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• So are we ever getting the technological singularity

  - by jsoldi

  I´m still waiting for an AI robot that will pass the Turing test. I keep going back to http://www.a-i.com/ and nothing. I don´t know much about AI but, did anyone ever tried to make a genetic algorithm whose evolution algorithm itself evolves? Or how about one whose algorithm that makes the genetic algorithm evolve, evolves? Or one whose genetic algorithm that makes the genetic algorithm that makes the genetic algorithm evolve, evolves? Or how about an algorithm that abstracts all this into a potentially infinitely deep tree of genetic evolution algorithms? Aren´t we just failing as programmers? And I don´t think we can blame the processors speed. If you make and application that simulates consciousness you will get a Nobel prize no matter how many hours it takes to respond to your questions. But nobody did it. It almost reminds me to Randi´s $1000000 paranormal challenge. As I keep going back to AI chat bots, they keep getting better at changing the subject on a way that seems natural. But if I tell them something like "if 'x' is 2 then whats two times 'x'?" then they don't have a clue what I'm talking about. And I don't think they need a whole human brain simulation to be able to answer to something like that. They don't need feelings or perception. This is just language and logics. I don't think my perception of the color red gives me the ability to understand that if 'x' is 2 then two times 'x' is 4. I'm sure we are just missing some elemental principle we cannot grasp because it's probably stuck behind our eyes. What do you think?

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• Are there any actual case studies on rewrites of software success/failure rates?

  - by James Drinkard

  I've seen multiple posts about rewrites of applications being bad, peoples experiences about it here on Programmers, and an article I've ready by Joel Splosky on the subject, but no hard evidence of case studies. Other than the two examples Joel gave and some other posts here, what do you do with a bad codebase and how do you decide what to do with it based on real studies? For the case in point, there are two clients I know of that both have old legacy code. They keep limping along with it because as one of them found out, a rewrite was a disaster, it was expensive and didn't really work to improve the code much. That customer has some very complicated business logic as the rewriters quickly found out. In both cases, these are mission critical applications that brings in a lot of revenue for the company. The one that attempted the rewrite felt that they would hit a brick wall at some point if the legacy software didn't get upgraded at some point in the future. To me, that kind of risk warrants research and analysis to ensure a successful path. My question is have there been actual case studies that have investigated this? I wouldn't want to attempt a major rewrite without knowing some best practices, pitfalls, and successes based on actual studies. Aftermath: okay, I was wrong, I did find one article: Rewrite or Reuse. They did a study on a Cobol app that was converted to Java.

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• I've been hired on as a entry-level game developer at a company and have little/no experience in API programming, what should I expect?

  - by Mr. Geneth

  So, I've been hired on as an entry level game developer with little/no experience working with any API other than Win32. This will be an overall learning experience for me as a person and I have gone over this multiple times with the boss and he has no problem with my inexperience. He says that if I'm not worth it now, I will be later. This gives me confidence, but I still feel that I should know a lot more before tackling this position. I would be stupid to pass it up. This is one of my favorite places to come for advice and help and have tried to just accept this, but it just keeps bothering that I can't go in knowing how to at least do the basics. I want to give the company its money's worth. Ya know? My questions are: What should I expect from the other programmers in this project (In terms of patience with me and working together, and being taught)? Is this normal? Any other advice on this sort of thing would be wonderful. I just want to feel comfortable with it.

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• Unit and Integration testing: How can it become a reflex

  - by LordOfThePigs

  All the programmers in my team are familiar with unit testing and integration testing. We have all worked with it. We have all written tests with it. Some of us even have felt an improved sense of trust in his/her own code. However, for some reason, writing unit/integration tests has not become a reflex for any of the members of the team. None of us actually feel bad when not writing unit tests at the same time as the actual code. As a result, our codebase is mostly uncovered by unit tests, and projects enter production untested. The problem with that, of course is that once your projects are in production and are already working well, it is virtually impossible to obtain time and/or budget to add unit/integration testing. The members of my team and myself are already familiar with the value of unit testing (1, 2) but it doesn't seem to help bringing unit testing into our natural workflow. In my experience making unit tests and/or a target coverage mandatory just results in poor quality tests and slows down team members simply because there is no self-generated motivation to produce these tests. Also as soon as pressure eases, unit tests are not written any more. My question is the following: Is there any methods that you have experimented with that helps build a dynamic/momentum inside the team, leading to people naturally wanting to create and maintain those tests?

