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Comment Re:ftfy r.e. idioms... (Score 1) 373

by Fubari (#46588825) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Do You Consider Elegant Code?
3am? ouch :-)
I will grant you all points, increased clarity (especially in production code) is a win.
I spend most of my time with Java these days, and rather miss the brevity of perl.
Bonus points for croak (and error handling in general vs. "But... but... it always works on my dev image!").
I will also concede the reality of a challenging coworker.
So... have they gotten any better over time?

Comment ftfy r.e. idioms... (Score 1) 373

by Fubari (#46585135) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Do You Consider Elegant Code?
"...and at the end of the day, is somewhat more readable."
There, fixed that for you :-)
(Unless I missed a use whoosh; here... don't think so because your post seems sincere.)
At the point where you're using Perl idioms to slurp an entire file into memory... is the array reference really the hard bit to understand here? :-)

I'll grant you the point about not needing to be a reference at all because of function locality.
But my $x = [ ]; and my @x; both establish an array.
push is actually suggestive of what it does, unlike the input operator's ability here @x = <$fileHandle>; to return all lines in a file as a list context... That is as obscure as references; if your target audience is expected to know how that aspect of the input operator works I wouldn't be too hard on your coworker for expecting them to understand array references.

Oh so this!

I have had to tell cow-orkers to knock that crap off. They've got the job, and from this point on the only thing that will impress us is code that can be maintained by anyone else on the team, even if they have not set eyes on it in years.

Programmer did:

my $something = []; open my $filehandle, '<', $filename or croak "Can't read file"; push @$something, <$filehandle>; close $filehandle;

How about:

open(my $filehandle, '<', $filename) or croak "Can't read file"; my @something = <$filehandle>; close($filehandle);

Much more succinct, gets rid of a pointless use of an array reference (seriously, it was used as an array in that function only, never passed around or returned), and at the end of the day, is far more readable.

Comment A tour guide w/"Programming Pearls" (not Perl) (Score 2) 373

by Fubari (#46584859) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Do You Consider Elegant Code?
I'll recommend a tour guide in the form of John Bentley's Programming-Pearls-2nd-Edition.
His Programming Perls book does a nice job of putting interesting algorithms and design forces into context and helps the reader understand the pros & cons thereof. Part of the problem with just wandering around looking at things is you don't see the history and decisions that were made leading up to the result; understanding "what" isn't nearly as important as "why".

Also, the book isn't related the the Perl language; instead it uses Pearl as a metaphor for a small yet beautiful treasure.

Anyway, check out the Amazon reviews to see if it is worthwhile (I have no vested interest here; I just stumbled across this in a real book store some time ago and found it a satisfying read).

Comment +1 Khan academy, mod parent up (Score 1) 370

by Fubari (#46578663) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Fastest, Cheapest Path To a Bachelor's Degree?

For math Khan academy is worth checking out; I don't know why parent is modded zero.
Probably good for other stuff too, it was the math that caught my eye.
https://www.khanacademy.org

Some cool video (give the first one five minutes... I think you'll like it):
Salman Khan talk at TED 2011 (from ted.com)
TEDxSanJoseCA - Salman Khan - (Sequel to talk at TED)

Comment interesting analysis Re:News for nerds (Score 1) 394

by Fubari (#46569733) Attached to: Is the Tesla Model S Pedal Placement A Safety Hazard?
I liked it. Maybe you're not nerdy enough?
TFA was an interesting analysis, drew upon the author's to airplane safety research, and reached some interesting conclusions. For example, one of the conclusions was (paraphrasing) that Tesla software has a User Interface warning (beeps + message) if driver pushes both brake + accelerator... so why not go one step further and ignore accelerator if brake is pressed at the same time? Author couldn't think of a scenario where that would be a problem. I can't either. Seems like a simple safety feature. I'd love to hear what automotive engineers think about it.

Comment more info r.e. possible customers? (Score 1) 133

by Fubari (#46559555) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Moving From Tech Support To Development?
Your strategy will depend on your possible customers (or employers); I can't say much in detail without a better understanding of that.
(by the way, for eastern europe your english writing is quite good!)
So... can you do some market analysis for us here on Slashdot?
Are there any local shops in your geography that do software development?
Are there any charities or small businesses that would benefit from some custom code and/or database work?
Schools perhaps?
I suspect it will be easier to connect with them rather than looking for telecommuting jobs day #1.
Your main advantage at this point is your low cost + enthusiasm; work that.

The other posts about Open Source projects are fine to get started with....
But they won't be as useful as a reference from some small business owner who loves what you
were able to do for them and talks about it to their associates.

Comment oo w/ plain c... Re:English? (Score 1) 230

by Fubari (#46546171) Attached to: Facebook Introduces Hack: Statically Typed PHP
I've done the struct-based objects w/fnct pointers in C; it just isn't as much fun as working with more oo-minded languages, but at the time C is what we had for multi-platform support (early 90's... I wouldn't go down that road today, much better options are available).

