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code logs -> 2006 -> Mon, 18 Sep 2006< code.20060917.log - code.20060919.log >
--- Log opened Mon Sep 18 00:00:50 2006
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12:22
< Reiver>
Hihi.
12:22
<@McMartin>
Hey
12:22
< Reiver>
So, uh.
12:22
< Reiver>
I was poking at my scheduler program that I am meant to be writing.
12:22
<@McMartin>
Right
12:23
< Reiver>
The entries are supposed to have:
12:23
< Reiver>
A date on which they occur
12:23
< Reiver>
 A start time
12:23
< Reiver>
 An end time
12:23
< Reiver>
 A place
12:23
< Reiver>
 A priority (e.g. high, normal, low)
12:23
< Reiver>
 A description
12:23
< Reiver>
 An alarm (i.e. the program will alert the user of an appointment some amount of time before
12:23
< Reiver>
the appointment occurs)
12:23
< Reiver>
It strikes me that the first one - a date on which they're meant to occur - is entirely pointless to actually store, isn't it?
12:24
< Reiver>
As wouldn't you just use the start time?
12:24
<@McMartin>
Assuming said time includes a date in it, yes.
12:24 * Reiver does not know terribly much about how cleanly Java handles dates, and date formatting.
12:24
< Reiver>
Is it possible to store a data with the date, and then only display the hours/minutes 'on screen'?
12:26
<@McMartin>
You can do an awful lot of weird shit with dates in Java, because it was designed with internationalization (henceforth to be abbreviated to i18n) in mind.
12:26
<@McMartin>
Check to see what java.util.Date and its friends can do for you.
12:26
< Reiver>
Ok!
12:26
< Reiver>
Also.
12:26 * McMartin also isn't sure if Date and Time are different classes or not. If they are, you'll need a Date and a Time for your start and end times.
12:26
< Reiver>
My idea was to build a search alograthm thingy.
12:26
< Reiver>
Aha. Okay.
12:27
< Reiver>
This search thingy, er.
12:27
< Reiver>
Is it possible - indeed, a good idea at all - to have a generic search alograthm that's able to handle various kinds of inputs and return the desired entry?
12:28
<@McMartin>
It's called "use java.util.Map", typically.
12:28
< Reiver>
Or is it better to have SearchStart, SearchPriority, SearchCalendar functions instead of Search(Calendar, XX);
12:28
<@McMartin>
Ah, hmm.
12:28
<@McMartin>
Right, you're indexing by a bunch of different things.
12:28
< Reiver>
Right.
12:29
< Reiver>
I'm wondering which approach results in the most minimally Chtuluian Horror code.
12:29
< Reiver>
>.>
12:29
<@McMartin>
The former.
12:29
< Reiver>
Hm. Okay.
12:29
<@McMartin>
After you do the former, you can always write your generic Search method to work out which submethod needs calling and have it forward to that call.
12:29
< Reiver>
...?
12:29
< Reiver>
Oh, wait.
12:30
<@McMartin>
Search has three arguments, not two.
12:30
< Reiver>
I get it, right.
12:30
< Reiver>
(Three?)
12:30
<@ToxicFrog>
Search(Calendar, Foo, Calendar.SEARCH_BY_PRIORITY)
12:31
<@McMartin>
This also assumes, idly, that all searches search *for* the same types of objects, which seems unlikely.
12:31
<@McMartin>
... though if they don't, I *guess* you could search for an object and use a chain of instanceof checks to see where to go. Ugly, though.
12:31
<@McMartin>
Stick to the specialized functions, because then you can tack on a generic version trivially later.
12:32 * Reiver nods.
12:32
< Reiver>
And the Search function returns the object, correct?
12:32
<@ToxicFrog>
And now, stats. Ta.
12:32
< Reiver>
...Or the objects in an array list, at least.
12:32
< Reiver>
...Byebye, TF?
