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12:53 AM
@GeorgeMarian am now. What's up?
Fantastic timing, I was just going to send you a message -- your reply made my day
@Michael: well, i just hate down-voting so much... You know my motto, "Everyone should get a prize for playing!" – Shog9
@Shog9 I was gonna ask if you knew something about SE capabilities...but I don't recall what ATM. LOL
Oh, can tags be tied together? As in having one tag require another.
@Michael: heh, glad you liked that...
@GeorgeMarian: nope.
@GeorgeMarian What's your use case for that?
12:55 AM
there are required tags, but they're pretty much limited to Meta, and not tied to other tags
associations / hierarchies have been repeatedly proposed and declined
(too complex, IMHO)
On money, 401k is a U.S. only topic, so we're going towards the requirement of needing the [united-states] tag for all [401k] questions.
who would search for 401k and not know it's US-only?
(apart from someone searching for the answer to, "Is the 401K program US-only?")
@Shog9 The other way around, having [united-states] as an interesting tag and having 401k questions show up.
One of my concerns was that it wouldn't necessarily be obvious to include the US tag for someone relatively new when asking about 401k's.
so an interest in US implies an interest in 401k?
Well, I don't know why anyone would be browing the US tag, but if so it would make sense to show them the 401k posts
It's actually not the worst idea ever; I can see things like "apt" auto-tagging "ubuntu" on the linux SE
1:02 AM
@Shog9 For some people, apparently yes. :)
Oh no, Debian uses apt too. Well, still, that line of thinking :)
see, that's where it all falls apart...
Australia adds a 401K program (copycats that they are...) and suddenly you have to go through and re-tag all your 401K posts [united-states-of-a] anyway
Clearly I'm a bit too slow to be in charge of the system, but I imagine there are lots that actually work
C# implies .NET
...until someone writes a C# compiler that doesn't require .NET...
@Shog9 A fair point.
1:04 AM
[javascript] implies [web-browser] (except when it doesn't - but that 1% of users/questions suffer)
That said, as it stands now their going through and manually tagging 401k questions with US.
Would it be sane to just modify searches instead? So /tags/united-states would automatically include all posts that are tagged [401k], and it could be removed in the future if it turns out to not be a good choice?
well... see, this is where a smarter search engine really wins over tagging altogether
I admittedly never use tags except the language ones, but I know other people like them so I make an effort to tag posts sanely
it's why Google almost always produces better results than the SE internal search unless you have very, very specific tag requirements and KNOW that your results are properly tagged
1:06 AM
Yes, but searching isn't the only use case for tags.
Though, search could be used to provide the interesting tags functionality.
Well anything that uses tags could do it, like if somebody marks [united-states] as interesting it would auto-hilight [401k]
But Shog9 is right, actually modifying the tags on a post automatically is probably not going to end well
Agreed. That idea has lots of problems.
Incidentally, Google Search creeps me out. I give it endless typos, and it still finds what I'm looking for.
Oh good; encouraging people to spell things less and less accurately
I search for song lyrics that aren't even close to being right, and it still finds the right song
1:09 AM
@MichaelMrozek Yet it can't figure out some of my typos. ;)
They realized long ago that it's easier to just read your mind then to try and understand your keystrokes
Incidentally, I find it ironic that the unemployment department's automated messages suggest going to the website for faster service, when I'm calling about issues with the data displayed on the website.
I've started to realize, I now alternate between SO, MSO, the Unix SE, and here; at some point the actual things I used to do besides SO kind of disappeared from the cycle. I think chat replaced them
1:13 AM
Not to mention that when I called to ask about what I need to do when moving, the agent told me not to use the website, but to call in.
@MichaelMrozek They're plan to suck more of your time is working.
