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** UnhandledExceptionEventHandler :: OFFICIAL LC / CHATTER THREAD ** ** UnhandledExceptionEventHandler :: OFFICIAL LC / CHATTER THREAD **

04-04-2011 , 12:16 PM
I'd read stack overflow. There are tons of basic questions on there, the sort they would probably ask you.
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04-04-2011 , 01:25 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by gaming_mouse
good post. also, i just realized what your sn is referencing, it might be my favorite 2p2 sn.
Hah thanks. Although I learned a little while ago that there was another 2+2er who had a similar name than mine that registered before me.
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04-04-2011 , 03:27 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zurvan
It looks like I'm going for a job interview on Wednesday (yay)

The job is in Rails, which I have zero experience in. I don't even think I've ever looked at a line of Ruby code. They tracked me down & invited me, so I know they know I have no experience, but I'd like to take some knowledge in to the interview.

What should I read in the next day and a half to at least give me a primer in Ruby & Rails? I'll probably only have about 2 hours to sit down and read before then, most of that on the actual train ride, so let's keep it short
http://railsforzombies.org/
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04-04-2011 , 06:28 PM
ughhh just finished moving 80,000 forum posts from PHPBB3 over to an ASP forum, holy crap that was a pain in the ass, getting all the users to still be able to login (different login methods), different database structures, creating all the 301 redirects from old forum, I never want to do anything like that again.
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04-04-2011 , 08:47 PM
Zurvan:
http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/documentation/quickstart/

After that search for one of these "Rails in 5 minutes" videos on youtube. You'll get a pretty good understanding of how it works that way. Install Rails, repeat what they did in the video and look at the scaffolding code that's generated and play around with it a bit.

Browse the Ruby library a bit and you should be good to go. 1-2 days is plenty

Last edited by clowntable; 04-04-2011 at 08:59 PM.
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04-04-2011 , 09:35 PM
Zurvan: Have you ever used another Smalltalk-derived language, like Objective C?
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04-04-2011 , 09:37 PM
Nope

Although, CakePHP is inspired by Rails, so I think I should understand the concept of it
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04-04-2011 , 09:38 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zurvan
Nope

Although, CakePHP is inspired by Rails, so I think I should understand the concept of it
OK so you're probably better off on the library side, so focus your study on the language side.
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04-05-2011 , 01:38 PM


Go on. Test it.
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04-05-2011 , 05:50 PM
Haha, awesome.
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04-05-2011 , 07:40 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by 00Snitch
Random question:

Does anyone entirely support themselves by trolling places like elance for jobs?

I thought about attempting it a couple of years ago (obv so I can work on the beach in Thailand ), but I don't know if I have the ability to compete with a billion Indian/Pakistani programmers... Also appeared that there was a fair few companies (for lack of better word) that were bidding on projects with the intention of further subcontracting them... Seemed pretty cut-throat. Maybe I'm just being precious.

fwiw, I'm 27, no family, no physical assets, no debts... Although I do have a very cushy, well paid job.
Quote:
Originally Posted by clowntable
Never tried, never will. Why would you want to work in an environment where programmers are treated like commodties?
Quote:
Originally Posted by wellju
Why get in an endless line with thousands others that don't stand out.

Make good code and publish it. A well running project on sourceforge will likely get your inbox to reach it's physical limits with job offers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zurvan
I've had some luck with Odesk, to make some extra money.

The trick is to find a small job, and do it cheap, so you get a rating and hours in the system. Then jack up your price to whatever level is acceptable to you, and apply for jobs at that price. Depending on your skill set, you can top out about $60/hr on ODesk. There's some skill involved in finding the people who are looking for quality, not just price.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 00Snitch
Well the answer to "why" is obviously the ability to be able to work anywhere in the world at anytime that suits you. Everything is a commodity yours/my skills included.

But as wellju (and myself earlier) suggested, I thin the biggest problem is competing with a billion 3rd world programmers.