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• New college grad, psychology major, wants to code professionally. Should I get Sun Java-certified?

  - by Anita

  I just graduated from a fairly well-known liberal arts college in May. Interestingly, I majored in psychology, with a concentration in social psychology. In college I took Intro to Computer Science and hated it (used to blame it on myself; now I blame it on the professor :) However, I've always wanted to be a programmer, and finally got my wish by getting hired by a company that was willing to let me learn coding from scratch in exchange for low pay. Well, what do you know, I just got laid off this morning, and need a new job by November to pay the bills. I loved the coding part of my job at the company, and managed to learn enough Java to feel competent in the job and curious to learn more. I think my goal now is to become a professional programmer. I still know very little (never used Swing, for example) but nothing that a good book can't fix. That's the background anyway; sorry for the rambling - I'm still in shock from the layoff :( It seems to me the quickest way to get noticed by companies, without a CS degree, is by getting certification. I'm halfway through studying for the SCJP and can probably sit for an exam in a week or two. Am I right in my assumption that certs will help in my case? And in general, do I have a bat's chance in hell of making it against formally trained programmers? My assets are really just raw intelligence and intense curiosity; well, maybe a love for problem-solving too. Thanks all - feel free to edit/tag the post!

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• Programmer + Drugs =? [closed]

  - by sytycs

  I just read this quote from Steve Jobs: "Doing LSD was one of the two or three most important things I have done in my life." Now I'm wondering: Has there ever been a study where programmers have been given drugs to see if they could produce "better" code? Is there a programming concept, which originated from people who where drug-users? Do you know of a piece of code, which was written by someone under the influence? EDIT So I did a little more research and it turns out Dennis R. Wier actually documented how he took LSD to wrap his head around a coding project: "At one point in the project I could not get an overall viewpoint for the operation of the entire system. It really was too much for my brain to keep all the subtle aspects and processing nuances clear so I could get a processing and design overview. After struggling with this problem for a few weeks, I decided to use a little acid to see if it would enable a breakthrough, because otherwise, I would not be able to complete the project and be certain of a consistent overall design"[1] There is also an interesting article on wired about Kevin Herbet, who used LSD to solve tough technical problems and chemist Kary Mullis even said "...that LSD had helped him develop the polymerase chain reaction that helps amplify specific DNA sequences." [2]

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• What is Java used for these days?

  - by Barry Brown

  Java is fifteen years old. It started life as an alternative to C++ with a comprehensive standard library. Riding on the coattails of the Internet boom, it was popular for writing web applets. Its supposed portability was touted as a way to write desktop apps that would run on any platform. Now it's 2010. Applets are long gone. Desktop apps are giving way to web and mobile apps. Scripting languages are very popular, as is Flash, especially among web-centric developers. People have been chanting "Java's death is near" for several years. Yet a quick job search shows that Java is still a desired skill among programmers. So what is Java used for these days? What kinds of apps are you writing in Java? This should give us an idea of the "state of Java" today. Has the Java tide shifted from Swing desktop apps to Android mobile apps? If you write programs in a JVM language (such as Scala or Groovy), mention it.

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• How to advertise (free) software?