tries to click the edit button
There's an edit button?
There should be :(
I can't function on reddit anymore because I can't edit people's posts
Fair enough, I use that functionality quite often. That said, by the time we're done it'll be nothing but buttons.
1:31 AM
dang it...just when i thought it was safe to answer a question, someone posts an answer while i'm still working on mine
@GeorgeMarian Just downvote them and edit the best parts of their answer into yours ;)
I just fight that w/ quality writting & formatting. :)
That's why i love [javascript]. I'll sit and think for a bit, then start to type an answer, get distracted, come back, refresh, and see an answer by CMS - but it'll be a great answer, so I can just read it instead of typing.
@Shog9 That's the opposite of the furious race to be right the fastest most of us are engaged in :)
Yah, at first it would get to me when someone answered faster than I did. Then I changed my attitude and used the opportunity to learn instead.
1:35 AM
It's not an opportunity to learn if they type the same thing you did, only faster
That's true, but it is an opportunity to refresh my knowledge so I can answer it faster the next time.
Granted, sometimes the issue is that I'm trying to hard to write an eloquent answer instead of a good-enough answer.
Ok, I should note that not all JS questions end this way. The ones that don't usually have 2-3 answers that are... somewhere between "ok" and "cringe-inducing"
But, those I down-vote / edit / comment on, so it's not totally wasted
Sometimes it seems that mentioning someone else's point(s) and expanding them helps.
Like @GeorgeMarian said, sometimes you can get a lot of mileage just by riffing on what's already been posted.
1:38 AM
Hitting 3k killed my answer speed, because I feel the need to fix the question's formatting/wording before I answer it
only do it first if it needs editing to even be understood
otherwise, do it afterwards
not only do you get a free bump up the main page from this...
...but you can tweak it to better match your answer... ;-)
Though I do want to hit 10k for access to the mod tools/views, my biggest goal is 2k so I can fix/apply formatting. Especially for programming questions...GAH!
Oh yeah, editing is 2k, not 3k. So maybe it was just a lack of motivation to cross the giant chasm to 10k
Heh...my rep chart is much shallower.
Mine flattened again a bit at 10k; it's amazing how much time the poking through posts with close/delete votes, new tags, new user posts, and flags can take up
1:43 AM
I discovered the other sites and started being more active on money. I haven't answered a question on SO in a while.
Also talking to you people. YOU PEOPLE
Someone needs to propose an SE site to discuss questions about the chat. Of course we'll need a chat to discuss questions on that site
laughs insanely at the possibilities
"Thanks for taking the time to explain it so clearly Jaime"
We had a discussion recently on meta about edits that change content versus just formatting/grammar edits. I think I know which side of the argument you're on
1:51 AM
yeah, we've had that discussion a few times.
Funny... Neil quit after the first one too...
I managed to miss that completely somehow; all the sudden people were talking about how he'd left
'cause none of us know why - no RAGEQUIT, just... quit.
he sailed away, set fire to his ships and set off to conquer the new land... wherever that might be.
Ah, ok. :(
I'm guessing his really odd rep is the result of the manual deletions?
i suspect they broke everything trying to delete him
like, tried the normal delete thinking it would work, and ran into failure conditions that hadn't really ever been tested
2:01 AM
it's a shame, a lot of good content being lost in all of that
especially in the c++ tag
The posts stayed, they're just not attached to his account anymore
AFAIK, his posts will still exist (excepting the ones he deleted himself) - they just won't be linked (bah, beaten by Michael)
Who's Niel? Or rather, which of the page of niels is he?
2:02 AM
He was well-known on the c++ tag
Anyone know the story behind why he left?
#2 ranked over the past 30 days as well which is what makes me curious as to what made him quit so suddenly
@JonB There's a meta post here:
Q: Why does Neil Butterworth say "please delete me"?