Also, just for fun, who remembers that C++ started life as a pre-processor (cfront) that generated C code?

So I agree with your premise, HiThere. It is an interesting exercise to imagine how to do oo-things in non oo languages (though
riding that train of thought to the end of the line leads to concluding that assembly language has oo-capabilities).
For something to be an oo-language, the capability to roll-your-own class hierarchy and dispatch mechanism
gets one's foot in the door... I will suggest that not having to roll anything on your own (e.g. having all that oo stuff
pre-built for you) gets one all the way to the Buffet of Productivity.

Now... whether Strong Typing is "all that" is a debate ranking right up there with emacs vs vi.. :-)

*shrug* I suppose people that want the extra (alleged) safety of Strong Typing will seek it out.

Comment agreed... Re:Not-scientist about science (Score 2) 139

by Fubari (#46412165) Attached to: 'Data Science' Is Dead
Agreed. I wanted to learn something; turns out it is just a lame opinon piece.
From TFA (emphasis added):

Yes, by this standard, Astronomy and Social Sciences are also not sciences. I have no idea what Computer Science is, but no, it’s not a science either.

*sigh* RTFA was a waste of time.

Comment so... what do the Employers want? (Score 1) 246

As part of our mission is to turn out employees immediately ready for the work force, is teaching knowledge-based careers as a vocation appropriate?

So... what are the employers in your area asking for?
I'll suggest working with the top 5 employers who want what you're contemplating and enlist their guidance; let them drive the skills they want to see (also, ask them how they'd like to see those skills be tested and/or demonstrated, so your students will have an easier time meeting their prospective employer's requirements).

Also, iterate often - track the placement + feedback of employers that do hire your students so you can find out what works well, what doesn't work as well, etc. You're not going to be optimal from the beginning (and even if you were, requirements will drift over time, so measure, adjust, rinse & repeat).

(As for all the "hands on" vs "ivory tower theory" posts, yeah... "hands on" wins for what you're describing.)
Good luck :-)

Comment clarke quote... Re:Arthur C. Clarke (Score 1) 374

by Fubari (#46345563) Attached to: Report: Space Elevators Are Feasible
During a speech he once gave, someone in the audience asked Arthur C. Clarke when the space elevator would become a reality.

"Clarke answered, 'Probably about 50 years after everybody quits laughing,'" related Pearson. "He's got a point. Once you stop dismissing something as unattainable, then you start working on its development. This is exciting!"

Makes sense to me; original link here.

Comment Also.... Re:Make a real assesment (Score 5, Insightful) 308

by Fubari (#46140861) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Do You Do If You're Given a Broken Project?
Excellent points r.e. "real assessment"

Also, things to consider: without knowing these, all advice offered here is less focused (and hence less useful) than it could be otherwise.
1) Who are the stakeholder(s)?
1.B) What is the stakeholders' definition of "success"?
2) What is your budget - fixed bid, time & material? (if the later, do you have a max budget or is it open ended)
3) What is an ideal outcome for you personally?
4) What is the least-sucky outcome for you personally that you would accept?

Some general advice (this applies to the excellent "real assessment" mentioned above): Whatever bad news you have for your client, the SOONER you deliver it the BETTER OFF everyone will be, including yourself. If you go heads-down a pile of crap code for 6 months and end up stuck and unable to deliver anything useful enough and timely enough to satisfy the stakeholders then things will NOT end well for you.
Also... what you think may be "bad news" may be something the client is aware of and fully expects, so don't sweat it too much. Talk to them and do some brainstorming about how to rearrange things to make success possible.

Comment unfair... Re:Developed by Stephen Wolfram? (Score 1) 126

by Fubari (#46136915) Attached to: Can Wolfram Alpha Tell Which Team Will Win the Super Bowl?
*shrug* Maybe Wolfram didn't code 100% of Alpha, but it exists because of his vision.
The downside of your hand-waving is that it distracts others away from his ideas and perspective, which is their loss.
So... here is 20 minutes of rather cool geeky viewing; it is well worth watching S.Wolfram walk through his ideas, and talk a bit about WolframAlpha as well:
http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_wolfram_computing_a_theory_of_everything.html

Comment spoiler: r.e. presidents vs losers regexp (Score 1) 172

by Fubari (#45945831) Attached to: Regex Golf, xkcd, and Peter Norvig
spoiler alert: if you were to read TFA you'd find a link to the actual blog 'norvig.com' that is pretty interesting. In short, they handle the "ambiguity" of people that are both Winners+Losers ignoring any Winner's losses:

From Norvig's blog:

To avoid a contradiction and achieve Randall's intent, eliminate all winners from the set of losers:
In [293]: losers = losers - winners

The code on Norvig's blog is pretty interesting.
This one was worth my coffee break time today.

I might be missing something here, but the list of winners and the list of losers in US presidential elections both contain Richard Nixon. How can a regexp match ALL the winners and NONE of the losers in that case?

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