Ask the Mormon

[ArcticFox]

I'd venture to say in some circles IT ALREADY IS.

And yeah. Anger issues are infuriating, especially when a friendly wargame almost becomes a table flip because one guy can't stand to lose.

[Eagle Eyes]

If you had medium length hair would you:

Gel it into a style?

or

Blow dry it into a style?

[ArcticFox]

If I had to choose one of those options, I'd blow dry... but in reality I'd probably just do what I always do, let it air dry after going over it with a towel.

I believe this to be the reason I'm 40 and still have my full head of hair

[Chozon1]

I like to hope that I would never flip a table, because that is just sooooooo much time, and money, and dedication. O_o On the other hand though, there's always *that* guy.

Transformers?

[ArcticFox]

Old school.

[Eagle Eyes]

If I had to choose one of those options, I'd blow dry... but in reality I'd probably just do what I always do, let it air dry after going over it with a towel.

I believe this to be the reason I'm 40 and still have my full head of hair

Awesome!

Favourite flavour candy?

[ArcticFox]

Butterscotch. Dark chocolate running a close second.

[Deepfreeze32]

Have you ever interviewed someone with an impressive resume who just couldn't code?

I have...it was uncomfortable. I think Jeff Atwood covered it decently over on codinghorror back in 2007, but I didn't really believe it until I saw it myself.

I know that there have been horribly embarrassing interviews when I was interviewing because I have bad review anxiety, but I was at least able to bang out a solution. I just...I don't get it.

Any thoughts?

[ArcticFox]

Yeah the biggest problem I've had comes from people who claim to be Java developers yet can't grasp Object-Oriented best practices. You look at a sample of their work and it's Java syntax but it's laid out like a procedural program such as FORTRAN or COBOL.

These are usually people who get most of their code copy/pasting from the Internet and have no real understanding of what's going on.

[Deepfreeze32]

Wow...

Java practically forces you to think in OO terms too...


So I saw a funny definition for Computer Science, and I thought I'd share. Thoughts (barring a bad bracing style)?

Code: Select all

class ComputerScience extends Math implements Engineering, Science { }

[ArcticFox]

I love it!

Yeah I have one guy on the team who wrote a 4,000 line god object that was so against OOP principles it isn't even funny. When I re-wrote it and told him a class should do ONE thing, he defended his god object saying IT did only one thing.

Apparently, according to him, one thing means:

Create, manage and call 3 separate web services
Create and manage 2 FTP connections
Process multiple data files all at once (In a single instance of the object)

Yeah... no.

[Eagle Eyes]

What is the craziest thing you ever did with a straw?

[ArcticFox]

Once I took a straw, and held it in my fist where I had a hidden mini cup of coffee creamer. Then I drew my fist up to my face so it looked like I was stabbing myself in the eye with the straw... This pierced the creamer cup so white fluid came pouring out of the straw and through my fingers... And of course I screamed for effect...

Peoples' reactions were epic...

[Deepfreeze32]

So the more I write C++, the more I begin to think that's not a very good language for high-level programming or low-level programming. It works reasonably well for, say, a game engine, but I would never wish it on my worst enemy to use C++ for kernel coding or very OO programs.

I just...I feel like C++ took C, a very good low-level language, and attempted to add Object Orientivity in a very slipshod fashion. It's annoying to make Objects and classes, and the resulting code if you try to use pseudo-generics is ugly as all get out. And while it's not a requirement, Garbage Collection makes OO way easier.

From a systems standpoint, classes and templates and exceptions just make kernel land all the more dangerous to work in. The safest way is to just use the parts from C, and if you're doing that, why use C++ at all?

Java isn't exactly the Usain Bolt of programming languages, but it's no couch potato either. Everything inheriting from Object is kind of weird, but at least Java makes Object Oriented programming much, much easier.


If you had to choose to develop in another programming language, what would you choose?

[ArcticFox]

Yeah the problem with C++ is it's a mashup of a lot of different sort of bolt-ons to C, with multiple paths to victory. You could have an entire career based on C++ programming and never solve problems using the same features as the guy next to you talking the same problems. The ANSI spec was an effort to trim that to something more consistent but it was probably asking too much.

If I were going to go to another language, it would probably be C, if only because it's so ubiquitous and because I've always been interested in doing some systems programming. No C++, just C. I did a little with it in college but I haven't touched it since then.

I recently started getting into programming for Android devices but it's all Java so there wasn't much difference there for me.