Prasoon SauravWhat happened to Neil Butterworth's account? He about section says "please delete me". I have never seen him saying "please". By the way what happened to his reputation score? P.S: He will be missed I think.

(which contains nothing of substance)
2:06 AM
I hadn't seen Changling's post yet on that thread. It sheds a little bit of light.
@JonB I reject his premise that beginner questions already being asked means they won't be asked again and again :)
@JonB well, it's a good theory, but I don't think I can recall Neil ever not being sarcastic or frustrated by the idiocy surrounding some of the questions
I'm not a C++ guy, so I've never interacted with Neil. His stats certainly speak highly of him, though.
oh, I don't mean anything negative by that
@Shog9 No, I understand you completely.
2:11 AM
that's what makes it such a shame, really. In a lot of ways, ways beyond just answering questions, he was exactly what C++ needed on SO
You know, no matter what you can't separate human beings and drama. :)
I have noticed that whenever some self righteous "how come I don't have the most rep" type starts whining on meta they are always a C++ user.
"Please only answer my question if you actually understand it and know what you are talking about"
That type
it's a huge, complicated language
It's the being too intelligent for your own good syndrome.
@GeorgeMarian I'm pretty sure I have that. I just try not to be a dick about it :)
2:13 AM
LOL I've learned the hard way. :)
you can spend some time with a good book and a project and get fairly proficient at, say, C# or JavaScript. But C++... You get people who think they're experts and haven't even touched most of it.
@Shog9 I blame college. Stupid book learnin'
stupid books
Exactly; books are overrated. I just throw * s and & s all over the place until the code compiles
Every time my code doesn't compile, I just post the error on SO.
Then when the answer is "do X"
I post "How do I do 'X'?"
2:16 AM
@JonB You're doing it wrong; you're supposed to post all 6000 lines of your source code with the title "I have an error" -- don't actually include the error message, that makes it too easy
I need to get back into learning C/C++. I do have the time these days.
@JonB heh... That was actually the tie-breaker in our last hiring decision: both candidates did a reasonable job answering questions, but one used examples from his projects, while the other... you could almost hear him flipping pages mentally
@GeorgeMarian meh. C++ sucks.
I don't mind experts in a narrow area though, as long as they know they're experts in a small subset of the picture, too many don't realize there's a lot they don't know/haven't even heard of
I tried hard not to learn any more C or C++ than I hate to, but for some reason my employer frowned on that
I just plain can't learn something that I don't need to use right now
2:17 AM
@NickCraver That's what I love about SO: open a question I think I know the answer to, and see that someone's already pointed out all the problems... and posted a better one.
@JonB That's exactly why I can't learn C#; I've started so many times
I just feel like I'm missing something by only have a cursory knowledge of C/C++.
@JonB That's my typical problem. In that regard, I'm too pragmatic for my own good.
I think these days if you really need to use C you're probably working in some kind of niche field (like embedded systems) where domain knowledge is far more important than language mastery.
agreed, excellent learning tool
how do you post a picture that chat doesn't recognize the url are being an image?
bracket syntax but they left it out of the FAQ
just put a ! in front of the URL
2:21 AM
start with a !
@NickCraver add a fake parameter to the end that ends with .jpg or something.
@JonB that works too
can't find the original, was a great lecture that had that in there
I wish that understanding wasn't lost on most of humanity.
2:26 AM
Damnit, who is profile stalking me?
Not that I don't appreciate the upvotes.
It just weirds me out
@JonB Language mastery is very important in embedded systems with C
@Changeling Changeling - what I mean is that a c expert is not necessarily qualified to work in embedded systems. An average c programmer with excellent knowledge of embedded systems would be preferable to an advanced c programmer with little embedded experience.
@JonB I agree. It's good to know your limitations. It's not a PC.
anyone have any solutions when the customer does not know what they want other than an order system? It just brings me anxiety knowing that they'll end up changing their mind once they start seeing such a system form
2:44 AM
@Changeling Do you typically do UI mockups? Seeing what the software looks like might make it easier to solidify requirements.
@JonB Well, i'm afraid to do a high-fidelity prototype and make them think it is "done". In this case, the 'customer' is our production department
@Changeling Go lo-fi: balsamiq.com
tried googling for ideas, came up short
@JonB very neat, have to play with it thansk
2 hours later…
4:27 AM
@JonB Whoa
That app looks like the contents of my notebooks.
Except legible, since I can't draw.
1 hour later…
5:49 AM
@Piskvor "what other sort of textual representation do you have in mind [for reputation]?" I find that text is pretty strong
like, fex, rate of change per week, per month, etc as simple numbers. Consider the leaderboard at stackexchange.com/leagues
6:45 AM
@GeorgeMarian, I've just got GR as one of my (many) home pages...
Man, that sound is piercing.
I thought I could just ignore it. lol
@Benjol Chrome?
@GeorgeMarian Nah, still FFx for me, more by habit than conviction
@Benjol Ah, you use that plugin that mimics the chome "homepages" thing?
@GeorgeMarian Nope, I just have multiple homepages on separate tabs (pipe-separated)
hmm..interesting...i seem to have broke it...the chatroom is still beeping at me.
Alright, I'm off been yawning more than the cowardly lion. g'night
6:56 AM
@GeorgeMarian, later
7:25 AM
@JeffAtwood Ah, now I catch your drift. Thanks for the clarification.
graph is kinda info-porn
but we DID add graphs to the users and rooms pages here, did you guys see?
I find those VERY useful for understanding when rooms / users are active during a day.. in an international world.. of many different time zones and sleep schedules.
@JeffAtwood Is stackexchange.com/leagues/1/week/stack-overflow timing out for you too?
why do the topics in the chat list homepage thing take up an obscene amount of room now?
or is that just me
I don't think it's me
@thijs Me too
7:46 AM
@thijs Only for SO - SU and SF seem to work for me. Overload?
@CarsonMyers Activity graphs? (which are apparently info-porn, so it's obscene by definition ;))
8:03 AM
@thijs possibly
@carson it's the sparkline for the UTC daily time series
2 hours later…
9:45 AM
Can anyone here tell me what the changes to Reflector's terms and conditions mean in real English?
10:13 AM
As poll-type questions go, this one is a pretty good read:
Q: How did you get your first programming job?

