking of my laptop, I should see if I have anything personal on here considering I have to give it up tomorrow.

Sad, sad. ):

Tim Stone

To a new laptop!

Michael Mrozek

11:10 PM

@RebeccaChernoff My work doesn't give me a laptop :(

Rebecca Chernoff

Time for a new job? (;

Tim Stone

11:32 PM

Argh, curse you headache!

Rebecca Chernoff

Hehe whoops. Is that where mine went?

Tim Stone

I appreciate your generosity, but uh... :P

drachenstern

@RebeccaChernoff you can't just pull down an ubuntu iso and dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/hda bs=32M while you sleep?

Rebecca Chernoff

I've pretty much completely lost my voice though.

drachenstern

eww yuck

Rebecca Chernoff

11:51 PM

stackoverflow.com/review/…

drachenstern

me:"What version of Windows are you using?" her:"the regular one"

Tim Stone

I think I have the same problem.

public DataSource getMetadata() {
    return null;
}

radp

Skeet's hitting 250k today likely

Tim Stone

Should probably not remove the stub comments until I actually implement the method..

radp

Have you brought presents?

Tim Stone

11:57 PM

I bought his book so he got cash monies, does that count?

Rebecca Chernoff

rep > money

we all know that.

drachenstern

calling me to help figure out how to get an XP (probably pre-SP1) P3, 128MB laptop onto the 802.11g wireless network ... one of these things is not like the other ... one of these things just doesn't belong ...

radp

I brought the SkeetStalker, does that count? :P

Dropbox is having trouble with it, sure.

Tim Stone

@drachenstern Those specs make me sad. :(

@RebeccaChernoff Well sure, but I can't imagine that he needs more rep. :P

radp

@TimStone Everybody needs more rep.

3

drachenstern

11:59 PM

@TimStone I know, 802.11g is so 2 years ago ... sadly I can't upgrade my home network till I get a better laptop, and even then I need a reason to upgrade that network, stupid DSL and 6mbps

QFT, err, SFT

Michael Petrotta

had XP SP0 on a 96MB Pentium MMX; beautiful old Sony ultralight. I had a hard time parting with it just because it was old

radp

@drachenstern I'd start with upgrading the laptop

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