12:33
<@McMartin>
Sounds about right.
12:33
<@McMartin>
I tend to use the most generic possible collection that can represent the result in a usable form
12:34
<@McMartin>
So only return an ArrayList if both order and random access are important.
12:34
<@McMartin>
If only order is important, it's better form to just return List.
12:38 * Reiver nods.
12:39
< Reiver>
Although I thought ArrayLists let you dynamically add things to them.
12:39
<@McMartin>
All lists let you do that.
12:39
<@McMartin>
Or at least, let you try.
12:40
<@McMartin>
UnmodifiableList will throw an OperationNotSupportedException, but LinkedLists can certainly be added to.
12:41
<@McMartin>
(If you didn't get this part out of your classes yet: ArrayList = access anything instantly, can add at the end or beginning reasonably fast, inserting in the middle is hella slow. LinkedList inserts near a known element (or at the beginning and end instantly), recovers the beginning and end instantly, but finding stuff in the middle is hella slow.)
12:45
< Reiver>
Hmm.
12:45
< Reiver>
Random access...
12:45
< Reiver>
.../Could/ be useful for bringing up entries in the middle of a list of appointments for a day.
12:46 * Reiver tries to think.
12:47
<@McMartin>
If all you're going to do is iterate over it on the other end, you really only need a Collection.
12:47
<@McMartin>
But ehn. That's really a fairly trivial sort of thing
12:47
<@McMartin>
Especially since, AIUI, you guys haven't done big-O notation yet?
12:48
< Reiver>
Not that I'm aware of, no...
12:48
<@McMartin>
Yeah. Ignore most of the last bits of what I said. They will presumably come up later in the course.
12:49
< Reiver>
Ok.
13:01
<@McMartin>
(It's a way of talking about how expensive different techniques are. If it doesn't come up, I will sulk (tm).)
13:01
< Reiver>
(...Ah, okay.)
13:01
< Reiver>
(I shall let you know!)
13:05 * TheWatcher[wr0k] notes that, in his experience, most places don't touch big-O in introductory programming courses, leaving it for advanced datastructures or programming modules
13:07
<@McMartin>
... interesting.
13:08
<@McMartin>
(After all, it's more important for the line troops to know when to use a Linked List and when to use a Red-Black tree than it is to be able to actually build the damned things.)
13:10
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
But then, I'm also becoming cynical about a number of univerisities who appear to be treating CS more as "How to program in $language" (where $language tends to be something high-level that does for too much hand-holding) as opposed to "this is how a computer works, this is programming in @languages, this is how you build a computer, this is how you write an OS for it"
13:11
<@McMartin>
You can build it that way, indeed
13:11
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
(a first indicator of this happening seems to be dropping assembler and ML modules from the first year)
13:11
<@McMartin>
That... depends.
13:11
<@McMartin>
You can, after all, go the other direction.
13:12
<@McMartin>
If you start with that other ML, the ML you name shows up at the end of the arc.
13:12
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
Teach them a high level language to let them learn good practices and then give them the nasty details, you mean?
13:12
<@McMartin>
Well.
13:12 * McMartin gestures at SICP.
13:13
<@McMartin>
Start at theory -- CS is, in some sense, applied philosophy -- and move progressively closer to metal.
13:13
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
I suppose
13:14
<@McMartin>
My training went that way, in any event, though I tested out of the data structures part.
13:14
<@McMartin>
But we'd had at least basic complexity analysis in the first course.
13:14 * TheWatcher[wr0k] ponders
13:15
<@McMartin>
This, I note, did an excellent job of teaching humility to the l33t h4xx0rz that knew C coming in and therefore knew everything.
13:15
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
Mine was in a first year, first sememster module on alorithms and graph theory
13:15
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
Seperate from the programming modules (which were C, SML and MIPS assembler)
13:15
<@McMartin>
Heh. Patterson and Hennesey?