Mark PimDid you get lucky and stumble on your ideal job immediately? Did you find a local small software house and send your CV off? How? Did you go through graduate recruitment? Did you start on an internship? I know this is not programming related and off-topic but it could be an interesting ques...

10:39 AM
stackoverflow.com - where every now and again, a completely incorrect answer will be posted and upvoted 3 times.
@Andy: that's so different from the other places! :)
@Quassnoi: Yes it is, at other places it happens much more often :p
When I posted my first question to SO I was amazed that the correct answer was the second one. On the forums you usually scroll a page or two of complete nonsence before the answer from anyone which at least touches the topic.
11:01 AM
@AndyEshead why you gotta pick on all of my answers like that? :)
@Nick: lol
I also upvoted this, even though it's completely wrong and CSS expressions are awesome:
A: Setting CSS Expression using $.css() in JQuery

Andy EExpressions were deprecated and removed in IE8 (unless you're in compatibility mode). They're also performance hogs and you should stay away from them if you can, using JavaScript instead. You don't need to use eval() inside expression(), and this is what's causing your error. eval() expects...

You're just jealous you have to develop for those other inferior browsers!
@Nick: hahaha. Damn right I am
I once used CSS expressions in an IE-only project. During testing we saw spikes to 60-90% CPU usage. Never again :-)
I've never done it, however, just between me and you since no one else will see this, I did watch Jarrod do it
granted at that point Firefox wasn't even 1.0
IE6 + intranet, what could go wrong?
Q: Using ternary in JavaScript

Jack ShephardIs there a shorter way to write this? var ttt = "dd"; if (ttt.length < 3) ttt= "i" + ttt;

