Haskell is generally preferred where speed of development is extremely important and domain logic is complex, not where correctness is critical for compliance or other reasons such that proofs are demanded. Nothing this new is really trusted in domains where failure is not tolerated.

This may seem like the best explaination to you now but the real punchline is using it at the end of the lecture and then unpacking and eating a sandwich.

If failure is not tolerated the strict type system of Haskell probably helps even if you don't formally prove the codebase. But like I tried to imply I was mostly guessing.

I read in this thread earlier people talking about how they dont want to code on anything other than their laptop anymore. Is there a particular reason why? Im thinking about getting a new laptop that id use for programming (the one I have now is a giant 17" beast that sucks to lug around), but its mostly just because Im tired of sitting in this chair all day. I'm massively addicted to my triple monitor setup tho and think going down to a 15" screen is going to suck and be annoying, and not sure Id actually use the laptop enough to justify the money just so I can sit in a coffee shop for a few hours for a change of scenery and punch away at the keys on a tiny screen. Honestly tho, im looking for an excuse to do it anyway, so if someone can convince me its worth it that would be great, heh

@alobar I think it is mostly about having flexibility in being able to take a laptop anywhere and everywhere. I actually like having a desktop with a couple of monitors but I also use a laptop a lot. Sometimes I actually have to show up on site and having one is very convenient.

I use only my laptop and it's mainly because I like moving around and I hate having different setups.

Once I trained myself on a consistent setup it was actually pretty easy. I can switch super easily between windows/apps and get to whatever I want with just a few keyboard commands.

Edit: By setup I mean things like local servers run in terminal pane 9, ssh happens in terminal 8, odd terminals on the left taking up half the width, even on the right. All IDEs in two column mode with almost nothing else open, etc.

The odd time I actually want two apps side by side this layout makes it easy to do do that. Even something like my browser which is usually full width just gets dragged half way across and now I can see it and edit files at the same time.

I hate developing without sufficient screen real estate. I have two screens at work but ideally I'd have three and they would contain a web browser, visual studio, and then either sql server or chrome devtools depending what I'm doing.

Btw candyman, if I do take up Angular, is there any special IDE you recommend or is Visual Studio fine?

If mac get IntelliJ

Yeah... im not running Visual Studio on a Mac

I would suggest Emacs, but that the stench of Lisp can be a bit over-powering if you aren't used to it.

Visual Studio it is.

Looks pretty cool. I think I'm going to try that one out.

fwiw, I think of jjshabado as the "DB guy."

I just got an SQL quiz from the company. This is probably the most challenging one I've seen, but nothing I can't handle. The tables are set up to be full of icky issues, so these queries will be interesting to write.

I'm pretty confident I can get to the next step.

The company I work for hired a third party company for screening applicants. Theres an aptitude test, basically an IQ test, and then a software engineering test, which was specific knowledge.

Most stuff was fine, but the SQL questions were like "What does SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL SERIALIZABLE do?" And ****. I guess its harder to write a quick quiz for decent db design? IDK.

Thinly veiled brag: got 100% for aptitude test (ldo) and scored higher than anyone else in the company at the software engineering one. Which involved a lot of guessing.

This place is all in-house. I originally spoke with the sysadmin. All of his questions where surrounding that stuff. My answer for how to restart a database was brilliantly verbose.

I have zero clue what that means, but I don't SQL Server either.

As for the decent db design part, I think they are taking the approach of creating a bad design and seeing if my queries respond to it. Some of the tables are obviously bad, though it wouldn't surprise me to see some of it in the wild either (I admit to writing things exactly like this when I first started).

The interviewer said something significant: "I can teach anyone SQL, but I can't teach them logic."

That's something to be proud of.

Why the guessing, was it a bunch of gotcha and trivia? I hate questions like that.

Thanks! But you shouldn't.

I can talk intelligently about Mongo but I'm pretty rusty when it comes to sql databases.

I'm generally more focused on the 'big data' / cloud side of things.

Like I said most stuff was fine but the MSSQL stuff was dumb. It was like "what is the syntax to move a database from one file system location to another" and other such nonsense where the right answer is actually "I will consult Google in the unlikely event I need to know that".

I guessed in some other situations, dont remember, like .NET framework stuff I didnt know but was like "it probably works like this other .NET thing".

Funny thing was, our CEO who is a big ideas guy, was like "omg [technical director] got the best score theyve ever seen on the knowledge test! Hes amazing! Did you know hes in Mensa?"

Me and the other good programming guy there loled and then both smashed this guy at the aptitude test and I narrowly beat him at knowledge.

Funny thing was the other smart guy there was like "i def got 100% at aptitude" and I was like "I prob screwed something up". Then in reality it was reversed. The result was pure luck, the more pessimistic and/or realistic prediction of my own performance I attribute to pokerz.

You can only really focus on one screen at a time so the goal with a laptop and no external monitors is to have a system where you can bring the thing you want to look at up in a fraction of a second to match the speed of moving your focus from one monitor to another.

It's almost never as fast as that, but usually it's fast enough. Although I get that it's still a personal preference.

"Then my Prolog skills are all that's required. Thank you for the interview we'll talk again on Monday, I'll clock in for my first day at 8am if that's fine with you."



Regarding programming on a laptop with no extra monitors. I have advocated extra monitors for quite some time but actually did some research on it a couple of month ago. Seems like all/most studies supporting the idea that extra monitors increase productivity are sponsored or conducted by monitor vendors of sorts (I disinctively remember Dell popping up a couple of times) so now I'm doubting what I blindly belived quite a lot but am too lazy to do further research.

I think a second/third monitor is fine if you are discipilned. If you have one distinct monitor for a browser and another one for your IDE/editor I don't see how it can be of any harm. At least subjectively, switching between programs on a single monitor feels more distracting than simply moving your head a bit. If that's counterbalanced by being passively distracted by what's on the other screens...dunno.

I've done both for relatively long periods of time and I feel (obviously subjective) that an extra monitor helps. Just not by as much as I once believed.

Some tasks imo require two monitors. For instance, digging through an HTML document on Chrome DevTools while on the other monitor watching what bits get highlighted so you can see where the problem in a layout is.

Edit: I mean, "require" is a strong word, but it sucks hard trying to do that on one screen.

Why?

ChrisV;

In all seriousness, I don't see why it would matter what you use as your editor, as long as it is something you are comfortable with. There is nothing worse than learning a language and an editor at the same time.

jj;

Weren't you the one who scaled up Oracle and PostgreSQL, and now you MongoDB? I can't talk intelligently about any 2 database systems, much less scale anything. You win the honor, sorry.

Q: The test they sent me has a Jr and a Mid level section. I'm only required to so the Jr section, but since I enjoy the challenge, I'm going to do the entire thing.
Is it a good idea to send all of my answers or should I just send the Jr and perhaps mention that I did the Mid?

I feel like it could go either way. Why send the whole thing?

Honestly I haven't found an editor that particularly handles Javascript all that well, so I just use whatever is around - Visual Studio for .NET projects and Emacs elsewhere.