Subversion comments

flabdablet

I am now slightly smarter than before.

Don't worry about it, it doesn't show :-)

dkf

@Ben L. said:

That's because processors are executing instructions before the program hits them. Something like a − b + c × d compiles to "Load a. Load b. Add b to a. Load c. Load d. Multiply c by d. Subtract c' from a'." A modern compiler will look ahead and realize all four loads can be done at once, and that the addition and multiplication don't depend on each other. That takes 7 sequential instructions and turns them into 3 sets of instructions that can be executed in less than half the time. The processor isn't faster - although the programs will finish their work more quickly - it just uses more of its capabilities at the same time.

What does it mean to be “faster”? In the book of anyone reasonable, it means to deliver the overall desired result sooner. It's not that important to most people exactly how it does this (subject to the restriction that the result be correct). Some of the speedup will be coming from improved L1 caching (this makes a huge difference), some through being able to process things like multiplies in fewer clock cycles, and some through parallel execution indeed. (I used to work with someone whose PhD was on the design of hardware to do automatic parallel execution through detection of non-clashing register use patterns. Fascinating stuff.)

The code where I was measuring the speedup was rather bigger than a simple sum like you have above, as it happens. It was actually running the extended euclidian GCD algorithm on a pair of 256-bit numbers, and it was rather embarrassing to me to see how much slower my machine was than this other person's (running the identical code) despite him claiming that it wasn't modern hardware. I really need a new laptop…

snoofle

@Cassidy said:

@Planar said:
TRWTF is threads. If you have any programmer on your team with less than 20 years of experience, you have no hope of making a multi-threaded program work correctly.
That sounds more like a programmer WTF than a thread WTF. But then, isn't everything?
@mikeTheLiar said:
@snoofle said:
Actually, that's mostly all I do, but there are almost 200 programmers here and there are only two of us who have more than three years of experience.

What.
The.
Fuck.

I had to re-read that also. Has anyone looked at reasons behind the fast turnover? Or does WTFCorp purposely employ inexperienced coders because they're cheaper? Or is WTFCorp used purely to gain some experience (and fluff out a CV) before it becomes nothing more than a stepping stone to better positions?

This place hires nearly 100% of its people because they are cheap labor, which invariably translates to newbies. Me and my partner were special cases because our manager saw this flood-o-wtf coming and knew he needed a couple of heavy hitters. Note: I make no claims of being an expert's expert; I know nothing about web stuff and only have modest knowledge of DB stuff, but it's still orders of magnitude above what most of the folks here know.

There is actually failry little turnover here. Mostly it's just the idea-folks trying to open new lines of business/create new uses for our main engine, and to that end they just hire throngs of the clueless to lead hoards of brainless to code whatever they think of at the moment.

Today's argument was basically: How TF can we possibly quality-check the code the team wrote if there are no written requirements? You can't put hand-waving and you-know-what-I-mean,-right? in a JUnit test.

esoterik

@snoofle said:

Note: I make no claims of being an expert's expert; I know nothing about web stuff and only have modest knowledge of DB stuff, but it's still orders of magnitude above what most of the folks here know.

The more you learn the less you know!

@snoofle said:

You can't put hand-waving and you-know-what-I-mean,-right? in a JUnit test.

you'd probably end up with the equivalent of TestAPI.AssertTrue(true, "you-know-what-i-mean,-right?");

Ben L.

@blakeyrat said:

the Pentium 4 you had a decade ago

Yeah, about that...

blakeyrat

I get the sense you're attempted to communicate something to me, but damned if I can work-out what it is.

morbiuswilters

@blakeyrat said:

I get the sense you're attempted to communicate something to me, but damned if I can work-out what it is.

He still has a Pentium 4. Which is the saddest thing ever. Can't we use some of that starving-Africa-kid money and buy Ben L. a reasonable computer? I think those Leap Pad pieces of shit have more processing power than that..

dhromed

I can donate one of my cores, maybe; like a kidney.

blakeyrat

@morbiuswilters said:

He still has a Pentium 4.

