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  • What should I tell kids about how great it is to be a programmer?

    - by Sara Chipps
    I am putting a presentation together. I thought about illustrating with websites like Facebook, and MySpace. Does anyone have children around that age that could tell me what they are into? How to hold their attention? Ways to illustrate what we do? Get them interested? Your ideas are greatly appreciated, I really want to be able to convey how fun this is :). I don't have access to a digital projector... which really stinks. I do have access to an old transparency overhead, though. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/207278/career-day-how-do-i-make-computer-programmer-sound-cool-to-8-year-olds

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  • Can knowing C actually hurt the code you write in higher level languages?

    - by Jurily
    The question seems settled, beaten to death even. Smart people have said smart things on the subject. To be a really good programmer, you need to know C. Or do you? I was enlightened twice this week. The first one made me realize that my assumptions don't go further than my knowledge behind them, and given the complexity of software running on my machine, that's almost non-existent. But what really drove it home was this Slashdot comment: The end result is that I notice the many naive ways in which traditional C "bare metal" programmers assume that higher level languages are implemented. They make bad "optimization" decisions in projects they influence, because they have no idea how a compiler works or how different a good runtime system may be from the naive macro-assembler model they understand. Then it hit me: C is just one more abstraction, like all others. Even the CPU itself is only an abstraction! I've just never seen it break, because I don't have the tools to measure it. I'm confused. Has my mind been mutilated beyond recovery, like Dijkstra said about BASIC? Am I living in a constant state of premature optimization? Is there hope for me, now that I realized I know nothing about anything? Is there anything to know, even? And why is it so fascinating, that everything I've written in the last five years might have been fundamentally wrong? To sum it up: is there any value in knowing more than the API docs tell me? EDIT: Made CW. Of course this also means now you must post examples of the interpreter/runtime optimizing better than we do :)

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  • Exhaustive (or even just large) list of languages/stacks used for popular sites?

    - by jacko
    As a result of a conversation with a colleague today, I've been searching (unsuccessfully) for a large'ish list of what technology stacks are being used popular websites and standalone applications today. We're aware of the big ones like Facebook (php/ ), Twitter (scala/cassandra), Youtube (python/?), Digg (php/cassandra), stackoverflow (.net mvc/sqlserver), but we're looking for a more complete list. It would also be interesting to hear about any stats for desktop apps also? Can anyone help?

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  • Pre Project Documentation

    - by DeanMc
    I have an issue that I feel many programmers can relate to... I have worked on many small scale projects. After my initial paper brain storm I tend to start coding. What I come up with is usually a rough working model of the actual application. I design in a disconnected fashion so I am talking about underlying code libraries, user interfaces are the last thing as the library usually dictates what is needed in the UI. As my projects get bigger I worry that so should my "spec" or design document. The above paragraph, from my investigations, is echoed all across the internet in one fashion or another. When a UI is concerned there is a bit more information but it is UI specific and does not relate to code libraries. What I am beginning to realise is that maybe code is code is code. It seems from my extensive research that there is no 1:1 mapping between a design document and the code. When I need to research a topic I dump information into OneNote and from there I prioritise features into versions and then into related chunks so that development runs in a fairly linear fashion, my tasks tend to look like so: Implement Binary File Reader Implement Binary File Writer Create Object to encapsulate Data for expression to the caller Now any programmer worth his salt is aware that between those three to do items could be a potential wall of code that could expand out to multiple files. I have tried to map the complete code process for each task but I simply don't think it can be done effectively. By the time one mangles pseudo code it is essentially code anyway so the time investment is negated. So my question is this: Am I right in assuming that the best documentation is the code itself. We are all in agreement that a high level overview is needed. How high should this be? Do you design to statement, class or concept level? What works for you?

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  • Code Golf: Numeric Ranges

    - by SLaks
    Mods: Can you please make this Community Wiki? Challenge Compactify a long list of numbers by replacing consecutive runs with ranges. Example Input 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15 Output: 1 - 4, 7, 8, 10, 12 - 15 Note that ranges of two numbers should be left as is. (7, 8; not 7 - 8) Rules You can accept a list of integers (or equivalent datatype) as a method parameter, from the commandline, or from standard in. (pick whichever option results in shorter code) You can output a list of strings by printing them, or by returning either a single string or set of strings. Reference Implementation (C#) IEnumerable<string> Sample(IList<int> input) { for (int i = 0; i < input.Count; ) { var start = input[i]; int size = 1; while (++i < input.Count && input[i] == start + size) size++; if (size == 1) yield return start.ToString(); else if (size == 2) { yield return start.ToString(); yield return (start + 1).ToString(); } else if (size > 2) yield return start + " - " + (start + size - 1); } }

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  • What's the new way to iterate over a Java Map in Scala 2.8.0?

