Today is Friday, the 13th



  • @Nagesh said:

    I know a lot of our India based companies get bad press, but truth is each time there is some wrong management decision involved.

    From the point of view of the company offshoring development, it doesn't matter if the offshore manager is to blame, or the offshore developer(s). What counts is the ROI.

    And I have held a job a while ago where I was hired because software development was brought back from India after a couple of years because it was considered to cause more problems than it solved.

    Filed under: I didn't say it got better afterwards



  • @Arantor said:

    Also, warning me I've posted more than 20% of the replies? That's... interesting.

    Just wait until you post the most posts in a topic. That fact well be visible on the topics page for all to see at a mere mouseover!



  • I know, and already I feel guilty about it! I don't like being the person with the biggest e-peen. It is merely ironic that I am unfortunately in that situation elsewhere.



  • @chubertdev said:

    I think that @codinghorror forgot that users don't read.

    Now you've done it. You've invited him. That was the first @cdnghrrr on this page (thank goodness, Edit->Find still works in Firefox, as Ctrl-F has been shanghaied by Discourse). A lolcats pic might now be a realistic event in the near future... it's still 13:50PDT.



  • @faoileag said:

    Now you've done it. You've invited him. That was the first @cdnghrrr on this page (thank goodness, Edit->Find still works in Firefox, as Ctrl-F has been shanghaied by Discourse). A lolcats pic might now be a realistic event in the near future... it's still 13:50PDT.

    Don't worry, I'll just say his name three times on another post.



  • @Nagesh said:

    I know a lot of our India based companies get bad press, but truth is each time there is some wrong management decision involved.

    Really? The WTF I mentioned earlier falls 100% on the shoulders of our remote developer. He managed to mis-use our VCS so badly that each new commit he made last night reversed the previous one:

    Commit 1: fix for bug 1 Commit 2: fix for bug 2, reverse out Commit 1 Commit 3: fix for bug 3, reverse out Commit 2 etc.
    :headdesk:

    Filed under: Discourse Bug: No Emoji for :headdesk: or :facepalm:



  • @chubertdev said:

    Don't worry, I'll just say his name three times on another post.

    Do all three need to be in the same post for that to work? Cause it took you guys way more than three to summon @mikeTheLiar here.



  • @locallunatic said:

    Do all three need to be in the same post for that to work? Cause it took you guys way more than three to summon @mikeTheLiar here.

    Yeah, it takes ten mentions for @mikeTheLiar to appear.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @reverendryan said:

    The WTF I mentioned earlier falls 100% on the shoulders of our remote developer. He managed to mis-use our VCS so badly that each new commit he made last night reversed the previous one:

    Hey, I've had to back out the changes myself that were done by one of our in house Chinese developers. At least your guys mostly cleaned up after themselves.



  • @Arantor said:

    I know, and already I feel guilty about it! I don't like being the person with the biggest e-peen. It is merely ironic that I am unfortunately in that situation elsewhere.

    No, it isn't something you should feel guilty about. It's something the people behind Discourse should think about.

    You see, Discourse is meant to change the world so that people have more civilsed discourse. And the idea behind it is that it is on topic discourse.

    This, however, has turned into a fun chat with the few of us who are still partaking in it - you, Nagesh, @chubertdev and me. Like on the old IRC channels.

    Measuring who posts the most posts in such a fun chat does not make sense.

    I would even go so far as to say that a development like this is perhaps tolerated by the idea behind Discourse, but it is definitely stroking against the fur of Discourse.

    I wouldn't even be surprised if most of tonights chat would be moderated away into an off-topic topic.

    So yes, one of us might come out of this as having posted the most posts on the "Today is Friday, the 13th" topic. Even if most if not all of them were completely irrelevant to the topic.

    And that is why I think that the idea behind Discourse will fail.

    Unless they manage to write some code that rejects posts that are off-topic.



  • Even if no one does quote it, if a user doesn't delete their post within the "ninja edit" window, you can always click the pencil and see what was originally written (which you can also preview right now on that post as well).



  • If only that's what he'd meant to do.

    I think what he did was clone our repository, then make an OS-level copy of that folder for each case he worked on to simulate branching, then copy the individually-changed files from each of those copies back to the real repository. I guess he worked in a particularly non-linear way last night, and so edits to file foo in copy1 were overwritten by his changes to file foo in folder2 when he copied everything back, undoing the changes.



  • @ChaosTheEternal said:

    Even if no one does quote it, if a user doesn't delete their post within the "ninja edit" window, you can always click the pencil and see what was originally written (which you can also preview right now on that post as well).

    Yes, but right now the post is still there in a way (with a placeholder text). But it will vanish 24h after deletion, and then I won't be able to click on the "edits" icon.



  • @faoileag said:

    code that rejects posts that are off-topic

    That would, of course, completely kill TDWTF.@faoileag said:

    still partaking in it

    I (and I'm sure others) am partaking in it, just not posting much. I'm reading more that I'm writing. Ooh, ooh, I'm Using It Right™!@faoileag said:

    who posts the most posts in such a fun chat does not make sense.