13:16
<@McMartin>
I haven't worked out precisely what Stanford does, though it looks a lot like they're aiming at making it easy to churn out "line troops", while Berkeley was trying to break that outright.
13:16
<@McMartin>
(Berkeley starts at Scheme, then went through C++/Java in the Data Structures class down to C and MIPS assembler.)
13:17
<@McMartin>
http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/ is SICP, incidentally. Yay textbooks being free online.
13:17
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
Similar, but Manchester had put their courses together somewhat ad-hoc based on experience... now they've dropped all three and are teaching first years one language in the first semester: java.
13:18
<@McMartin>
... yeah, Berkeley's attitude towards computer languages was totally "You should be able to pick up what you need in a weekend, and if not, there are 500 people who'd love to take your place"
13:18
<@McMartin>
Java's a reasonable instructional language.
13:18
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
They were trying to put of even going near C until the second year, but there was a small hard core of dissidents who managed to keep it as a second semester course.
13:19
<@McMartin>
I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that one should not learn C until after learning an assembly language of some kind.
13:19
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
Indeed
13:19
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
If only because it makes explainging how pointers and structs work /so much easier/
13:19
<@McMartin>
This is a modification of the conclusion I made years ago which is that if you're teaching anything other than memory management, you must teach it in a language other than C or C++, or else your TAs will hate you forever.
13:19
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
Heh
13:20
<@McMartin>
Most of the irrational bits of my Java partisanship come from TAing the same class (program analysis) twice -- once in C++ and once in Java.
13:22
<@McMartin>
90% of my time in the C++ case was dealing with (a) people who didn't know how to use pointers, (b) people who didn't know how to use templates, (c) people under the highly mistaken impression that standards-compliant C++ compilers existed (this was in the days when g++ 2.96 was the latest actually stable version)
13:23
<@McMartin>
That kind of thing dropped to 20% once it shifted to Java.
13:23
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
Yeah, frankly I think that people shouldn't even be allowed near STL until they know how to understand and play with pointers like the back of their hand anyway.
13:24
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
OR even any kind of template
13:24
<@McMartin>
(c) was from people who thought that the STL would actually behave as described~
13:24
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
Ahahahah
13:24
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
*ahem*
13:24
<@McMartin>
Well.
13:25
<@McMartin>
As of gcc 3.3 it mostly does.
13:25
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
(oh, the times I've just said "bugger it" and writtenmy own code instead of using STL because it was just so much less grief)
13:25
<@McMartin>
As of 2.96, though? Even vector<int> would detonate the entire lab.
13:25 * McMartin is generally of the opinion that if the problem isn't messy enough to require the STL, he has no business using C++ at all.
13:26 * TheWatcher[wr0k] shrugs, uses c/c++ for stuff where he may even end up having to drop in inline assembler
13:26
<@McMartin>
I tend to go Straight C in such cases.
13:27 * TheWatcher[wr0k] nods
13:27
<@McMartin>
But then, I learned functionals at a young and tender age, and my OO work tends to show up with an accent as a result.
13:27
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
I very rarely use most C++ features, other than classes and operator overloading in most cases.
13:27 * McMartin eyes the various anonymous inner classes throughout his Java code serving the place of lambdas.
13:27
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
Heh
13:28
<@McMartin>
To say nothing of the huge number of Visitor classes, but, ehn. I'm mostly writing tree-walkers anyway.
13:28 * McMartin finds SML's pattern-matching-on-constructors approach vastly more intuitive than virtual function calls.
13:29
<@McMartin>
Even though it's the last one I learned, it maps the best to way I think about things.
13:29
<@McMartin>
As such, my classes tend more towards being verbs than nouns anyway.
13:30
<@McMartin>
And the more I work on Sable, the less C++ ends up in the main core.
13:30
<@McMartin>
I may end up being able to turn much of it's "engine" into pure C that lives with the SVAF libraries.