  - by nebukadnezzar

  I'm not sure if this fits on SO, but other SE sites don't seem to fit either, so I understand when this question gets moved, Although I'd like to avoid getting it closed due to being offtopics, since I think that this question might fit, considering this part of the FAQ: Stack Overflow is for professional and enthusiast programmers, ... covers … a specific programming problem ... matters that are unique to the programming profession Sorry for the lengthy Introduction, though. When Software is advertised, it is usually Software for one (or more) specific purpose, such as: Mozilla Firefox - A Web Browser Ubuntu - An Operating System Python - A Programming Language Visual Studio - A Development Studio ... And so on. But when writing Libraries, that is, Software that doesn't necessarily serve one specific purpose, but instead multiple purposes, which are usually supposed to be used inside an application, such as: Irrlicht - A 3D Engine Qt - An Application Framework ... The process of advertisement gets a little more difficult. I'm a developer of the latter kind of Software, and I naturally want to advertise my Software. It's not commercial Software; It's not GPL either. It's completely free (Licensed under the MIT License :-)). I naturally host my stuff at github, which technically makes it very easy to access the software, and I thought that these might be possible options, although I have no experience with them: Submit the Software to Freshmeat, and hope for the best Submit the Software to Sourceforge, and hope someone accidently stumbles over it Write spammails, and get death threats via Mail ... But something tells me that these methods are probably not the best Methods. So, my final question would be, How does the Average Joe Hobby Programmer advertise his/her Software Library?

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• How to share problem solving knowledge in a multiteam group?

  - by jonathan

  I've been working in multiteam groups for as long as I'm a webdeveloper, for me a team can be a lonely soldier or several people, generally a company will have multiple teams working in different projects and once the project is out in the wild, any team can perform the maintenance. This is a small picture since I'm not talking only about project wise knowledge, but "craft wise" knowledge, but it gives the picture of how I'm used to work, so: Since we work on modularised teams, sometimes I feel like the teams are too tightly enclosed in their projects, I've seen cases where after an hour of discussion, someone asked the question aloud and other person totally unrelated answered in a much simpler fashion. The problem is not so simple to solve as people tend not to be available all the time, also sometimes people can't afford the time to go through a problem with the "asker", but could do it alone. I've thought about software based solutions, something in the lines of SE, but I'd like to know other programmers opinions on the subject. EDIT I don't know if this is a wikipedia complex, but I feel that Wikis don't encourage the user to actually ask questions, but rather to write articles, and sometimes we don't know the knowledge we need, before needing it.

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• Tips for switching jobs and moving into web based programming?

  - by JerryC

  I graduated in 2006 with a computer science degree and got solid grades (3.5 overall 3.8 in my major) For the past 4.5 years I've been working as a Software Engineer doing primarily rich client development. Most of my experience is with Java, Swing and C++. I've done a lot of network programming and I have acquired some skill working & debugging in distributed environments. I would like to switch jobs and move into a role where I can get exposure to some new technologies and frameworks. I would like to move into a more web development role but I find my lack of web development experience is hurting me. 90% of the jobs I see advertised are looking for one of two skill sets: 1) Stereotypical server side Java web developer. Experience with Spring, Hibernate, J2EE, etc. 2) Stereotypical front end web developer. Experience with Javascript, jQuery, HTML5, GWT, CSS, etc I find most of these companies are looking really specifically for this experience and they are not willing to take on good programmers/ CS fundamental guys who lack experience with this stuff. I would love to get a job doing stuff like this, but have my skills become out of date and unmarketable? Any opinions on ways to sell myself to help get a new position?

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• Formatting php, what works more efficiently?

  - by JamesM-SiteGen

  Hello fellow programmers, I was just wondering what makes php work faster, I have a few methods that I always go and do, but that only improves the way I can read it, but how about the interpreter? Should I include the curly braces when there is only one statement to run? if(...){ echo "test"; } # Or.. if(...) echo "test"; === Which should be used? I have also found http://beta.phpformatter.com/ and I find the following settings to be good, but are they? Indentation: Indentation style: {K&R (One true brace style)} Indent with: {Tabs} Starting indentation: [1] Indentation: [1] Common: [x] Remove all comments [x] Remove empty lines [x] Align assignments statements nicely [ ] Put a comment with the condition after if, while, for, foreach, declare and catch statements Improvement: [x] Remove lines with just a semicolon (;) [x] Make normal comments (//) from perl comments (#) [x] Make long opening tag (<?php) from short one (<?) Brackets: [x] Space inside brackets- ( ) [x] Space inside empty brackets- ( ) [x] Space inside block brackets- [ ] [x] Space inside empty block brackets- [ ] Tiny var names: often I go through my code and change $var1 to $a, $var2 to $b and so on. I do include comments at the start of the file to show to me what each letter(s) mean.. Final note: So am I doing the right thing with the curly braces and the settings? Are there any great tips that help it run faster?