    Maybe not, but it's kinda fun.



  • But that's the question: at what point does something become off topic?

    I had a conversation yesterday about that, where it started out as a bug report, spiralled into a conversation about the general state of development, with an observation that one of the wider problems is a lack of fun in the community - and most of that was summarily declared as 'off topic'... in a board whose name amounts to 'comments on the next version of <software>'.

    Relevance is something that cannot be measured algorithmically, nor objectively.

    I don't think the idea behind Discourse will fail as such. I think it's an attempt to change the forum world in a way none of us have seen before - by focusing not so much on conversations 'in general' but with a certain amount of specificity and providing tools built with that in mind. For TDWTF and a number of communities I have participated in over the years, it's not the right fit. For some of them, it absolutely would be a much better fit.

    While many of us have objected to the software paradigms, one thing that has come up time and again is the objection to the change of paradigm by adding new people to the mix that wouldn't have been there otherwise.

    Consider the situation: wind the clock back a few months. Go pre Discourse. In this alternate and brave new (temporary) world... make Jeff a moderator on CS. What would the result be? I think we'd see the same kinds of moderation going on, though possibly with less lolcat because Jeff might not be as personally invested. But the point is: we'd still see the paradigm change towards 'focused conversation' which is not what this community is about. Directed, sure, but not focused.

    I don't think that's Discourse's fault for what you're seeing. I think it's the people not the software - though I wouldn't try to pretend the software doesn't encourage it because of course it does.

    Singling out 'most poster in this topic' is an odd thing to do, especially given the general lack of apparent gamification throughout the rest of the UI (no post count, no e-peen; I am speaking as someone who is currently just shy of 60k posts on a forum, I'm only too mindful of the gamification aspects of post count/e-peen).

    Perhaps, though, it is having the intended effect. By applying a little nugget of guilt, it's saying 'maybe you should let others post instead' in a way that the reddish popup doesn't. I don't know, I'm not Jeff and frankly I'm not sure I'd want to see his thoughts, I think they would scare me but that's certainly a vibe I'm getting.

    I think there's a decent amount of 'using it wrong' - one can most certainly use it wrong if it is the wrong tool for the job. Sure, I can (probably) cut down the mightiest tree in the forest with a herring. But I'm using the herring and the tree wrong. Doesn't make either thing wrong, just the combination thereof.

    Discourse is not, IMO, the right tool for this job, but it's not 'broken'. It's just the wrong tool for the job. I almost think a customised deal for this community is the way to go.



  • Yes, but it on Discourse, it is effectively a 24 hour window for anyone to go ahead and read or quote it instead of (on any other forum) hoping someone quoted it before it got deleted.

    Wonder if that's the intended behavior?



  • It certainly has some potential for dealing with ragequit type posts.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Arantor said:

    Singling out 'most poster in this topic' is an odd thing to do,

    I pretty much never notice this.

    @Arantor said:

    Perhaps, though, it is having the intended effect. By applying a little nugget of guilt, it's saying 'maybe you should let others post instead' in a way that the reddish popup doesn't.

    In true TDWTF fashion, this sort of popup encourages me to post more. I've also had them pop up to tell me to consider replying to multiple posts in a single reply.



  • @reverendryan said:

    Really? The WTF I mentioned earlier falls 100% on the shoulders of our remote developer. He managed to mis-use our VCS so badly that each new commit he made last night reversed the previous one:

    So he owned up to his mistake and undo everything. Why are you complaining about it? It is not like construction business where he built a floor and then he forgot to build staircase and left no room for it.



  • @Arantor said:

    Relevance is something that cannot be measured algorithmically, nor objectively.

    That's why moderators exist. They don't operate on algorithms. Their decisions can be so arbitrary that they would make a crypto-grade rng.

    @Arantor said:

    make Jeff a moderator on CS. What would the result be?

    Ok, that remark of mine about not being surprised if a chunk of these posts would be moderated away was a bit of hyperbole.

    Actually, I think Jeff as moderator on the old CS forum would have acted differently, as he wouldn't have been as involved with CS as with Discourse. This is his baby. He's working hard to make his vision of a more civilized discourse on the internet become a reality. It's more because of that vision and the way he's trying to enforce it that I dislike Discourse. The software on its own is buggy but improving, you can use it and it has a lot of modern features people find attractive. I can live with Discourse, but not necessarily with the idea behind it.

    @Arantor said:

    I'm not Jeff and frankly I'm not sure I'd want to see his thoughts, I think they would scare me

    But if we get some VC, perhaps we could make a scary movie of them and become filthily rich?



  • Ok, in respect of what this topic has evolved into, and in the best tradition of IRC channels of old, and because this friday the 13th will be history in a couple of minutes over here anyway, I sign off.

    And this is so off-topic... sorry, Discourse, nothing personal.


  • Banned

    @faoileag said:

    And this is so off-topic... sorry, Discourse, nothing personal.