As for getting something solid up on sorceforge, I'm not original enough to make something that stands out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 00Snitch
Bolded reflects my initial thoughts...

dunno, I'll probably never do it. Just wondering if anyone has had any success.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zurvan
If you try to compete with the $3/hr guys, you will always lose

You need to find the jobs posted by people who care about quality over price. They are out there, and they're also often looking for long term help. I've had one client on ODesk for 2 years, and I hear from her every few months when she needs something tweaked on her site.
Should we move this discussion into a new thread? It could easy get swallowed up in here and I think it'd be quite interesting to hear future posters' experiences on this.

Juk
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04-06-2011 , 07:17 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by jukofyork
Should we move this discussion into a new thread? It could easy get swallowed up in here and I think it'd be quite interesting to hear future posters' experiences on this.
Done.

Please continue discussion about this in the new thread: here.

Juk
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04-07-2011 , 12:44 AM
I started reading 'CouchDB: The Definitive Guide' (it's free) and it's pretty amazing. I know basically nothing about nosql dbs and it does a really good job at explaining itself. I'm only 4 chapters deep but I feel like I made light years of progress already.

I need to start reading more books I guess. Usually I just Google or roam around SO but after just a few chapters of this book I'm starting to see how much that fails.

Can anyone recommend top notch free books related to javascript?
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04-07-2011 , 03:44 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by greg nice
is it worth starting a TDD thread?

can anyone provide me with some good links/examples of implementing this? my program (StackAndTile) was born from ahk scripts, and my code and the language is sloppy. i would like to get some testing in so that i can be a bit more ambitious (read: wreckless) when fixing bugs and adding features, with the safety knowing that i can just click one button and if all the tests pass, then i can be sure my code works.

how does one add these tests on top of original code? i have started doing some refactoring of splitting large functions into smaller ones that i can test. however, the bulk of the program deals with moving poker tables around the screen, inside a big timer loop. this seems harder to test than simply passing a few parameters to a function. do i mock up fake poker tables and all that mess?
You're in a tough spot here. Most TDD requires that you start with the tests first, then write the code to satisfy those tests. Read www.railstutorials.org it's a great example of the TDD process. With your bundle of "sloppy code", the functions won't be designed well enough to determine which ones need to be tested.

As to testing AHK GUI stuff, maybe you can rig up some WindowSpy type program to check for existence of windows in the proper sport.
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04-07-2011 , 08:38 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shoe Lace
I started reading 'CouchDB: The Definitive Guide' (it's free) and it's pretty amazing. I know basically nothing about nosql dbs and it does a really good job at explaining itself. I'm only 4 chapters deep but I feel like I made light years of progress already.

I need to start reading more books I guess. Usually I just Google or roam around SO but after just a few chapters of this book I'm starting to see how much that fails.

Can anyone recommend top notch free books related to javascript?
Top notch and free doesn't really compute imo.

If you follow this link, you'll find a variation of more than 50 awesome js books.
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04-07-2011 , 09:10 AM
The best JS book I've ever read is Javascript The Good Parts

It's not free, but it is cheap. A quick read, but full of great information
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04-07-2011 , 11:46 AM
Quote:
Top notch and free doesn't really compute imo.
Disagreed in many areas. I'm struggling ot find a top notch pay-per-search engine for example

If you're only talking about documentation for many things there's top notch stuff to be found (and if it's on the web, more up to date than non ebooks).
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04-07-2011 , 11:47 AM
Today I get to debug a java applet inside a web browser control inside a .NET application where an access violation exception is being thrown sporadically. I thought it was related to NXCOMPAT but apparently it's not.

What could be better than a .NET control that's really just an activeX host interacting with a java applet?

*shakes fist*
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04-07-2011 , 11:49 AM
I can see why people would like books, but I haven't read anything for years. I'm pretty convinced any information (especially computer related, as the web was built by computer people) is out there somewhere if you know where to look. If you know where to look as well, there is loads of incredibly high quality resources out there, and as clown pointed out it's always going to be more up to date than print.
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04-07-2011 , 11:55 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by well named
Today I get to debug a java applet inside a web browser control inside a .NET application where an access violation exception is being thrown sporadically. I thought it was related to NXCOMPAT but apparently it's not.

