Skip to content
  • Categories
  • Recent
  • Tags
  • Popular
  • World
  • Users
  • Groups
Skins
  • Light
  • Cerulean
  • Cosmo
  • Flatly
  • Journal
  • Litera
  • Lumen
  • Lux
  • Materia
  • Minty
  • Morph
  • Pulse
  • Sandstone
  • Simplex
  • Sketchy
  • Spacelab
  • United
  • Yeti
  • Zephyr
  • Dark
  • Cyborg
  • Darkly
  • Quartz
  • Slate
  • Solar
  • Superhero
  • Vapor

  • Default (No Skin)
  • No Skin
Collapse
Code Project
  1. Home
  2. The Lounge
  3. Programming isn't hard...

Programming isn't hard...

Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved The Lounge
66 Posts 31 Posters 0 Views 1 Watching
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as topic
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
  • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

    Is that a quote from the Guardians Saga? I do note however, that when you have moved all these items into the new ocean, you then discard the reference and effectively leave them adrift waiting for the Dark Lord G'Bge Cll'ctr to come and find them...

    Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together. Manfred R. Bihy: "Looks as if OP is learning resistant."

    M Offline
    M Offline
    Marc A Brown
    wrote on last edited by
    #18

    OriginalGriff wrote:

    Is that a quote from the Guardians Saga?

    Nope. Star Trek: The Next Generation [^] reference.

    1 Reply Last reply
    0
    • I Ian Shlasko

      Uh, no.... Not a Trekkie[^], are you?

      Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
      Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)

      OriginalGriffO Offline
      OriginalGriffO Offline
      OriginalGriff
      wrote on last edited by
      #19

      Sometimes - but Wesley Crusher scarred me so badly I couldn't watch TNG so the references didn't mean anything.

      Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together. Manfred R. Bihy: "Looks as if OP is learning resistant."

      "I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
      "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt

      I 1 Reply Last reply
      0
      • I Ian Shlasko

        Hey, be nice... Some of us made it to the second line :-D

        Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
        Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)

        Sander RosselS Offline
        Sander RosselS Offline
        Sander Rossel
        wrote on last edited by
        #20

        Yes, but how long did it take? And this is not even code. If reading this in code would take you as long as reading this in plain text the code would not even compile anymore on the computers that, by that time, have become modern ;p

        It's an OO world.

        public class Naerling : Lazy<Person>{}

        I 1 Reply Last reply
        0
        • C Chris Losinger

          i name every CWaitCursor i create the same thing: bob. true story.

          image processing toolkits | batch image processing

          Sander RosselS Offline
          Sander RosselS Offline
          Sander Rossel
          wrote on last edited by
          #21

          bobj? :)

          It's an OO world.

          public class Naerling : Lazy<Person>{}

          1 Reply Last reply
          0
          • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

            Sometimes - but Wesley Crusher scarred me so badly I couldn't watch TNG so the references didn't mean anything.

            Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together. Manfred R. Bihy: "Looks as if OP is learning resistant."

            I Offline
            I Offline
            Ian Shlasko
            wrote on last edited by
            #22

            Oh, come on... The character may have been a bit silly, but Wil Wheaton is cool... Gotta respect any Hollywood actor who's an active member of Slashdot.

            Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
            Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)

            OriginalGriffO 1 Reply Last reply
            0
            • Sander RosselS Sander Rossel

              Yes, but how long did it take? And this is not even code. If reading this in code would take you as long as reading this in plain text the code would not even compile anymore on the computers that, by that time, have become modern ;p

              It's an OO world.

              public class Naerling : Lazy<Person>{}

              I Offline
              I Offline
              Ian Shlasko
              wrote on last edited by
              #23

              Um, a few seconds... It was something about bags... After a few lines, I realized it wasn't worth continuing :)

              Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
              Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)

              1 Reply Last reply
              0
              • Sander RosselS Sander Rossel

                Allright, here it goes. I have an Object of any type that needs to have something done with/upon it. What is this Object called? Simply obj seems to easy. objToDoSomethingWith is to long. handledObj sounds as if something has already been done with it. handlingObj is just weird. objToHandle, well that might cause confusion. I could replace obj with item, but that does not solve anything. Perhaps I should not be thinking about this at the end of the day. Or perhaps I should just go with obj... Or item. Choices, choices... :sigh:

                It's an OO world.

                public class Naerling : Lazy<Person>{}

                A Offline
                A Offline
                Albert Holguin
                wrote on last edited by
                #24

                What kind of object is it? ...if it's to remain abstract... then obj seems good enough for me.