13:30
<@McMartin>
That's, uh, Pretty Far Down the old list of priorities, though.
13:31
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
Quite :)
13:33
<@McMartin>
I would like to get at least the OBB-collision code in there at some point, though.
13:33
<@McMartin>
I'm actually pretty fond of the level of detail I got into its collision model.
13:34
<@McMartin>
And as a general engine it really needs to have that collision model as part of the actual, you know, models.
13:34
< Reiver>
We learned C/C++ first.
13:34 * EvilDarkLord idly tries to assimilate tips for the future from this conversation totally over his head.
13:34
< Reiver>
Basic programming first year, pointers in the second semester, data structures 1st semester 2nd year, Java and Object-Oriented 2nd semester 2nd year.
13:34 * TheWatcher[wr0k] tends to be rather terrible about programming, using the language he finds easiest to use to solve a given problem rather than going with a launguage because of "conceptual cleanliness" or prevailing language fads. Hence his continued use of lanugages most people classify as chthonic horrors
13:35
<@McMartin>
TW: Your language of choice reigns supreme in bioinformatics.
13:35
< Reiver>
(Which?)
13:35
< Reiver>
(Perl?)
13:35
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
Yeah. And it scares the hell out of me that we teach them C and Java but there is no official perl course
13:35
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
Yet
13:35
< Reiver>
Hehehehe
13:35
< Reiver>
Perl is scary.
13:35
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
until I persuade them to let me write one
13:36
< Reiver>
But not really.
13:36
< Reiver>
What is scary is trying to mark it...
13:36
<@McMartin>
EvilDarkLord: If you want to dive in head first, check out that SICP link I gave. It's intended as an introductory text, and it uses a programming language that is one of the most conceptually powerful out there -- and also with the absolute simplest syntax.
13:37
<@McMartin>
If, on the other hand, you want to pick up something that will get you as quickly as possible to the point where you can actually use to get a computer to work things out for you, I suggest heading to http://www.python.org/ and finding one of the tutorials for nonprogrammers.
13:38
<@McMartin>
The syntax is more complicated, but it tends to produce things that are easier for humans to actually, like, read and write.
13:39
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
Reiver: actually, I find that there is little real difference between languages as far as marking is concerned. If nothing else, if I can't read it right off, they lose half th emarks there and then.
13:39
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
And they know this.
13:39
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
It makes for rather more readable code very, very quickly
13:41
<@McMartin>
Heh
13:41
<@McMartin>
Making readable Perl isn't really that hard.
13:41
<@McMartin>
You just have to forcibly ignore 70% of the language's features.
13:41
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
Pft
13:41
<@McMartin>
In particular, any and every use of $_.
13:42
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
Yes
13:42
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
Ohgodyes
13:42
<@McMartin>
Inform 7 has something kind of similar to that, and I even use it, but I also use paragraphing to make it clear wtf I'm doing.
13:42
<@McMartin>
(to wit, "it".)
13:43
<@McMartin>
Thus: Some mighty op powers are a thing. The description of them is "...". They are carried.
13:43
<@McMartin>
etc. etc.
13:43
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
Or worse yet, not even using $_ explicitly and using the fact that it's there implicitly in things like loop bodies
13:45
<@McMartin>
Yeah. I was counting that as "use of $_"
13:45 * TheWatcher[wr0k] nods
13:45
<@McMartin>
To say nothing at all of commands like "shift;" or "print;".
13:45
<@McMartin>
Augh it hurts us
13:45
<@McMartin>
(C++ also becomes a nice language if you don't use anything in it that isn't also in Java~)
13:50 * EvilDarkLord hm. Have any of you lot come across / used EIFFEL?
13:50
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
Actually, I do admit to using shift for things like function arguments - my $arg1 = shift; my $arg2 = shift; ..etc.. although for larger arg lists I'll use my ($arg1, $arg2,...) = @_;
13:50
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
Yes, only in passing though
13:51
<@McMartin>
EvilDarkLord: I have very brief experience with a cousin language of it -- it was a variant version of a class I once TAed for.
