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  • Is it immoral to write crappy code even if readability and correctness is not a requirement?

    - by mafutrct
    There are cases when crappy (i.e. unreadable and buggy) code is not much of a problem. For instance, imagine you need to generate a big text file that mostly follows a simple pattern with a few very complex exceptions. What do you do? You quickly write a simple algorithm and insert the exceptional bits in the output manually to save 4 hours. The code is unreadable, and the output is flawed, but it's still the correct way since it is way faster. But let's get this straight: I hate bad code. I've had to read and work with code that caused my stomach to hurt. I care a lot about good code. And actually, I caught myself thinking that it is immoral to write bad code even though the dirty approach is sometimes superior. I was surprised by myself and found my idea to be very irrational. Did you ever experience this? Should I just get rid of this stupid idea and use the most efficient approach to coding?

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  • Reading Source Code Aloud

    - by Jon Purdy
    After seeing this question, I got to thinking about the various challenges that blind programmers face, and how some of them are applicable even to sighted programmers. Particularly, the problem of reading source code aloud gives me pause. I have been programming for most of my life, and I frequently tutor fellow students in programming, most often in C++ or Java. It is uniquely aggravating to try to verbally convey the essential syntax of a C++ expression. The speaker must give either an idiomatic translation into English, or a full specification of the code in verbal longhand, using explicit yet slow terms such as "opening parenthesis", "bitwise and", et cetera. Neither of these solutions is optimal. On the one hand, an idiomatic translation is only useful to a programmer who can de-translate back into the relevant programming code—which is not usually the case when tutoring a student. In turn, education (or simply getting someone up to speed on a project) is the most common situation in which source is read aloud, and there is a very small margin for error. On the other hand, a literal specification is aggravatingly slow. It takes far far longer to say "pound, include, left angle bracket, iostream, right angle bracket, newline" than it does to simply type #include <iostream>. Indeed, most experienced C++ programmers would read this merely as "include iostream", but again, inexperienced programmers abound and literal specifications are sometimes necessary. So I've had an idea for a potential solution to this problem. In C++, there is a finite set of keywords—63—and operators—54, discounting named operators and treating compound assignment operators and prefix versus postfix auto-increment and decrement as distinct. There are just a few types of literal, a similar number of grouping symbols, and the semicolon. Unless I'm utterly mistaken, that's about it. So would it not then be feasible to simply ascribe a concise, unique pronunciation to each of these distinct concepts (including one for whitespace, where it is required) and go from there? Programming languages are far more regular than natural languages, so the pronunciation could be standardised. Speakers of any language would be able to verbally convey C++ code, and due to the regularity and fixity of the language, speech-to-text software could be optimised to accept C++ speech with a high degree of accuracy. So my question is twofold: first, is my solution feasible; and second, does anyone else have other potential solutions? I intend to take suggestions from here and use them to produce a formal paper with an example implementation of my solution.

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  • Shut down windows service based on load

    - by JP
    Hello, I was wondering if there are any free / open source solutions that will start and stop a windows service based on load? I have some pubsub subscriber services that do background work which is not critical. Ideally i would like tot be able to automate things so that these services could start if memory/cpu/disk i/o was under a certain threshold and stop gracefully if that threshold was met. Do you know of any solutions? Thanks JP

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  • Naming convention for non-virtual and abstract methods

    - by eagle
    I frequently find myself creating classes which use this form (A): abstract class Animal { public void Walk() { // TODO: do something before walking // custom logic implemented by each subclass WalkInternal(); // TODO: do something after walking } protected abstract void WalkInternal(); } class Dog : Animal { protected override void WalkInternal() { // TODO: walk with 4 legs } } class Bird : Animal { protected override void WalkInternal() { // TODO: walk with 2 legs } } Rather than this form (B): abstract class Animal { public abstract void Walk(); } class Dog : Animal { public override void Walk() { // TODO: do something before walking // custom logic implemented by each subclass // TODO: walk with 4 legs // TODO: do something after walking } } class Bird : Animal { public override void Walk() { // TODO: do something before walking // custom logic implemented by each subclass // TODO: walk with 2 legs // TODO: do something after walking } } As you can see, the nice thing about form A is that every time you implement a subclass, you don't need to remember to include the initialization and finalization logic. This is much less error prone than form B. What's a standard convention for naming these methods? I like naming the public method Walk since then I can call Dog.Walk() which looks better than something like Dog.WalkExternal(). However, I don't like my solution of adding the suffix "Internal" for the protected method. I'm looking for a more standardized name. Btw, is there a name for this design pattern?

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  • tfidf, am I understanding it right?

    - by alskndalsnd
    Hey everyone, I am interested in doing some document clustering, and right now I am considering using TF-IDF for this. If I am not wrong, TFIDF is particularly used for evaluating the relevance of a document given a query. If I do not have a particular query, how can I apply tfidf to clustering?

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  • How to find two most distant points?