                Sander RosselS 1 Reply Last reply
                0
                • I Ian Shlasko

                  Oh, come on... The character may have been a bit silly, but Wil Wheaton is cool... Gotta respect any Hollywood actor who's an active member of Slashdot.

                  Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
                  Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)

                  OriginalGriffO Offline
                  OriginalGriffO Offline
                  OriginalGriff
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #25

                  The character should have been fed to rabid Tribbles at birth. Or Lieutenant Yar if health and safety rules forbid rabid Tribbles on Star Fleet vessels. Unlikely, I admit - Star Fleet don't seem to have any truck with H&S legislation, or they wouldn't fill all the computer consoles with semtex...

                  Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together. Manfred R. Bihy: "Looks as if OP is learning resistant."

                  "I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
                  "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt

                  I 1 Reply Last reply
                  0
                  • Sander RosselS Sander Rossel

                    Thinking of names for your classes and variables, THAT's hard... :doh: Frustration #1 of the evening... :sigh:

                    It's an OO world.

                    public class Naerling : Lazy<Person>{}

                    S Offline
                    S Offline
                    Single Step Debugger
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #26

                    I used to name all my functions in alphabetical order with the letters of the alphabet i.e. A(), B(), C(), D() etc. in the order of creation. But for some strange reason my boss went really mental about it questioning my professionalism and sanity and screaming the he is gonna do anatomically impossible things with me and the keyboard if I don’t start naming the functions with a meaningful words. So now I'm naming them: Alpha(), Bravo(), Charlie(), Delta(), Echo(), Foxtrot() etc. After that I’m closing them in regions named “A2C”, “D2O” and “P2Z”. It’s pretty, readable and intuitive. I hope my boss will be happy know.

                    There is only one Vera Farmiga and Salma Hayek is her prophet! Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.

                    1 Reply Last reply
                    0
                    • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

                      I'd forgotten just how impenetrably Dijkstra wrote: I needed a good long run up to read him when I was a student. And several large drinks afterwards. Mind you, at least he didn't make you fall asleep like Knuth did... But that could have been the large drinks!

                      Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together. Manfred R. Bihy: "Looks as if OP is learning resistant."

                      _ Offline
                      _ Offline
                      _beauw_
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #27

                      Yeah, it's true. The theme of many of Dijkstra's arguments was that natural language is a poor vehicle for discussing problems in computation, and his writing style seems at times to be intended to prove this assertion! I have read through his "Meaningful Identifiers" paper, though, and in summary, his basic point seems to be that attempting to give variables descriptive natural language names is a trap. A natural language name can never truly express what a variable is, fundamentally, or what it does, only provide hints. Because these natural language names are subjective and ambiguous, a danger occurs when people (e.g. maintenance programmers) attempt to extract meaning from them instead of just reading the code, e.g.

                      #define max_subscript 4

                      //...

                      int some_array[max_subscript];

                      The declaration at the end of this snippet implies that the name max_subscript is actually an inaccurate description. The real maximum subscript is 3. But in order to detect this, one must 1) be familiar with C syntax and 2) actually see and consider this declaration (versus simply seeing the incorrectly named constant used elsewhere). As a result, we would be better off if max_subscript were simply called M (or iLikeFishTacos, brett_favre, etc.) Dijkstra's argument seems sound, but in practice I do give my identifiers meaningful natural-language names, because people expect this. It's not difficult to extend Dijkstra's argument about identifier names to comments as well... consider the following:

                      void a_function()
                      {
                      int * a = new int; //Allocate "a" on the stack

                      //...

                      }//All that stuff we allocated on the stack gets cleaned up automatically here

                      Again, this is a simplistic example (that int isn't on the stack and it won't get cleaned up automatically). Hopefully, though, the message is clear: we'd actually be better off without those supposedly helpful comments. As an experienced programmer, I have suffered through a few scenarios where an inaccurate comment actually did slow me down. However, I must be careful to point out that none of these extreme positions reflect my own personal programming practice... (although I do think that developers should at least acquaint themselves with Dijkstra's argument).

                      OriginalGriffO P 2 Replies Last reply
                      0
                      • Sander RosselS Sander Rossel

                        You mean my code should be gibberish and no one should ever be able to read past the first line? X|

                        It's an OO world.

                        public class Naerling : Lazy<Person>{}

                        _ Offline
                        _ Offline
                        _beauw_
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #28

                        This is Dijkstra's opinion, not mine! But I think he would tell you that mathematicians get by with X, Y, theta, pi, etc., and that programming is just a species of mathematics. After all, Einstein didn't discover that realEnergy = realMass * [ (squareRootOfTheSpeedOfLight)² ] Rather, he was just fine with E=mc², and (amazingly, if all you know is programming) people still embraced his findings.