    - by Alex R
    How does scala.collection.JavaConversions supercede the answers given here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/495741/iterating-over-java-collections-in-scala (doesn't work because the "jcl" package is gone) and here http://www.eishay.com/2009/05/iterating-over-map-with-scala.html (doesn't work me in a complicated test which I'll try to boil down and post here later) The latter is actually a Scala Map question but I think I need to know both answers in order to iterate over a java.util.Map. Thanks

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  • RESTful service description

    - by Anax
    From what I understand, I need to use WADL to describe a RESTful web service. Still, I have read many answers in relevant posts, where users are strongly opposed the use of WADL. What are the disadvantages of WADL? Is there any alternative solution?

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  • Drawing Directed Acyclic Graphs: Using DAG property to improve layout/edge routing?

    - by Robert Fraser
    Hi, Laying out the verticies in a DAG in a tree form (i.e. verticies with no in-edges on top, verticies dependent only on those on the next level, etc.) is rather simple. However, is there a simple algorithm to do this that minimizes edge crossing? (For some graphs, it may be impossible to completely eliminate edge crossing.) A picture says a thousand words, so is there an algorithm that would suggest: instead of:

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  • Technical non-terminating condition in a loop

    - by Snarfblam
    Most of us know that a loop should not have a non-terminating condition. For example, this C# loop has a non-terminating condition: any even value of i. This is an obvious logic error. void CountByTwosStartingAt(byte i) { // If i is even, it never exceeds 254 for(; i < 255; i += 2) { Console.WriteLine(i); } } Sometimes there are edge cases that are extremely unlikeley, but technically constitute non-exiting conditions (stack overflows and out-of-memory errors aside). Suppose you have a function that counts the number of sequential zeros in a stream: int CountZeros(Stream s) { int total = 0; while(s.ReadByte() == 0) total++; return total; } Now, suppose you feed it this thing: class InfiniteEmptyStream:Stream { // ... Other members ... public override int Read(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count) { Array.Clear(buffer, offset, count); // Output zeros return count; // Never returns -1 (end of stream) } } Or more realistically, maybe a stream that returns data from external hardware, which in certain cases might return lots of zeros (such as a game controller sitting on your desk). Either way we have an infinite loop. This particular non-terminating condition stands out, but sometimes they don't. A completely real-world example as in an app I'm writing. An endless stream of zeros will be deserialized into infinite "empty" objects (until the collection class or GC throws an exception because I've exceeded two billion items). But this would be a completely unexpected circumstance (considering my data source). How important is it to have absolutely no non-terminating conditions? How much does this affect "robustness?" Does it matter if they are only "theoretically" non-terminating (is it okay if an exception represents an implicit terminating condition)? Does it matter whether the app is commercial? If it is publicly distributed? Does it matter if the problematic code is in no way accessible through a public interface/API? Edit: One of the primary concerns I have is unforseen logic errors that can create the non-terminating condition. If, as a rule, you ensure there are no non-terminating conditions, you can identify or handle these logic errors more gracefully, but is it worth it? And when? This is a concern orthogonal to trust.

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  • Why Do Programmers Get So Invested in their Favorite Technologies?

    - by Pierreten
    I've noticed this culture surrounding Ruby where developers truly believe that they are somehow more gifted than developers of other languages, regardless of experience and talent (even when that isn't the case, I've met some extremely junior Ruby developers come up with some pretty basic constructs, and pass them off as some sort of revolutionary idea). The derision of strongly typed languages seems to be a common theme as well; regardless of its merits. Is there something particular to the Ruby syntax in general that is to account for this? Is there a sociological component to it?

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  • Is it inefficient to access a python class member container in a loop statement?

    - by Dave
    Hi there. I'm trying to adopt some best practices to keep my python code efficient. I've heard that accessing a member variable inside of a loop can incur a dictionary lookup for every iteration of the loop, so I cache these in local variables to use inside the loop. My question is about the loop statement itself... if I have the following class: class A(object): def init(self) self.myList = [ 'a','b','c', 'd', 'e' ] Does the following code in a member function incur one, or one-per-loop-iteration (5) dictionary lookups? for letter in self.myList: print letter IE, should I adopt the following pattern, if I am concerned about efficiency... localList = self.myList for letter in localList: print letter or is that actually LESS efficient due to the local variable assign? Note, I am aware that early optimization is a dangerous pitfall if I'm concerned about the overall efficiency of code development. Here I am specifically asking about the efficiency of the code, not the coding. Thanks in advance! D

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  • What is the fastest way to check if files are identical?

    - by ojblass
    If you have 1,000,0000 source files, you suspect they are all the same, and you want to compare them what is the current fasted method to compare those files? Assume they are Java files and platform where the comparison is done is not important. cksum is making me cry. When I mean identical I mean ALL identical. Update: I know about generating checksums. diff is laughable ... I want speed. Update: Don't get stuck on the fact they are source files. Pretend for example you took a million runs of a program with very regulated output. You want to prove all 1,000,000 versions of the output are the same. Update: read the number of blocks rather than bytes? Immediatly throw out those? Is that faster than finding the number of bytes? Update: Is this ANY different than the fastest way to compare two files?