    - by depesz
    This is a question that I was asked on a job interview some time ago. And I still can't figure out sensible answer. Question is: you are given set of points (x,y). Find 2 most distant points. Distant from each other. For example, for points: (0,0), (1,1), (-8, 5) - the most distant are: (1,1) and (-8,5) because the distance between them is larger from both (0,0)-(1,1) and (0,0)-(-8,5). The obvious approach is to calculate all distances between all points, and find maximum. The problem is that it is O(n^2), which makes it prohibitively expensive for large datasets. There is approach with first tracking points that are on the boundary, and then calculating distances for them, on the premise that there will be less points on boundary than "inside", but it's still expensive, and will fail in worst case scenario. Tried to search the web, but didn't find any sensible answer - although this might be simply my lack of search skills.

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  • Why do switch statements continue after case

    - by John W.
    After evaluating a case in a switch statement in Java (and I am sure other languages) the following case's are also evaluated unless a control statement like break, or return is used. I understand this is probably an implementation detail, but what is/are the reasons for having this functionality happen? Thanks!

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  • Where can I find a list of English phrases?

    - by Marcus Adams
    I'm tasked with searching for the use of cliches and common phrases in text. The phrases are similar to the phrases you might see for the phrase puzzles on Wheel of Fortune. Here are a few examples: Safety First Too Good To be True Winning Isn't Everything I cannot find a list of phrases however. Does anybody know of such a list? Seriously, even a list of all Wheel of Fortune solutions would suffice.

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  • Derivative of a Higher-Order Function

    - by Claudiu
    This is in the context of Automatic Differentiation - what would such a system do with a function like map, or filter - or even one of the SKI Combinators? Example: I have the following function: def func(x): return sum(map(lambda a: a**x, range(20))) What would its derivative be? What will an AD system yield as a result? (This function is well-defined on real-number inputs).

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  • What is the worst programming mistake you have made?

    - by George Edison
    Most of us are not perfect. (Well, except Jon Skeet) Have you made a terrible mistake that you would like to share? The idea is that we could all learn from our mistakes and by collecting them together here, we can avoid some common ones and discover some no-so-common ones we may have overlooked. Oh, and this question is CW, of course. Edit: This question is different than http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1928002/what-is-the-worst-programming-mistake-you-have-ever-seen because we are sharing our own mistakes. Edit again: And this one http://stackoverflow.com/questions/130965/what-is-the-worst-code-youve-ever-written is different too - it asks for code. My question does not have that restriction!

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  • Visualize compiler warnings

    - by christoffer
    I'm looking for a way to visualize compiler warnings and remarks, by annotating or otherwise showing which lines cause a report. This is much like a modern IDE like NetBeans or Eclipse already does, but I'd like to take output from several compilers (and other static code analysis tools) at once, and create one single annotation in order to get a better overview. The rationale is that we've seen some problems go completely undetected by, say, Visual Studio 2005, but accurately detected with a proprietary ARM compiler, and vice versa. Cross-referencing warnings could potentially locate problems better, but doing so completely manually is infeasible. Have you heard of such a tool? Could an open-source IDE like Eclipse be extended to use several compilers at once, or has it already been done?

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  • Is there any way to set or code breakpoints conditionally?

    - by froadie
    I've been wondering this for a while - is there a way to code/program breakpoints...? Conditionally? For example, can I specify something like - "when this variable becomes this value, break and open the debugger"? (Would be quite useful, especially in long loops when you want to debug loop execution of a late loop value.) I suppose this may be IDE-specific since debugging is implemented differently in different IDEs... I'd be interested to know how to do this in any IDE, but specifically in Eclipse and Visual Studio.

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  • Defend zero-based arrays

    - by DrJokepu
    A question asked here recently reminded me of a debate I had not long ago with a fellow programmer. Basically he argued that zero-based arrays should be replaced by one-based arrays since arrays being zero based is an implementation detail that originates from the way arrays and pointers and computer hardware work, but these sort of stuff should not be reflected in higher level languages. Now I am not really good at debating so I couldn't really offer any good reasons to stick with zero-based arrays other than they sort of feel like more appropriate. I am really interested in the opinions of other developers, so I sort of challenge you to come up with reasons to stick with zero-based arrays!

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  • Autotesting a network interface

    - by Machado
    Hi All, I'm developing a software component responsible for testing if a network interface has conectivity with the internet. Think of it as the same test the XBOX360 does to inform the user if it's connected with the Live network (just as an example). So far I figured the autotest would run as this: 1) Test the physical network interface (if the cable is conected, has up/downlink, etc...) 2) Test the logical network (has IP address, has DNS, etc...) 3) Connects to the internet (can access google, for example) 4) ??? 5) Profit! (just kidding...) My question relates to step 3: How can I detect, correctly, if my software has connection with the internet ? Is there any fixed IP address to ping ? The problem is that I don't want to rely solely on google.com (or any other well-known address), as those can change in time, and my component will be embbeded on a mobile device, not easy to update. Any suggestions ?

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  • Is Polyglot programming important?

    - by Kb
    Trying to learn more about Polyglot programming. What is it exactly and is it important? Look like it is cross platform coding and interoperability across platforms... I found this article by Ted Neward (Thoughtworks) interesting.

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  • What is "elegant" code?