                        I S B 3 Replies Last reply
                        0
                        • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

                          The character should have been fed to rabid Tribbles at birth. Or Lieutenant Yar if health and safety rules forbid rabid Tribbles on Star Fleet vessels. Unlikely, I admit - Star Fleet don't seem to have any truck with H&S legislation, or they wouldn't fill all the computer consoles with semtex...

                          Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together. Manfred R. Bihy: "Looks as if OP is learning resistant."

                          I Offline
                          I Offline
                          Ian Shlasko
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #29

                          OriginalGriff wrote:

                          Star Fleet don't seem to have any truck with H&S legislation, or they wouldn't fill all the computer consoles with semtex...

                          Yeah, I always wondered why it was that they could manage matter-energy conversion, subspace communication, and warp drive... But couldn't seem to figure out how to make a surge protector or... *gasp*... a FUSE!

                          Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
                          Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)

                          L A 2 Replies Last reply
                          0
                          • A Albert Holguin

                            What kind of object is it? ...if it's to remain abstract... then obj seems good enough for me.

                            Sander RosselS Offline
                            Sander RosselS Offline
                            Sander Rossel
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #30

                            I just went for item. And yes, it is to remain abstract. It is an Interface Method that has a T (as in generic) as a parameter. That is the reason I did not want to go for obj. Because the parameter is of type T, which is more specific than an Object.

                            It's an OO world.

                            public class Naerling : Lazy<Person>{}

                            B 1 Reply Last reply
                            0
                            • _ _beauw_

                              This is Dijkstra's opinion, not mine! But I think he would tell you that mathematicians get by with X, Y, theta, pi, etc., and that programming is just a species of mathematics. After all, Einstein didn't discover that realEnergy = realMass * [ (squareRootOfTheSpeedOfLight)² ] Rather, he was just fine with E=mc², and (amazingly, if all you know is programming) people still embraced his findings.

                              I Offline
                              I Offline
                              Ian Shlasko
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #31

                              Dijkstra didn't have to debug an option valuation model written in C++ by a math PhD... True story... Almost every variable in the Black-Scholes calculation was one or two letters long, and none of them had any relevance to what they represented. Don't get me wrong... It (mostly) worked, and it was fast, but... Ow, my eyes!

                              Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
                              Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)

                              _ M 2 Replies Last reply
                              0
                              • Sander RosselS Sander Rossel

                                Thinking of names for your classes and variables, THAT's hard... :doh: Frustration #1 of the evening... :sigh:

                                It's an OO world.

                                public class Naerling : Lazy<Person>{}

                                E Offline
                                E Offline
                                Ennis Ray Lynch Jr
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #32

                                I am currently in the fourth phase of naming. Phase I: Short undescriptive names; great for college kids and prima donas Phase II: Names of nouns that are easy to remember but have no bearing on code Phase III: Logical naming based on context, type, and use Phase IV: Whatever you feel like because you are in charge. Don't worry, naming gets easier with time.

                                Need custom software developed? I do custom programming based primarily on MS tools with an emphasis on C# development and consulting. I also do Android Programming as I find it a refreshing break from the MS. "And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs" -- Robert Frost

                                1 Reply Last reply
                                0
                                • _ _beauw_

                                  Yeah, it's true. The theme of many of Dijkstra's arguments was that natural language is a poor vehicle for discussing problems in computation, and his writing style seems at times to be intended to prove this assertion! I have read through his "Meaningful Identifiers" paper, though, and in summary, his basic point seems to be that attempting to give variables descriptive natural language names is a trap. A natural language name can never truly express what a variable is, fundamentally, or what it does, only provide hints. Because these natural language names are subjective and ambiguous, a danger occurs when people (e.g. maintenance programmers) attempt to extract meaning from them instead of just reading the code, e.g.

                                  #define max_subscript 4

                                  //...

                                  int some_array[max_subscript];

                                  The declaration at the end of this snippet implies that the name max_subscript is actually an inaccurate description. The real maximum subscript is 3. But in order to detect this, one must 1) be familiar with C syntax and 2) actually see and consider this declaration (versus simply seeing the incorrectly named constant used elsewhere). As a result, we would be better off if max_subscript were simply called M (or iLikeFishTacos, brett_favre, etc.) Dijkstra's argument seems sound, but in practice I do give my identifiers meaningful natural-language names, because people expect this. It's not difficult to extend Dijkstra's argument about identifier names to comments as well... consider the following:

                                  void a_function()
                                  {
                                  int * a = new int; //Allocate "a" on the stack

                                  //...