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• Math questions at a programmer interview?

  - by anon

  So I went to an interview at Samsung here in Dallas, Texas. The way the recruiter described the job, he didn't make it sound like it was too math-oriented. The job basically involved graphics programming and C++. Yes, math is implied in graphics programming, especially shaders, but I still wasn't expecting this... The whole interview lasted about an hour and a half and they asked me nothing but math-related questions. They didn't ask me a single programming question, which I found odd. About all they did was ask me how to write certain math routines as a C++ function, but that's about it. What about programming philosophy questions? Design patterns? Code-correctness? Constness? Exception safety? Thread safety? There are a zillion topics that they could have covered. But they didn't. The main concern I have is that they didn't ask any programming questions. This basically implies to me that any programmer who is good at math can get a job here, but they might put out terrible code. Of course, I think I bombed the interview because I haven't used any sort of linear algebra in about a year and I forget math easily if I haven't used it in practice for a while. Are any of my other fellow programmers out there this way? I'm a game programmer too, so this seems especially odd. The more I learn, the more old knowledge that gets "popped" out of my "stack" (memory). My question is: Does this interview seem suspicious? Is this a typical interview that large corporations have? During the interview they told me that Google's interview process is similar. They have multiple, consecutive interviews where the math problems get more advanced.

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• Music While Coding [closed]

  - by inspectorG4dget

  Hi SO, Generally, while I'm coding, I prefer to listen to some background music. Nothing that'll get me distracted, but something that'll help keep the rhythm and isn't counterproductive when I need to stop coding to debug or to think of a way to solve a small problem that stands in the way of progress. Now, I have read some similar questions on reddit and on SO - specifically: which songs do you find most productive to listen to while coding, Music while programming and more. Sadly a lot of these questions were closed as off-topic, etc. But (1) I don't think this question is off-topic and I think that a lot of programmers can benefit from it. (2) It's a real question. I really want to know what music you guys would recommend because music helps when I'm coding. It's sad that SO: Music to listen to while coding cannot be found and this isn't of much help. I hope this doesn't get closed. PS: I want to turn this into a community wiki, but I don't seem to know how. I'd appreciate any help. Thank you, all. In response to kirk.burleson's comment: In case the question isn't already clear, I'm asking for recommendations/opinions of music to listen to while coding. I would like to know what you listen to when you code so that I can try it too. I am running out of good "coding music" and this is a problem for me because good "coding music" helps me code better.

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• What are the best ways to professionally increase your online presence?

  - by Rob S.

  I've been hunting around the job market for a little bit now and I've been shocked by some of the things I am seeing. Software developers who make themselves more "known" online are getting far more and far better positions than people competing against them who are not as well "known" online. After doing some reading on the subject I realized that I actually shouldn't be so shocked by this. We are living in the most fast paced era of mankind and employers want to be able to learn as much as they can about a potential employee before they hire them. The easier we as software developers make it for us to be found it seems the better are chances of landing that dream job become. In some cases, employers are even finding us instead of us applying to them. So what are some of the best ways for me as a software developer to increase my online presence? I already hang around stack exchange sites such as programmers and stack overflow increasing my rep whenever I can. I maintain many open source projects as both a committer and project owner on Google Code and Github. I have a Twitter account, a website, and a blog. What else can I do to give myself a bigger online presence? Additionally, are there any good do's and don'ts for handling your web presence? Bashing your employer is an obvious don't but I'm interested in everything from the most basic to most subtle suggestions to give yourself a more appealing online presence. Thank you very much in advance for your time.