    - by Breton
    I see a lot of lip service and talk about the most "elegant" way to do this or that. I think if you spend enough time programming you begin to obtain a sort of intuitive feel for what it is we call "elegance". But I'm curious. Even if we can look at a bit of code, and say instinctively "That's elegant", or "That's messy", I wonder if any of us really understands what that means. Is there a precise definition for this "elegance" we keep referring to? If there is, what is it? Now, what I mean by a precise definition, is a series of statements which can be used to derive questions about a peice of code, or a program as a whole, and determine objectively, or as objectively as possible, whether that code is "elegant" or not. May I assert, that perhaps no such definition exists, and it's all just personal preference. In this case, I ask you a slightly different question: Is there a better word for "elegance", or a better set of attributes to use for judging code quality that is perhaps more objective than merely appealing to individual intuition and taste? Perhaps code quality is a matter of taste, and the answer to both of my questions is "no". But I can't help but feel that we could be doing better than just expressing wishy washy feelings about our code quality. For example, user interface design is something that to a broad range of people looks for all the world like a field of study that oughtta be 100% subjective matter of taste. But this is shockingly and brutally not the case, and there are in fact many objective measures that can be applied to a user interface to determine its quality. A series of tests could be written to give a definitive and repeatable score to user interface quality. (See GOMS, for instance). Now, okay. is Elegance simply "code quality" or is it something more? Is it something that can be measured? Or is it a matter of taste? Does our profession have room for taste? Maybe I'm asking the wrong questions altogether. Help me out here. Bonus Round If there is such a thing as elegance in code, and that concept is useful, do you think that justifies classifying the field of programming as an "Art" capital A, or merely a "craft". Or is it just an engineering field populated by a bunch of wishful thinking humans? Consider this question in the light of your thoughts about the elegance question. Please note that there is a distinction between code which is considered "art" in itself, and code that was written merely in the service of creating an artful program. When I ask this question, I ask if the code itself justifies calling programming an art. Bounty Note I liked the answers to this question so much, I think I'd like to make a photographic essay book from it. Released as a free PDF, and published on some kind of on demand printing service of course, such as "zazz" or "tiggle" or "printley" or something . I'd like some more answers, please!

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  • Code Golf: Diamond Pattern

    - by LiraNuna
    The challenge The shortest code by character count to output a a pattern of diamonds according to the input. The input is composed of 3 positive numbers representing the size of the diamond and the size of the grid. A diamond is made from the ASCII characters / and \ with spaces. A diamond of size 1 is: /\ \/ The size of the grid consists from width and height of number of diamonds. Test cases Input: 1 6 2 Output: /\/\/\/\/\/\ \/\/\/\/\/\/ /\/\/\/\/\/\ \/\/\/\/\/\/ Input: 2 2 2 Output: /\ /\ / \/ \ \ /\ / \/ \/ /\ /\ / \/ \ \ /\ / \/ \/ Input 4 1 3 Output: /\ /\ /\ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \/ \/ \ \ /\ /\ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \/ \/ \/ Code count includes input/output (i.e full program).

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  • Should I use `!IsGood` or `IsGood == false`?

    - by chills42
    I keep seeing code that does checks like this if (IsGood == false) { DoSomething(); } or this if (IsGood == true) { DoSomething(); } I hate this syntax, and always use the following syntax. if (IsGood) { DoSomething(); } or if (!IsGood) { DoSomething(); } Is there any reason to use '== true' or '== false'? Is it a readability thing? Do people just not understand Boolean variables? Also, is there any performance difference between the two?

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  • Programming challenge: can you code a hello world program as a Palindrome?

    - by Assaf Lavie
    So the puzzle is to write a hello world program in your language of choice, where the program's source file as a string has to be a palindrome. To be clear, the output has to be exactly "Hello, World". Edit: Well, with comments it seems trivial (not that I thought of it myself of course [sigh].. hat tip to cobbal). So new rule: no comments. Edit: I feel kind of bad editing someone else's question to say this, but it will eliminate a lot of non-palindromes that keep popping up, and I'm tired of seeing the same simple mistake over and over. The following is NOT a palindrome: ()() The following IS a palindrome: ())( Brackets, parenthesis, and anything else that must match are a major barrier to palindrome-ing, yes, but that doesn't mean you can ignore them and post non-palindrome answers. Languages represented thus far: C, C++, Bash, elisp, C#, Perl, sh, Windows shell, Java, Common Lisp, Awk, Ruby, Brainfuck, Funge, Python, Machine Language, HQ9+, Assembly, TCL, J, php, Haskell, io, TeX, APL, Javascript, mIRC Script, Basic, Orc, Fortran, Unlambda, Pseudo-code, Befunge, CFML, Lua, INTERCAL, VBScript, HTML, sed, PostScript, GolfScript, REBOL, SQL

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  • Comparisons of web programming languages (on speed, etc.)

    - by Dave
    I'm looking for a site / report / something that can compares "identical" programs (programs that do the same thing) in different web-programming languages and then compares the speeds of each of them. I agree that there will be MANY MANY criteria on which this information can be sliced and diced by, but has anyone done any real comparison of this? I am interested in web-based languages only, ie php, perl, C, C++, java, asp, asp.net, etc.

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