                                  }//All that stuff we allocated on the stack gets cleaned up automatically here

                                  Again, this is a simplistic example (that int isn't on the stack and it won't get cleaned up automatically). Hopefully, though, the message is clear: we'd actually be better off without those supposedly helpful comments. As an experienced programmer, I have suffered through a few scenarios where an inaccurate comment actually did slow me down. However, I must be careful to point out that none of these extreme positions reflect my own personal programming practice... (although I do think that developers should at least acquaint themselves with Dijkstra's argument).

                                  OriginalGriffO Offline
                                  OriginalGriffO Offline
                                  OriginalGriff
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #33

                                  _beauw_ wrote:

                                  The declaration at the end of this snippet implies that the name max_subscript is actually an inaccurate description.

                                  I would agree, but that isn't a fault of the naming convention. Rather, it is a fault of the coder: max_subscript is wrong, and doesn't describe what the constant is used for: max_elements_count would have been better (or max_whatevertheheckthearrayholds_count even better still) For me, the problem is I grew up with Fortran, where a line of code was 80 characters, and variables were a max of six characters. Generally names were impenetrable, short and unrelated to the use. So, when I can I use "proper" names for things, because it means I can read the code in six months time and stand a vague chance of working out how it works. :laugh:

                                  Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together. Manfred R. Bihy: "Looks as if OP is learning resistant."

                                  "I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
                                  "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt

                                  J B 2 Replies Last reply
                                  0
                                  • I Ian Shlasko

                                    Dijkstra didn't have to debug an option valuation model written in C++ by a math PhD... True story... Almost every variable in the Black-Scholes calculation was one or two letters long, and none of them had any relevance to what they represented. Don't get me wrong... It (mostly) worked, and it was fast, but... Ow, my eyes!

                                    Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
                                    Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)

                                    _ Offline
                                    _ Offline
                                    _beauw_
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #34

                                    When Black and Scholes were figuring out how to value options, though, they probably were using one- and two-letter variable names, and they ended up winning the Nobel Prize. Maybe the difference is that people don't have to "maintain" mathematics. There was a movie where Leo DiCaprio (or maybe Matt Damon?) was a maintenance man who did mathematics... but that's a different story. :-D

                                    L A 2 Replies Last reply
                                    0
                                    • _ _beauw_

                                      When Black and Scholes were figuring out how to value options, though, they probably were using one- and two-letter variable names, and they ended up winning the Nobel Prize. Maybe the difference is that people don't have to "maintain" mathematics. There was a movie where Leo DiCaprio (or maybe Matt Damon?) was a maintenance man who did mathematics... but that's a different story. :-D

                                      L Offline
                                      L Offline
                                      Lost User
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #35

                                      _beauw_ wrote:

                                      There was a movie where Leo DiCaprio (or maybe Matt Damon?) was a maintenance man who did mathematics...

                                      I believe you are refering to Good Will Hunting[^] and it stared Matt Damon.

                                      Computers have been intelligent for a long time now. It just so happens that the program writers are about as effective as a room full of monkeys trying to crank out a copy of Hamlet.

                                      _ 1 Reply Last reply
                                      0
                                      • Sander RosselS Sander Rossel

                                        Thinking of names for your classes and variables, THAT's hard... :doh: Frustration #1 of the evening... :sigh:

                                        It's an OO world.

                                        public class Naerling : Lazy<Person>{}

                                        L Offline
                                        L Offline
                                        lewax00
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #36

                                        I always found naming the program itself hardest. Which is why most of my project names are fairly meaningless...

                                        1 Reply Last reply
                                        0
                                        • I Ian Shlasko

                                          Tenagra t = new Tenagra();
                                          t.Add(new Darmok());
                                          t.Add(new Jilad());
                                          t.Add(new TheBeast());
                                          t.EpicBattle();
                                          t.MoveItemsTo(new Ocean());

                                          Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
                                          Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)

                                          Q Offline
                                          Q Offline
                                          QuiJohn
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #37

                                          Ian Shlasko wrote:

                                          Tenagra t = new Tenagra(); t.Add(new Darmok()); t.Add(new Jilad()); t.Add(new TheBeast()); t.EpicBattle(); t.MoveItemsTo(new Ocean());

                                          Congratulations, this is the nerdiest thing I have read this month, on many levels. And considering the crap I read, that was an achievement.

                                          I M 2 Replies Last reply
                                          0
                                          Reply
                                          • Reply as topic
                                          Log in to reply
                                          • Oldest to Newest
                                          • Newest to Oldest
                                          • Most Votes


                                          • Login

                                          • Don't have an account? Register

                                          • Login or register to search.
                                          • First post
                                            Last post
                                          0
                                          • Categories
                                          • Recent
                                          • Tags
                                          • Popular
                                          • World
                                          • Users
                                          • Groups