What could be better than a .NET control that's really just an activeX host interacting with a java applet?

*shakes fist*
Another one for the WTF thread. God speed.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gullanian
I can see why people would like books, but I haven't read anything for years. I'm pretty convinced any information (especially computer related, as the web was built by computer people) is out there somewhere if you know where to look. If you know where to look as well, there is loads of incredibly high quality resources out there, and as clown pointed out it's always going to be more up to date than print.
This. Programming books don't work for me. I need get down and dirty and work on a project to understand how things work. When I get stuck, it's to the internet.
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04-07-2011 , 12:15 PM
I like to read a book, then do some examples and use the web to help me through problems

I find the book clues me in to what's possible & some concepts I may not be aware of (especially with a new language), that I can then recall & look up later when I have a problem that might suit them.
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04-07-2011 , 12:24 PM
I generally don't require books to get through stuff. I have PHP in a Nutshell at my desk because it's nice to flip through it for functions, but I prefer php.net almost always.

I only need books for extremely complex and boring stuff. Like Java.
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04-07-2011 , 12:42 PM
There's obviously gems that are only available online and more up to date.

I was referring to "the definite guide" Shoe Lace mentioned.

I got some "definite guides" in my shelf from 2002 that are as valid and up to date as it gets.

The thing is, why I'm advocating those books so much is not an affiliation with the publisher but what you can get from them.
It's the things you don't care about and you wouldn't ever look up that you have to read anyways in some way.

These books are not fully replaceable by web content, at least for my interests.
It also probably heavily depends on your field of interest. Turbo Pascal != Facebook marketing

Additionally, we're in the wordpress area of the web, shortly after google struggled so long with unbearable search results because of SEO specialists linkfarms so that literally everyone can publish his bs on the web.

I'm looking for the opinion of certain people on certain topics, and they often prefer to earn some money for their books instead of blogging the real content.
That's what I meant with top notch and free does not compute.

Or maybe I just turned into an "old" guy moaning at the youngsters on my lawn.

Note to self: Next time explain before, not try to justify after posting

Maybe we can revive the worst thread of this subforum so far and use it as a linkdump.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheIrishThug
This. Programming books don't work for me. I need get down and dirty and work on a project to understand how things work. When I get stuck, it's to the internet.
You read the book before, so you don't get stuck that often and refrain to post your issue on SO and get it solved without learning anything from it. Especially if you're under development pressure from your company, that's natural.
Of course you can use SO as learning tool to improve, but most of the time it's just homework or time pressure :/

But people often ask how they can stand out, and being very selective about the method you gather information (and not only the content itself) is one of the aspects imo.

Last edited by wellju; 04-07-2011 at 12:51 PM.
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04-07-2011 , 01:05 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by kyleb
I only need books for extremely complex and boring stuff. Like Java.
Buzz-zing!

Quote:
Originally Posted by wellju
You read the book before, so you don't get stuck that often and refrain to post your issue on SO and get it solved without learning anything from it. Especially if you're under development pressure from your company, that's natural.
Of course you can use SO as learning tool to improve, but most of the time it's just homework or time pressure :/

But people often ask how they can stand out, and being very selective about the method you gather information (and not only the content itself) is one of the aspects imo.
I agree that a lot of people use SO just get their code working and never go there for anything else. However, there is tons of value on the site that people can tap into. I'm on the site daily and have only ever asked a handful of questions. Reading peoples questions, answers and attempting make answers yourself is a very productive process. I always try to read a few questions about something related to a language I use, but doesn't happen to be about how I am using it.
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04-07-2011 , 01:07 PM
Books are useful because they tell you about things you didn't know existed, and thus never would have known to search for
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