    Shall I... ?


  • BINNED

    Or if you're on Windows see UniChars which I mentioned here which allows me to type "‽ ¿ ⸮ ⸘" (note the interrobangs and irony punctuations needed to be manually set up… they aren't "out of the box" entries).



  • @Nagesh said:

    Wait, Nagesh is a real person?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    We can possibly assume the guy in the picture was a real person at some point. All we have is Nagesh's word that it's really him.



  • We need more proof... like a picture of him standing next his goat with a shoe on his head.

    Filed Under:But please not a sharpie in the pooper


  • BINNED

    Not convincing enough for me.

    Now, if the goat was on a wooden table, maybe.



  • At least it's something other than a creepy eye.



  • @Onyx said:

    Now, if the goat was on a wooden table, maybe.

    You mean, like in Taar Korma Goat Curry?


  • BINNED

    @faoileag said:

    You mean, like in Taar Korma Goat Curry?

    Mmmmm!



  • @M_Adams said:

    @faoileag said:
    You mean, like in Taar Korma Goat Curry?

    [Mmmmm!][1]
    [1]: http://www.thetiffinbox.ca/2012/01/taar-korma-royal-indian-recipe-for.html

    And on a wooden table, too! Bravo, Sir!



  • M_Adams knows which side his naan is ghee'd on.


  • BINNED

    Damn it! Now I have to go find an Indian restaurant that carries this! I haven't had it in ages, and not ever here in Minnesota. Or I'll need to find goat/mutton and make it myself.

    You've all made me very hungry! Hope your happy! 😄


  • BINNED

    Damn, I'm getting slow minded in my old age!
    Just realized this:
    @faoileag said:

    And on a wooden table, too! Bravo, Sir!

    relates to this:

    @Onyx said:

    Not convincing enough for me.

    Now, if the goat was on a wooden table, maybe.


    Filed Under: look I made a funny




  • BINNED

    Nice trip down memory lane 😄


  • BINNED

    @chubertdev said:

    Don't worry, I'll just say his name three times on another post.

    Could you say "Beetlejuice" three times instead? Because that would be an improvement.



  • DIscourse. DISCOURSE. DISCOURSE.

    Filed under: that was close enough, right?


  • Banned



  • Whoops


  • There was a storm this Friday the 13th. It knocked out electricity in a part of client's building - the part that contains their two servers. When the power was restored on Saturday, one of the servers (5 years old HP ML350 G5, out of warranty) didn't finish booting up (froze on the Windows logo; trying to boot up a Linux rescue CD also resulted in a freeze during system initialization).
    Since we had a similar unused server at work, I took their drives, put them in our server and tested that it boots, then I took this server to client's location. However, when I connected the server there, it just beeped, and showed a hardware fault LED. I tried moving everything but the motherboard back to the original server, but that still froze during bootup.
    We bought a new server yesterday, and I borrowed another ML350 G5 from a different client to copy the data over. Except that when I powered it on, it's RAID failed with self-test error. Luckily, replacing the RAID controller from our dead server worked, system booted up, and I installed VMWare Converter. Unfortunately nothing I tried would get VMWare Converter to run, so in the end I enabled LSISAS driver in Registry, booted Linux again and dded the disk content over the network to my workstation where built a VM around the raw disk, and then uploaded that to the new server.
    Verified that everything works, then connected the new server at client's location at 1 in the morning, checked again that everything works, then went to sleep.



  • You sysadmins have it rough.


  • BINNED

    But only on friday 13. The rest of the year they slack off.

    And excuse me now I need to go hide in the closet from the angry sysops guys/ladys banging on my door.



  • Franken-server.

    It's aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive.



  • Found something Friday that I've determined is most definitely a WTF. This is going to take forever to type out this Inner Platform Effect post.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    The true frankenserver is the one that is booted up by being hit by lightning.

    Filed under: For Science!



  • Johnny Five... is alive :)



  • Representative method:

            static public void AddStringParam(SqlCommand cmd, string ParamName, string ParamValue, int nLen, bool Unicode = false)
        {
            if (ParamValue.Length > nLen)
            {
                ParamValue = ParamValue.Substring(0, nLen);
            }
    
            SqlParameter p = new SqlParameter(ParamName, (Unicode ? SqlDbType.NVarChar : SqlDbType.VarChar), nLen);
            p.Direction = ParameterDirection.Input;
            p.Value = ParamValue;
            cmd.Parameters.Add(p);
        }


  • @chubertdev said:

    if (ParamValue.Length > nLen)
    {
    ParamValue = ParamValue.Substring(0, nLen);
    }

    You just have to admire it how the parameter value is arbitrarily shortened to nLen...



  • @faoileag said:

    You just have to admire it how the parameter value is arbitrarily shortened to nLen...

    It's not like if you specify the length in a SqlParameter constructor that it would automatically truncate it to that length. #ohwaitittotallydoes

    I can't wait to post this WTF.


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