Uh. I'll take your word for it I guess.

@morbiuswilters said:

Which is the saddest thing ever. Can't we use some of that starving-Africa-kid money and buy Ben L. a reasonable computer? I think those Leap Pad pieces of shit have more processing power than that..

Processing power aside, the Core series would have paid for itself twice-over just from the power savings. Why do you want such a high electric bill, Ben L?

Mason_Wheeler

@dhromed said:

I can donate one of my cores, maybe; like a kidney.

Sir, if any of my circuits or gears will help, I'll gladly donate them!

boomzilla

@blakeyrat said:

@morbiuswilters said:
He still has a Pentium 4.

Uh. I'll take your word for it I guess.

So are you too lazy to look at the screen anymore, or do you rely on screen readers because you are actually blind now?

locallunatic

@boomzilla said:

@blakeyrat said:
@morbiuswilters said:
He still has a Pentium 4.
Uh. I'll take your word for it I guess.
So are you too lazy to look at the screen anymore, or do you rely on screen readers because you are actually blind now?

If the browser is small enough you can't read Pentium in the image (as no scroll to see the whole thing). Of course he should be yelling about that if it is the cause rather than not looking at the image, but we all know that blakey would explode if he ever tried to be reasonable.

blakeyrat

@locallunatic said:

If the browser is small enough you can't read Pentium in the image (as no scroll to see the whole thing). Of course he should be yelling about that if it is the cause rather than not looking at the image, but we all know that blakey would explode if he ever tried to be reasonable.

For all I know he took a screenshot of this forum and Googled up an old one of a Pentium IV console window and combined them in a paint program. I make no assumptions.

If Ben L was trying to say, "I am still using a Pentium 4", he could have JUST FUCKING TYPED IT with a hell of a lot less effort than posting a screenshot I don't know how to interpret.

dhromed

@blakeyrat said:

If Ben L was trying to say, "I am still using a Pentium 4", he could have JUST FUCKING TYPED IT [...] I make no assumptions.

Fair enough, but I think you're taking this "no assumptions" philosophy a liiiittle too far.

Was it not the Great Feynman himself who said "First, we guess it!" ?

boomzilla

@blakeyrat said:

@locallunatic said:
If the browser is small enough you can't read Pentium in the image (as no scroll to see the whole thing). Of course he should be yelling about that if it is the cause rather than not looking at the image, but we all know that blakey would explode if he ever tried to be reasonable.

For all I know he took a screenshot of this forum and Googled up an old one of a Pentium IV console window and combined them in a paint program. I make no assumptions.

If Ben L was trying to say, "I am still using a Pentium 4", he could have JUST FUCKING TYPED IT with a hell of a lot less effort than posting a screenshot I don't know how to interpret.

For all we know, you could be using some ancient language that bears a striking resemblance to english, but means some thing completely different. This would actually explain a lot.

dhromed

@Mason Wheeler said:

Sir, if any of my circuits or gears will help, I'll gladly donate them!

That rings familiar, but I can't put my ~~dildo~~ finger on it.

morbiuswilters

@dhromed said:

@Mason Wheeler said:
Sir, if any of my circuits or gears will help, I'll gladly donate them!

That rings familiar, but I can't put my ~~dildo~~ finger on it.

It's from one of those awful Phantom Menace sequels..

Mason_Wheeler

@morbiuswilters said:

@dhromed said:
@Mason Wheeler said:
Sir, if any of my circuits or gears will help, I'll gladly donate them!

That rings familiar, but I can't put my ~~dildo~~ finger on it.

It's from one of those awful Phantom Menace sequels..

If by "one of those awful Phantom Menace sequels" you mean "the original Star Wars," then you'd be right. It's C3P0's final line from the movie, upon finding that R2D2 has been damaged.

Zylon

@blakeyrat said:

If Ben L was trying to say, "I am still using a Pentium 4", he could have JUST FUCKING TYPED IT with a hell of a lot less effort than posting a screenshot I don't know how to interpret.