I should have posted var ttt = "idd"; as an answer just to see what the response was
@Nick: I imagine you'd have been rewarded with lots of juicy upvotes :)
11:14 AM
They could also rename 'ttt' to 't' :)
honestly upvotes are by far the easy day rep piece, the other 300ish from accepteds is much more work imo, not sure how skeet has done it for years
keep in mind he did it before SO ever existed as well
He's somewhat famous on SO though, he could answer a question wrong and still be marked as the correct answer :p
true, though rare I bet, and he's the one who proposed on meta that you be able to unaccept your own answer...i honestly don't know how much that plays into it, i personally love getting accepted answers though, meaning you actually solved someone's issue
the community's very fickle with voting, go figure on that one, but the author getting an actual solution is much more rewarding, imo
Got a link to that request?
I just love Kiln!
11:25 AM
@Nick: can't you just delete an accepted answer?
searching meta sucks :) gimme a min his question list isn't that long
@Quassnoi nope, it doesn't allow you to
@Quassnoi: no, you can't delete an answer if it's accepted.
Q: Allow author of accepted answer to delete it in certain circumstances

Jon SkeetI made a mistake today. I answered a question incorrectly. (A C# question, no less. My head is truly hanging in shame.) Unfortunately, by the time this was pointed out, the answer had already been accepted. Another answer has been posted which is correct. It has more votes than mine, and mine h...

That's a pity
I'm actually ashamed of some of my answers :)
I guess you could always flag your answer as offensive :)
11:29 AM
@Quassnoi: I'm ashamed of a lot of my answers - mostly the high-voted ones :p
It still amazes me how telling a user how to find out if a number is divisble by two in "jQuery" gains me 14 upvotes.
-1 Not enough jquery.
There is never enough jQuery
Even jQuery doesn't have enough jQuery in it
@Nick: I still have a link to bobince's jQuery rant in my favourites bar.
ooo link me, haven't read that in a while
11:39 AM
that top 3 list gets me every time
I love "I used the jQuery diet plugin and lost 10kg in a week!"
the related questions on the right are the best part of that
speeking of jQuery, this just in:
switching rooms with one click is possible again
@balpha: much better, thanks :-)
@balpha - needs fading with bicubic easing imo
err i mean, it works!
Q: Why all my post are closed?

ungalnanbanWhy all my post are closed?