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• Real world pitfalls of introducing F# into a large codebase and engineering team

  - by nganju

  I'm CTO of a software firm with a large existing codebase (all C#) and a sizable engineering team. I can see how certain parts of the code would be far easier to write in F#, resulting in faster development time, fewer bugs, easier parallel implementations, etc., basically overall productivity gains for my team. However, I can also see several productivity pitfalls of introducing F#, namely: 1) Everyone has to learn F#, and it's not as trivial as switching from, say, Java to C#. Team members that have not learned F# will be unable to work on F# parts of the codebase. 2) The pool of hireable F# programmers, as of now (Dec 2010) is non-existent. Search various software engineer resume databases for "F#", way less than 1% of resumes contain the keyword. 3) Community support as of now (Dec 2010) is less available. You can google almost any problem in C# and find someone that has already dealt with it, not so with F#. Third party tool support (NUnit, Resharper etc) is also sketchy. I realize that this is a bit Catch-22, i.e. if people like me don't use F# then the community and tools will never materialize, etc. But, I've got a company to run, and I can be cutting edge but not bleeding edge. Any other pitfalls I'm not considering? Or anyone care to rebut the pitfalls I've mentioned? I think this is an important discussion and would love to hear your counter-arguments in this public forum that may do a lot to increase F# adoption by industry. Thanks.

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• The next next C++ [closed]

  - by Roger Pate

  It's entirely too early for speculation on what C++ will be like after C++0x, but idle hands make for wild predictions. What features would you find useful and why? Is there anything in another language that would fit nicely into the state of C++ after 0x? What should be considered for the next TC and TR? (Mostly TR, as the TC would depend more on what actually becomes the next standard.) Export was removed, rather than merely deprecated, in 0x. (It remains a keyword.) What other features carry so much baggage to also be more harmful than helpful? ISO Standards' process I'm not involved in the C++ committee, but it's also a mystery, unfortunately, to most programmers using C++. A few things worth keeping in mind: There will be 10 years between standards, barring extremely exceptional circumstances. The standard can get "bug fixes" in the form of a Technical Corrigendum. This happened to C++98 with TC1, named C++03. It fixed "simple" issues such as making the explicit guarantee that std::vector stores items contiguously, which was always intended. The committee can issue reports which can add to the language. This happened to C++98/03 with TR1 in 2005, which introduced the std::tr1 namespace.

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• What's the best algorithm for... [closed]

  - by Paska

  Hi programmers! Today come out a little problem. I have an array of coordinates (latitude and longitude) maded in this way: [0] = "45.01234,9.12345" [1] = "46.11111,9.12345" [2] = "47.22222,9.98765" [...] etc In a loop, convert these coordinates in meters (UTM northing / UTM easting) and after that i convert these coords in pixel (X / Y) on screen (the output device is an iphone) to draw a route line on a custom map. [0] = "512335.00000,502333.666666" [...] etc The returning pixel are passed to a method that draw a line on screen (simulating a route calculation). [0] = "20,30" [1] = "21,31" [2] = "25,40" [...] etc As coordinate (lat/lon) are too many, i need to truncate lat/lon array eliminating the values that doesn't fill in the map bound (the visible part of map on screen). Map bounds are 2 couple of coords lat/lon, upper left and lower right. Now, what is the best way to loop on this array (NOT SORTED) and check if a value is or not in bound and after remove the value that is outside? To return a clean array that contains only the coords visible on screen? Note: the coords array is a very big array. 4000/5000 couple of items. This is a method that should be looped every drag or zoom. Anyone have an idea to optimize search and controls in this array? many thanks, A

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• How can I make sense of the word "Functor" from a semantic standpoint?

  - by guillaume31

  When facing new programming jargon words, I first try to reason about them from an semantic and etymological standpoint when possible (that is, when they aren't obscure acronyms). For instance, you can get the beginning of a hint of what things like Polymorphism or even Monad are about with the help of a little Greek/Latin. At the very least, once you've learned the concept, the word itself appears to go along with it well. I guess that's part of why we name things names, to make mental representations and associations more fluent. I found Functor to be a tougher nut to crack. Not so much the C++ meaning -- an object that acts (-or) as a function (funct-), but the various functional meanings (in ML, Haskell) definitely left me puzzled. From the (mathematics) Functor Wikipedia article, it seems the word was borrowed from linguistics. I think I get what a "function word" or "functor" means in that context - a word that "makes function" as opposed to a word that "makes sense". But I can't really relate that to the notion of Functor in category theory, let alone functional programming. I imagined a Functor to be something that creates functions, or behaves like a function, or short for "functional constructor", but none of those seems to fit... How do experienced functional programmers reason about this ? Do they just need any label to put in front of a concept and be fine with it ? Generally speaking, isn't it partly why advanced functional programming is hard to grasp for mere mortals compared to, say, OO -- very abstract in that you can't relate it to anything familiar ? Note that I don't need a definition of Functor, only an explanation that would allow me to relate it to something more tangible, if there is any.