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  • Why is forwarding variadic parameters invalid?

    - by awesomeyi
    Consider the variadic function parameter: func foo(bar:Int...) -> () { } Here foo can accept multiple arguments, eg foo(5,4). I am curious about the type of Int... and its supported operations. For example, why is this invalid? func foo2(bar2:Int...) -> () { foo(bar2); } Gives a error: Could not find an overload for '_conversion' that accepts the supplied arguments Why is forwarding variadic parameters invalid? What is the "conversion" the compiler is complaining about?

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  • How to know if your Unit Test is "right-sized"?

    - by leeand00
    One thing that I've always noticed with my unit tests is that they get to be kind of verbose; seeing as they could also be not verbose enough, how do you get a sense of when your unit tests are the right size? I know of a good quote for this and it's: "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to remove." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

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  • Where to translate message strings - in the view or in the model?

    - by GrGr
    We have a multilingual (PHP) application and use gettext for i18n. There are a few classes in the backend/model that return messages or message formats for printf(). We use xgettext to extract the strings that we want to translate. We apply the gettext function T_() in the frontend/view - this seems to be where it belongs. So far we kept the backend clean from T_() calls, this way we can also unit-test messages. So in the frontend we have something like echo T_($mymodel->getMessage()); or printf(T_($mymodel->getMessageFormat()), $mymodel->getValue()); This makes it impossible to apply xgettext to extract the strings, unless we put some dummy T_("my message %s to translate") call in the MyModel class. So this leads to the more general question: Do you apply translation in the backend classes, resp. where do you apply translation and how do you keep track of the strings which you have to translate? (I am aware of Question: poedit workaround for dynamic gettext.)

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  • Code Golf: Ghost Leg

    - by Anax
    The challenge The shortest code by character count that will output the numeric solution, given a number and a valid string pattern, using the Ghost Leg method. Examples Input: 3, "| | | | | | | | |-| |=| | | | | |-| | |-| |=| | | |-| |-| | |-|" Output: 2 Input: 2, "| | |=| | |-| |-| | | |-| | |" Output: 1 Clarifications Do not bother with input. Consider the values as given somewhere else. Both input values are valid: the column number corresponds to an existing column and the pattern only contains the symbols |, -, = (and [space], [LF]). Also, two adjacent columns cannot both contain dashes (in the same line). The dimensions of the pattern are unknown (min 1x1). Clarifications #2 There are two invalid patterns: |-|-| and |=|=| which create ambiguity. The given input string will never contain those. The input variables are the same for all; a numeric value and a string representing the pattern. Entrants must produce a function. Test case Given pattern: "|-| |=|-|=|LF| |-| | |-|LF|=| |-| | |LF| | |-|=|-|" |-| |=|-|=| | |-| | |-| |=| |-| | | | | |-|=|-| Given value : Expected result 1 : 6 2 : 1 3 : 3 4 : 6 5 : 5 6 : 2

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  • Best directory to store application data with read\write rights for all users?

    - by Wodzu
    Hi guys. Until Windows Vista I was saving my application data into the directory where the program was located. The most common place was "C:\Program Files\MyApplication". As we know, under Vista and later the common user does't have rights to write under "Program Files" folder. So my first idea was to save the application data under "All Useres\Application Data" folder. But it seams that this folder has writing restrictions too! So to sum up, my requirements are: Folder should exist under Windows XP and above Microsoft's systems. All useres of the system should read\write\creation rights to this folder and it subfolders and files. I want to have only one copy of file\files for all useres. Thanks for your time.

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  • How does C++ free the memory when a constructor throws an exception and a custom new is used

    - by Joshua
    I see the following constructs: new X will free the memory if X constructor throws. operator new() can be overloaded. The canonical definition of an operator new overload is void *operator new(heap h) and the corrisponding operator delete. The most common operator new overload is pacement new, which is void *operator new(void *p) { return p; } You almost always cannot call delete on the pointer given to placement new. This leads to a single question. How is memory cleaned up when X constructor throws and an overloaded new is used?

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  • Regex not being greedy enough

    - by Chad
    I've got the following regex that was working perfectly until a new situation arose ^.*[?&]U(?:RL)?=(?<URL>.*)$ Basically, it's used against URLs, to grab EVERYTHING after the U=, or URL= and return it in the URL match So, for the following http://localhost?a=b&u=http://otherhost?foo=bar URL = http://otherhost?foo=bar Unfortunately an odd case came up http://localhost?a=b&u=http://otherhost?foo=bar&url=http://someotherhost Ideally, I want URL to be "http://otherhost?foo=bar&url=http://someotherhost", instead, it is just "http://someotherhost"

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  • How to check if the given string is palindrome?

    - by Prakash
    Definition: A palindrome is a word, phrase, number or other sequence of units that has the property of reading the same in either direction How to check if the given string is a palindrome? This was one of the FAIQ [Frequently Asked Interview Question] a while ago but that mostly using C. Looking for solutions in any and all languages possible.

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