The readme is a blog post. It's worth a read.
scruff
@scruff
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RE: Why don't people just read my mails?
@henke37 said:
This is why all useful information should be guarded by a pop quiz so that ignorant people can't find it.
I once tried something along similar lines. On an internal wiki, we created an area where people could paste useful script snippets used in test. Since it was a dumb wiki (some time ago), all the code syntax would be interpreted in the wiki as formatting, so (a) it would look really weird, and (b) some of the code syntax wouldn't be visible, since the wiki formatter had already interpreted it as formatting. There was an easy workaround - click 'Edit page' on the wiki and you'd get the original source.
So, I put a big warning at the top of the page, saying "Formatting makes the scripts weird. Click 'Edit page' to see the script in un-mangled form". But I got complaints that the scripts were all mangled.
So, I changed the link to the scripts page to first go to a new page. This had the same warning as before, and then a link to the scripts, where the link text was something like "I understand I need to click 'Edit page' in order to see the un-mangled scripts." Foolproof, right? Of course not - I had just as many complaints as before*.
Conclusion? Users don't read anything, ever, for any reason. Corollory - if you have some kind of money-making scheme or business that relies on users being able to read, or indeed find their arse using both hands, you are doomed to failure. 1. Make it simple ; 2. Make it even simpler ; 3. ??? ; 4. Profit?!!
*not many - the wiki was only used within the internal test group.
[edit] Fixed formatting (I'm too stupid to format a post on a stupid forum).
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RE: SQL injection: I didn't know you could do that!
The only reason I can believe this argument over what 'professional' means has gone on so long, is that here I am, adding to it.
@bridget99 said:
I found a better source. It's a book called "Morality and the Professional Life: Values at Work," by Brincat and Wilke, published 2000 (Prentice-Hall). These are the qualities of a profession which are not aspects of software development :
*Requirements for admission
*Adherence to certain values
*Penalties for subpar performance
*[It must be] used in the service of a positive social needbridget99: "a Profession" and "Professional" are not exactly the same thing.
As any fule kno, 'professional' could mean:
* belonging to a Profession
* being paid for the task
... plus multiple other accepted definitions as per sabbott64 (or ANY OTHER FUCKING DICTIONARY ON THE PLANET).
And I'm not sure what the "Requirements for admission, adherence to certain valies, penalties for subpar performance and positive social need" are for the Oldest Profession. I didn't know the reqs were so stringent.
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RE: To turn or not to turn, that is the question.
I presume at this intersection:
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you may turn right, into the side road
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you may not do a U-turn and go back the way you came.
The sign is misleading, but I think it presumes since (being in the turn-right lane) you intend to drive into the side road, you are "facing" the side road - so at that point you can't turn right, because that would be a U-turn.
Or, the sign is just stupid.
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RE: Representative line
@Lorne Kates said:
Base-8. If it was base-7, that'd be 0x10.
(Note: It's entirely possible I'm full of shit on this one, in which case I'll need to sit out the rest of pedantic dickweek)
I'll bring my pedantry to the table then.
0n7[0...], being 7 with some number (O) of 0s, representing a number in base n, is 7 * (n ^ O). The prime factors of which are 7, and some others (PF of n*O).
We're talking about bits, which are in base 2. You can't represent 7 in base 2 with only 1 bit, no matter how hard you try. So 0n7[0...] can't ever be a valid "check top bit" value.
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RE: Representative line
@Rootbeer said:
What if this code is being run on an architecture where long integers are 23 bits wide?
Last time I checked, 0x7 comprised more than 1 bit, so this would still be wrong.
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Representative line
As I've mentioned before, it seems that some of my colleages (C developers) aren't to hot with hex. But this one really takes the biscuit:
unsigned long val = ... ;
...
// Test whether top bit is set
if (val & 0x700000) {
...
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RE: Communication
@blakeyrat said:
Which road sign do you think would be more effective: "DO NOT PASS" or "DO NOT PASS BECAUSE SERIOUSLY VISIBILITY HERE IS SHIT AND YOU WILL KILL THAT CUTE LITTLE GIRL TWO CARS IN FRONT OF YOU".
ooh, ooh I know this one: "DO NOT PASS". cos no driver is going to read that really long one.
Not sure how that example is relevant to the thread though. I liked your first example better.
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RE: Counting in deca-heximal
@dhromed said:
@The_Assimilator said:
What's stopping your colleagues from using a number system they ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND, like plain decimal?
The idea that hex is required by some sort of Rule & Law, and the inability to recognize that they're doing it wrong.
heh heh. It's probably the same reason that all the code's in C. Hey, it's worked for 20 years, why change it now?
I don't know why we always use hex for this sort of thing, but there you go. But don't think it's unreasonable to expect C devs should recognise hex when they see it.