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• Is '@' Error Suppression a Valid Technique for Testing for an Optional Array Key?

  - by MikeSchinkel

  Rarst and I were debating offline about the use of the '@' error suppression operator in PHP, specifically for use to test for existence of "optional" array keys, i.e. array keys that are being used as a switch here a their lack of existence in the array is functionally equivalent to the array having the key with a value equaling false. Here is pseudo-code for this scenario: function do_something( $args = array() ) { if ( @$args['switch'] ) { // Do something with this switch } // continue on... } vs. this approach: function do_something( $args = array() ) { if ( ! empty( $args['switch'] ) && $args['switch'] ) { // Do something with this switch } // continue on... } Of course in most use-cases, suppressing errors would not be A Good Thing(tm). However in this use-case where an array is passed with an optional element, it seems to me that it is actually a very good technique but I could be wrong and would like to hear other's opinions on the subject before I make up my mind. I do know that there are alleged performance hits for using the former approach but I'd like to know how they compare with the alternative and if they performance hits really matter in real world scenarios? P.S. I decided to post this because, after debating this offline with Rarst, he asked a more general question here on Programmers but didn't actually give a detailed example of the specific use-case we were debating. And since I'm pretty sure he'll want to use the out-of-context answers on that other question as justification for why the above is "bad" I decided I needed to get opinions on this specific use-case.

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• Is my JS/Jquery methodology good?

  - by absentx

  I always struggle with which of the stack sites is best to post "questions of theory" like this, but I think programmers is the best, if not, as usual a mod will move it etc... I am seeking critique on what has become my normal methodology of writing javascript. I have become heavily reliant on the Jquery library, but I think this has helped me learn the native language better also. Anyways, please critique the following style of JS coding...buried are a lot of questions of scope, if you could point out the strengths and weaknesses of this style I would appreciate it. var critique ={ start: function(){ globalness = 'GLOBAL-GLOBAL'; //available to all critique's methods var notglobalness = 'LOCAL-LOCAL';// only available to critiques start method //am I using the "method" teminology properly here?? $('#stuff').on('click','a.closer-target',function(){ $target = $(this); if($target.hasClass('active')){ $target.removeClass('active'); } else{ $target.addClass('active'); critique.madness($target); } }) console.log(notglobalness+': at least I am useful at home'); console.log('note here that: '+notglobalness+' is no longer available after this point, lets continue on:'); critique.madness(notglobalness); }, madness: function($e){ // do a bunch of awesomeness with $e //but continue to keep it seperate because you think its best to keep things isolated. //send to the next function when complete here console.log('here is globalness, which is still available from the start method of critique!! ' + globalness); console.log('lets see if the globalness carries on to a new var object!!'); console.log('the locally isolated variable of NOTGLOBALNESS is available here because it was passed to this method, lets show it:'+$e); carryOn.start(); } } //end critique var carryOn={ start: function(){ console.log('any chance critique.globalness will work here??? lets see: ' +globalness); console.log('it absolutely does'); } } $(document).ready(critique.start);

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• Woman Is the World's First Computer Programmer? [closed]

  - by Sveta Bondarenko

  This week, on 10th December, we celebrate the 197th birth anniversary of Ada Lovelace, often considered as the world's first computer programmer. Ada became famous not only as a daughter of romantic poet Lord Byron but also as an outstanding 19th century mathematician. Her works on analytical engine are recognized as the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine. Women always played a crucial role in the computer science evolution, but unfortunately, they are considered to be not so good at programming and engineering as men. Even though the fair sex makes up a growing portion of computer and Internet users, there is still a large gender gap in the field of Computer Science. But all is not lost! According to the study women's enrollment in the computer science raised from 7 percent in 1995 to 42 percent in 2000. And it is still increasing. Soon women will take a well-deserved position among the world's top computer programmers. After all, a number of notable female computer pioneers such as Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, and Anita Borg have proven that women make great computer scientists. But will women make great contributions to the modern technologies industry? Or successful and famous female computer programmer is just a pipe dream?