11:43 AM
that's the entire question, guess what happened to it before you click!
@balpha At least some good news in my day :)
12:20 PM
is there no dedicated SO chat room?
At the speed people are getting answer on SO, it's already a chat room :p
but you can always create a room called Stack Overflow
And you'll probably find yourself all alone there :)
People tend to hang out in the kitchen (Chat feedback) trying to find out what's cooking, or in the bar (here), waiting for something interesting to happen.
Usually all the interesting stuff happends on meta.
Just watch out for tomorrow it's friday.
Tomorrow's Friday?!
but it's always friday in Canada :p
12:32 PM
Then I guess it's always Monday in the US.
lol, we should have a tag [always-monday-in-US] on meta
12:44 PM
Hi there, nice place.
It's said, that this is meta's chat, right?
Well, it's still in beta, so pretty much all site can come and chat here or open a room
But can it be about programming staff or questions in SO?
12:49 PM
that's great
awww you can't remove a downvote once something's been deleted
I'm trying to find a sample DB, but without installing anything, just a diagram or something like that, can someone help me, please? :)
@hgulyan What do you mean, a diagram? What kind of diagram?
@hgulyan: a sample DB for what?
I mean, something like adventureworks, but without installing smth, just an image of tables and it's columns
something like class diagram, I just don't know how do you call it
12:52 PM
Entity Relation Diagram
@Ikke yeah, it's sounds like that
I'm stuck here with db, table and column names and varchar sizes, kind decide what to choose.
It's a simple Users table in SQL Server.
Well you should ask yourself, what information you want to store for each users
From that point each information will have his own column.
I know that, I just mean what size should address have or name or lastname
It can sound stupid, but it's harder to decide a name or size, that right queries and programs :)
12:58 PM
What I do in those case is try to figure out a long address that someone could enter
How? It can be any address from any country
then add a little bit of extra space just in case and you have your size
or any name
I don't think there's any standard on size of name
but you can make a safe guess the way I do
That's what I'm doing right now :)
1:02 PM
Well that's fine
You can also always make your field wider afterward if it's needed, it's not that critical
I just thought, that maybe there're some standards or best practices on this.
@hgulyan, it's very specific to what you want to do. Are you stocking the whole of the address in just one field?
Sometimes it is, when db is replicated :)
@Benjol yeah, whole address in one column
You might be better reformulating this as a question on SO.
Probably I'm not an expert that that subject >.>
1:05 PM
@Benjol It's not that important to ask it in SO. I just thought maybe there's a short answer
Well a short answer would be 250 characters, will that do? :)
@Benjol, I made it 300 :))
Thank you all for your help
you can't answer a question without the requirements :) if you read up the chat thread here you'll see what you want isn't very clear to others..forcing yourself to formulate this as a question will help you better lay out what your needs are and probably clear up a few things to yourself as well as you're enumerating over your needs.
much better answers come when knowing the complete question :)
@Nick Craver, You're certainly right, maybe after I'll create some tables, it'll be more clearer what I really need and then I can ask a detailed question :)
IMO that's a good route to take, being forced to explain something to others is an excellent way to find things you never considered, even before you ask
1:11 PM
That's true. Main reason of choosing right names is to make it clearer for others what this column is for or a table
@NickCraver, yeah, half the time, asking the formulating the question so someone else understands it actually forces you to thinking about it sufficiently that you find the answer on your own, before the other person's really had the time to think...
Bye all, time to go home :)
Ugh, re-reading my garbled last post and too late to edit it :(
Actually, people answer questions on SO all day long without knowing all the requirements, haven't seemed to stop many so far
@LasseVKarlsen, garbage in, garbage out :)
1:22 PM
Most of the time, yes
1:40 PM
Good Morning fellow work slackers!
I actually do some work while chatting :p
Good timeofday(utctime,timezone).
This type of question really bugs me... stackoverflow.com/questions/3522346/…
function timeofday(utctime,timezone) { return "Happy Chrismas"; } :p
1:44 PM
That kind of works, too :D
It's always Chrismas in Canada
we should start a meme on that
Does anyone ever talk Politics in here?
@Fosco all politicians are full of crap, next question? :)
It's a bit hard to talk about politic when there's people of a lot of country
@nick :)
I keep getting tricked into thinking hitting enter will auto complete the chat username
it's not spacebar either...
ahh, it's tab.
1:50 PM
@HoLyVieR Yeah I guess that makes sense.. I am always interested in what people in other countries think about US politics, though.
Of course I take it with a grain of salt... hehe.
I voted for our President, but feel like the whole thing was a scam.
Well politician can't do all what they say no mater how much they are willing
but if they do some nice stuff in what they said, consider that to be good
We have crappy prime minister in Quebec and in Canada
I agree with that.. I no longer believe he was willing or well-intentioned. anyway, we can change the subject :)
What's the newest programming language you've tried?
I tried Javascript (Rhino) yesterday
1:54 PM
Javascript Compiler
@Nick: what's the world coming to where you have to just take a shot in the dark at answering a question where the OP hasn't added enough information? ;)
oh.. javascript for java
come on... java isn't slow enough for you?
@Andy - I think the image is coming from cache and the load handler is being bound after image.onload fires, but again somewhat of a shot in the dark :)
It's just a compiler, I just want to experiment making application with Javascript outside of the web
@Nick: we both took shots in the dark, which actually makes the question a lot more interesting :)
1:57 PM
woohoo external email works for my production app
redundant smart hosts through a relay on a totally new setup works on the first test, score