You seriously couldn't grasp the meaning of "Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU", floating plain as day in the middle of the screenshot? You're [i]that[/i] dense?

blakeyrat

@Zylon said:

You seriously couldn't grasp the meaning of "Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU", floating plain as day in the middle of the screenshot? You're that dense?

The meaning us useless without the context, and I did not have the context. I still don't, really, I'm just trusting everybody else is not talking out of their ass.

Like I said above, for all I know, that's not even a single screenshot but a composite. I don't know. I don't know what command was run in the console window, nor what it normally outputs. Maybe it's live data. Maybe it's the CPU used when the OS was first installed. Maybe it's a database of old CPU types. I don't know. It seemed like Ben L was trying to communicate something to me but damned if I could work out what it was.

You guys get mad when I assume things, and you get mad when I don't. What exactly am I supposed to do when people post confusing crap like that? What is the correct course of action?

Mason_Wheeler

@blakeyrat said:

You guys get mad when I assume things, and you get mad when I don't. What exactly am I supposed to do when people post confusing crap like that? What is the correct course of action?

I think that most of the increduilty being demonstrated here stems fron the fact that you're the only one who found that to be "confusing crap." To everyone else reading this, it was obvious what he was posting. So the immediate reaction that comes to mind is amazed surprise, coupled with what Zylon wrote:

@Zylon said:

You're that dense?

Even if it was a composite, Photoshopped together, the meaning of the image is still quite clear: "reading this on a Pentium 4." How does it being a composite alter that?

morbiuswilters

@Mason Wheeler said:

To everyone else reading this, it was obvious what he was posting.

[citation needed]

Considering that not everyone here is a Linux user (or even most of the people here, last time I checked) and considering Ben posted a screenshot of a terminal with a lot of text, I'm willing to bet a few people didn't immediately grasp the significance.

Regardless, this is a stupid argument and it should just be allowed to die.

Ben L.

morbiuswilters

@Ben L. said:

Wow, xfce, fake wood paneling and a Pentium 4. Gentlemen, I think we have conclusive proof that Ben L. is a time traveler from the late 70s.

blakeyrat

I've been saying that for ages. If you turned that camera 180 degrees, you'd see the sleeping pod he just emerged from before posting here.

mikeTheLiar

@Ben L. said:

Now print it out, take a picture of it on a wooden table and scan it.

Ben L.

@mikeTheLiar said:

@Ben L. said:

Now print it out, take a picture of it on a wooden table and scan it.

I may have a Pentium 4, but I don't have a printer. Why would I print things when I can just take photos of my screen?

Ben L.

@blakeyrat said:

If you turned that camera 180 degrees,

Mason_Wheeler

@Ben L. said:

@mikeTheLiar said:
@Ben L. said:
Now print it out, take a picture of it on a wooden table and scan it.
I may have a Pentium 4, but I don't have a printer. Why would I print things when I can just take photos of my screen?

Is your screen on a wooden table?

blakeyrat

You just rotated the image, cheater.

Ben L.

@Mason Wheeler said:

@Ben L. said:
@mikeTheLiar said:
@Ben L. said:

Now print it out, take a picture of it on a wooden table and scan it.

I may have a Pentium 4, but I don't have a printer. Why would I print things when I can just take photos of my screen?
Is your screen on a wooden table?

Technically, it's a desk.

morbiuswilters

@Ben L. said:

@Mason Wheeler said:
@Ben L. said:
@mikeTheLiar said:
@Ben L. said:

Now print it out, take a picture of it on a wooden table and scan it.

I may have a Pentium 4, but I don't have a printer. Why would I print things when I can just take photos of my screen?
Is your screen on a wooden table?

Technically, it's a desk.

Avocado-green laminate? Or Cheeto-puke orange?

Ben L.

@morbiuswilters said:

@Ben L. said:
@Mason Wheeler said:
@Ben L. said:
@mikeTheLiar said:
@Ben L. said:

Now print it out, take a picture of it on a wooden table and scan it.

I may have a Pentium 4, but I don't have a printer. Why would I print things when I can just take photos of my screen?
Is your screen on a wooden table?