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• Emacs/Vim/Vi - do they have a place in modern software development ecosystem? [closed]

  - by Anton Gogolev

  Watching all those screencasts (and listening all those podcasts) with more-or-less famous hackers/programmers I hear that many of those use emacs/vi(m) for their daily work. Now, I myself tried using both emacs and vim, and I honestly cannot understand why would anybody use these for any kind of serious development. The most advertised feature is something along the lines of "you'll be able to work with text (meaning cutting, pasting, duplicating, moving, etc) up to ten times faster than with conventional IDEs", but I don't buy that. When has the success of a software project been defined by how fast a programmer can juggle lines in a text editor or by saving a couple of keystrokes here and there? Plugins and extensions? I bet nothing comes close to R# or IDEA in terms of refactoring support ("Rename" refactoring implemented by means of "Search and Replace" is not a refactoring IMO); others are trivial. Ubiquitous and available everywhere? So what? How often do you find yourself editing files over a 300 baud connection on an esoteric *nix installation without a VCS? So here goes: do said editors have a justified place in a modern software development ecosystem?

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• Simple issue tracker for 1-2 developers

  - by devoured elysium

  (I'm not sure whether this pertains to the realm of programmers@se or so@se) I'm currently working mostly alone on a project (in Java). I'm mostly alone as I have an advisor that gives me high level instructions on what to do, and will seldom make any code contribution. She will code in a couple of acceptance tests from time to time, though. I've never used an Issue Tracker before, and was thinking about starting to use one now, as I'd like to have a place where I can log possible bugs I find and keep track of them in a centralized manner. Would it be possible to integrate the issue tracker with Eclipse, better yet. So here are the constraints: It's NOT a open-source project. Our code is not to be shared with anyone! we are and will be using Subversion; we have our own Subversion server and we will keep using this same Subversion server; it must be free; it must allow at least 2 users. What is your advice on what to pick? I'm looking for the simplest solution available!

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• What's a nice explanation for pointers?

  - by Macneil

  In your own studies (on your own, or for a class) did you have an "ah ha" moment when you finally, really understood pointers? Do you have an explanation you use for beginner programmers that seems particularly effective? For example, when beginners first encounter pointers in C, they might just add &s and *s until it compiles (as I myself once did). Maybe it was a picture, or a really well motivated example, that made pointers "click" for you or your student. What was it, and what did you try before that didn't seem to work? Were any topics prerequisites (e.g. structs, or arrays)? In other words, what was necessary to understand the meaning of &s and *, when you could use them with confidence? Learning the syntax and terminology or the use cases isn't enough, at some point the idea needs to be internalized. Update: I really like the answers so far; please keep them coming. There are a lot of great perspectives here, but I think many are good explanations/slogans for ourselves after we've internalized the concept. I'm looking for the detailed contexts and circumstances when it dawned on you. For example: I only somewhat understood pointers syntactically in C. I heard two of my friends explaining pointers to another friend, who asked why a struct was passed with a pointer. The first friend talked about how it needed to be referenced and modified, but it was just a short comment from the other friend where it hit me: "It's also more efficient." Passing 4 bytes instead of 16 bytes was the final conceptual shift I needed.

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• Open source license with backlink requirement

  - by KajMagnus

  I'm developing a Javascript library, and I'm thinking about releasing it under an open source license (e.g. GPL, BSD, MIT) — but that requires that websites that use the software link back to my website. Do you know about any such licenses? And how have they formulated the attribution part of the license text? Do you think this BSD-license would do what you think that I want? (I suppose it doesn't :-)) [...] 3. Each website that redistributes this work must include a visible rel=follow link to my-website.example.com, reachable via rel=follow links from each page where the software is being redistributed. (For example, you could have a link back to your homepage, and from your homepage to an About-Us section, which could link to a Credits section) I realize that some companies wouldn't want to use the library because of legal issues with interpreting non-standard licenses (have a look at this answer: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/156859/54906). — After half a year, or perhaps some years, I'd change the license to plain GPL + MIT.

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