13:51
<@McMartin>
TW: Yeah, actually, sufficiently scripted use of it is fine.
13:51 * McMartin never really got how the Perl namespaces worked.
14:15
< EvilDarkLord>
McMartin: I take it the link you posted to SICP is something that Every Aspiring Programmer Should Read(tm) ?
14:15
<@McMartin>
EDL: I'm not sure I'd go that far.
14:16
<@McMartin>
It was, however, the introductory text presented to me when I was a young undergrad.
14:16
<@McMartin>
It has also been, in various forms, the First Book that MIT gave to its students for many, many years.
14:16
<@McMartin>
A lot of other schools (including mine) also use it.
14:16
<@McMartin>
It's really more of a big-picture kind of thing, though.
14:17
<@McMartin>
If you're just trying to bend computers to your will it isn't really that interested in helping you out.
14:21
< EvilDarkLord>
Hm. I could do with a big-picture view at computing. Hopefully I will end up working at large-scale projects and it seems like useful general knowledge.
14:24
<@McMartin>
The language it uses isn't really used for much out in the real world, but it's really handy for talking about the concepts with.
14:24
<@McMartin>
And it doesn't touch any of the bits of that language that are really kind of Zen koans.
14:24
<@McMartin>
call-with-current-continuation is pretty deep magic.
14:26 * TheWatcher[wr0k] notes to EDL that one thing he will find around programmers is that it is practically more of a Tao than a profession...
14:27 * EvilDarkLord grins.
14:27
< EvilDarkLord>
Thanks for the help again, I'm off for foodage.
14:27
<@McMartin>
You'll find worse than me down that road, but I'm pretty far gone, I admit.
14:27 EvilDarkLord is now known as EvilNromLord
14:27 * McMartin prefers the term "calling" to "Tao" though
14:28 * TheWatcher[wr0k] nods
14:29
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
It's kinda funny, but I can;t really say I've run into any other group that treats what they do in quite the same way as hackers
14:30
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
(using the word in the Old School sense, of course)
14:30
<@McMartin>
Nobody else gets to have their incantations actually work.
14:30
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
This is true
14:31
<@McMartin>
... and the bus arrives in 15 minutes.
14:31 * McMartin goes to shave, and change into some more flexible clothing.
14:32
<@TheWatcher[wr0k]>
Bye
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15:08 * ToxicFrog pokes GTK with a stick.
15:08
<@ToxicFrog>
Writing my GUI from scratching using SDL - again - is looking more and more tempting.
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16:03
<@McMartin>
TF: If you do, zomg share.
16:11
<@ToxicFrog>
McM: I do not mean "writing a general toolkit on top of SDL", although I want to do that someday.
16:12
<@ToxicFrog>
I mean "hardcoding the damn thing like I did for netspellcast 1.x"
16:12
<@McMartin>
Ah.
16:12
<@ToxicFrog>
Before I write the general toolkit I want to finish luaSDL, anyways.
16:13
<@ToxicFrog>
Although I think it's complete enough for basic widgets and stuff already.
17:10 McMartin is now known as McMartin[battles]
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17:23 You're now known as TheWatcher[afk]
17:44
<@Chalain>
In other news, very shortly I am going to bind the CodeMonkeys to this channel. I'm planning to give jerith and vorn moderator access. Is there anybody else in here who should be on that list?
17:44
<@Chalain>
Oh, and lest the question be completely begged, would this be a Good Thing(tm)?
17:44
<@Vornicus>
Probably Reiver and TF
17:44 * Chalain thinks it would be, as would Vornicus per our recent F2F PM.