Technically, it's a desk.

Avocado-green laminate? Or Cheeto-puke orange?

Wood colored.

morbiuswilters

@Ben L. said:

@morbiuswilters said:
@Ben L. said:
Technically, it's a desk.

Avocado-green laminate? Or Cheeto-puke orange?

Wood colored.

I'm starting to doubt you are from the 70s at all.

flabdablet

@boomzilla said:

So are you too lazy to look at the screen anymore, or do you rely on screen readers because you are actually blind now?

Blakey has a medical condition that makes his eyelids slam shut as soon as his visual cortex attempts to process anything that even vaguely resembles a CLI window.

flabdablet

@blakeyrat said:

What exactly am I supposed to do when people post confusing crap like that? What is the correct course of action?

I don't know, but I have it on good authority that asking for advice in Side Bar WTF is not it.

morbiuswilters

@flabdablet said:

@boomzilla said:
So are you too lazy to look at the screen anymore, or do you rely on screen readers because you are actually blind now?

Blakey has a medical condition that makes his eyelids slam shut as soon as his visual cortex attempts to process anything that even vaguely resembles a CLI window.

Are we sure that isn't the healthy reaction and the actual medical condition is being able to look at a CLI window?

Ben L.

@flabdablet said:@boomzilla said:So are you too lazy to look at the screen anymore, or do you rely on screen readers because you are actually blind now?

Blakey has a medical condition that makes his eyelids slam shut as soon as his visual cortex attempts to process anything that even vaguely resembles a CLI window.

That's too bad... Is there a cure?

wrack

@Ben L. said:

@blakeyrat said:
the Pentium 4 you had a decade ago
Yeah, about that...

stares at his eight years old desktop powered by P4 3.20

Well, I guess it's still good enough to browse some parts of the web...

stares at the seventeen years old P200 desktop underneath

... and that works as a music player.

resumes coding on the i7

blakeyrat

types sentences between asterisks

morbiuswilters

@blakeyrat said:

types sentences between asterisks

reads sentences between asterisks

da_Doctah

@Ben L. said:

@Mason Wheeler said:
Is your screen on a wooden table?
Technically, it's a desk.

Ha, pikers! Mine's technically a sewing machine!

aihtdikh

@da Doctah said:

@Ben L. said:
@Mason Wheeler said:
Is your screen on a wooden table?

Technically, it's a desk.

Ha, pikers! Mine's technically a sewing machine!

Really?

picard

Then make it sew.

dhromed

@aihtdikh said:

Then make it sew.

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

aihtdikh

@dhromed said:

@aihtdikh said:
Then make it sew.

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Uh oh, I think I broke dhromed.

dhromed

OOOOOOOOOOOOOH

flabdablet

@morbiuswilters said:

Are we sure that isn't the healthy reaction and the actual medical condition is being able to look at a CLI window?

All of us are somewhere on the spectrum.

Mason_Wheeler

@morbiuswilters said:

@flabdablet said:
@boomzilla said:
So are you too lazy to look at the screen anymore, or do you rely on screen readers because you are actually blind now?

Blakey has a medical condition that makes his eyelids slam shut as soon as his visual cortex attempts to process anything that even vaguely resembles a CLI window.

Are we sure that isn't the healthy reaction and the actual medical condition is being able to look at a CLI window?

Considering that a CLI window is really not that different from a window full of source code, I'd say any professional programmer who has trouble with them definitely has real problems.

Nagesh1

@blakeyrat said:

@Planar said:
TRWTF is threads. If you have any programmer on your team with less than 20 years of experience, you have no hope of making a multi-threaded program work correctly.

C# makes threads easy.

How easy/hard threads are is 100% dependent on the language involved.

At least one lie in above quote. SPOT LIE AND get chance to talk to Nagesh.

blakeyrat

@Mason Wheeler said:

Considering that a CLI window is really not that different from a window full of source code, I'd say any professional programmer who has trouble with them definitely has real problems.

What if they do UI programming in a GUI design tool like WinForms? Huh? Huh!? HUH!!??