18:07
<@Vornicus>
Everyone else in here is not actually staff yet, despite my best efforts. :P
18:25 EvilNromLord is now known as EvilDarkLord
18:43 You're now known as TheWatcher
18:47
< ToxicFrog|AFK>
McM should probably get op status anyways, for UQM if nothing else~
18:52 * EvilDarkLord idles lots, if that helps :p
18:53 * TheWatcher probably shouldn't if only because of his dabbling in the drak and forbidden arts
18:53
<@TheWatcher>
*dark
18:55
< EvilDarkLord>
The chthonic horrors you keep referring to?
18:56
<@TheWatcher>
Yes
18:56
<@TheWatcher>
Perl ¬¬
19:07 McMartin[battles] is now known as McMartin
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20:13
<@Vornicus>
man, there's got to be a better way to texmap spheres.
20:13 * Chalcedon gives Vorn a cookie
20:25
<@jerith>
Evening all.
20:38
<@jerith>
It's been yonks since I last visited Code Monkeys...
20:46 MahalZzz is now known as Mahal
20:46
< Mahal>
evening jerith
20:47 Mahal [~Mahal@Nightstar-13918.worldnet.co.nz] has quit [Quit: It's hard to be mad at someone who misses you while you're asleep. ]
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21:29 You're now known as TheWatcher[afk]
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22:14
<@Chalcedon>
oh query
22:15
<@Chalcedon>
if I was going to be doing some... for want of a better way of putting it, heavily mathematical programming (eg modelling). Could someone recommend a language?
22:15
<@jerith>
SELECT * FROM foo;
22:15
<@Vornicus>
Pretty much any language will do.
22:15
<@jerith>
Hmm...
22:15
<@jerith>
Matlab/octave perhaps?
22:16
<@Chalcedon>
yes but are any better than others?
22:16
<@Vornicus>
I wrote an elementary raytracer in Python, heavy matrix math in C++, and I'm now working on computational algebra in Ruby.
22:16
<@jerith>
Python has a lot of good numerical stuff in it.
22:17
<@jerith>
numpy, I think.
22:17
<@Vornicus>
I recommend something with a built-in exponentiation operator (python or ruby does, C/C++/Java does not)
22:17
<@Vornicus>
So, uh, in short? Stick with what you've got.
22:17
<@ToxicFrog>
Yeah, Python is nice for this.
22:17
<@Chalcedon>
if python will cope, it'd likely be best to stay with a language I know
22:17
<@ToxicFrog>
Although I'm partial to Postscript myself.
22:17
<@Vornicus>
Python will work nicely.
22:18
<@Chalcedon>
well, thats handy.
22:18
<@Chalcedon>
thank you :)
22:18
<@jerith>
:-
22:18
<@jerith>
)
22:19
<@Vornicus>
(I would implement computational algebra in Python, but being able to change the way integers work is so very nice)
22:24 * Vornicus ponders sphere texturing again.
22:25
<@Vornicus>
...you know, I do have geodesation code. What if I fed it a tetrahedron?
22:25 * jerith textures Vorn's spheres.
22:25
<@Vornicus>
:o
22:30
<@Vornicus>
then I get two rhombi of texture, which I can easily flip to squares, and then... that's kinda epic.
22:31
<@Vornicus>
ALso, random observation #15,000: Ruby is the only language I'm aware of that uses every ascii printable character..
22:31
<@jerith>
?
22:31
<@jerith>
APL?
22:31
<@jerith>
:-P
22:31
<@Vornicus>
...okay, the only /real/ language.
22:32
<@Vornicus>
bastige.
22:32
<@jerith>
APL uses far more than ASCII, though.
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22:35
<@ToxicFrog>
APL is scary.
22:36
<@Vornicus>
(and, despite using all the ascii characters,still has to overload some of them for several different things. cripes.)
22:36
<@jerith>
It actually looks kinda nifty.
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--- Log closed Tue Sep 19 00:00:50 2006
code logs -> 2006 -> Mon, 18 Sep 2006< code.20060917.log - code.20060919.log >
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