CodeCall Programming Forum - Blogs

Thoughts on being a moderator

WingedPanther — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 22:38:10 GMT

Dunno why I'm posting this one, but what the heck?

One of the things I've been doing for several years now is being a moderator for this site. Occasionally, someone will join who is eager to join the ranks of moderators. Other times, we grow enough where we need to add one or two more members to our ranks. Regardless, there seems to be no awareness that being a good moderator and being a good member of the forum are completely different things.

All of us joined this site for one reason: we love programming, and love the sense of community here. Some of us came with skills in place, some of us came to learn, but we come to share and learn. I came for C and C++. C++ is still my favorite language, even after learning so many other languages.

If I was here as a regular member, I would mainly hang out on the C/C++ forum, debugging code and helping people out. I still do some of that, but I have a different primary role. I glance at EVERY forum. I read some forums, glance at others, and browse here and there in more. I have no interest in VB, for example. I glance at it every time I'm here, because I have to look for moderated posts, spam, and whatever else might be around that I need to deal with. That's the part that gets me. Some people WANT to be a moderator, but don't seem to realize it is a responsibility, not just an honor.

Another thing that is goofy. I am NOT the best programmer on this site. For every language I know, I know at least one, and often several, member who is far better than I am. Despite that, being flagged as a moderator means I get random PMs from people who are convinced I must be some programming Guru to have this role. They don't seem to realize that we could hire five non-coders, who are clueless about coding, to be moderators, and do just as good a job. It takes good judgment, patience, and no coding skills at all. It's amazing that people looking to hire others don't even know what they're looking for.

Do I regret becoming a moderator? Nope. I just find it interesting how poorly understood it can be. By the way, we are blessed to have a great team of moderators. You guys do a great job.

What Happened in the Latest vBulletin Upgrade?

Roger — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 23:17:46 GMT

For those of you who visit CODECALL daily (thank you for coming so often), you might have noticed that the site was down since 9PM PST and finally came back online around 11:45AM today. To make sure everyone is aware of what happened (lost threads, posts, messages, etc.), I put up a notice across the site to notify everyone:

Due to an unsuccessful upgrade of vBulletin v4.10 last night, we had to restore the site to a previous backup. Although we made a backup of the site right before the upgrade, the restore process was corrupted and failed so we had resort to our nightly backup. Unfortunately, this means that posts made in the last 2 days or so were lost. We sincerely apologize for this and hope that this doesn't cause you too much inconvenience. We hope that you can recover or re-post your content without much trouble.

I also sent out a mass email, which we rarely do, to everyone who visited CODECALL within the last three weeks. The goal of the email is to ask you to come back and check your active threads/posts in the case that the notification emails were lost during the down time. The best way to see all the threads you're subscribed to and follow up on active discussions is to visit the User Control Panel.

Then just now, I got an email from shackrock who asked if I can document and share what happened with everyone so that others can benefit from my experience. Although nothing out of the extraordinary happened to cause the failure, I decided to write out the steps that I did before and after the crash so that someone else in the same situation can hopefully learn from my mistakes.

Here is what happened...

Last night around 9PM, I decided to tackle the vBulletin v4.10 upgrade that's been sitting on my todo list for the last few weeks. It's a bit annoying to see the notice everytime I log into the AdminCP to do stuff.

Latest version available: 4.1.10. You are currently running vBulletin version 4.1.8.
Click here to download vBulletin 4.1.10 from the Members' Area

So, I log into vBulletin and download the latest upgrade, prepared all the files and planned on doing a quick upgrade after backing up the database. I have done this 5+ times, so didn't think it'll take me more than 30 mins to be up and running. I backed up the database using my CPanel.

After the DB backup, I uploaded the v4.10 release to my server and started the upgrade. This is where everything went wrong...

10 seconds into the upgrade, the script stopped with a fatal error:

An error has occurred. Please contact vBulletin Support for assistance.

Module: vbblog, Step 1 Error.

A conflict was detected in the bitfields. You cannot continue with the installation of this product until this has been fixed. The conflicts found were:

Bitfield Collision: credits_cantearn = allowvideos
Bitfield Collision: credits_cantearn = allowvideos

I have not had an upgrade error before, so I started to look around the web to see if I can find a fix. Fairly quickly, I was able to find a few threads on vBulletin's site regarding this error:

https://www.vbulletin.com/forum/show...e-4-10-problem (from Jan 12, 2012)
https://www.vbulletin.com/forum/show...rade-to-4-1-10 (from Feb 12, 2012)

Both of these threads had a few suggestions by members, but none had a response from vBulletin Support. I figured that I'm out of luck and might need to submit a ticket. But since I know that vB support is a 9-5 operation, I probably won't get a response until the morning... not a good scenario, considering we have a large amount of European / Asian traffic. Just to be safe, I submitted a ticket.

Hello,

While trying to upgrade to 4.10, I got the following error:

An error has occurred. Please contact vBulletin Support for assistance.

Module: vbblog, Step 1 Error.

A conflict was detected in the bitfields. You cannot continue with the installation of this product until this has been fixed. The conflicts found were:

Bitfield Collision: credits_cantearn = allowvideos
Bitfield Collision: credits_cantearn = allowvideos

What should I do? I already tried disabling my plugins, but was unable to rerun the upgrade script.

Of course, I didn't get any response. I wait for about 1 hour while pulling out my hair, especially because I know that our users are all seeing error messages since the site is completely down. Instead of waiting until the morning, I decided to revert the server to the previous DB backup, but the DB backup was corrupted somehow. My next option was to roll the site back to the previous nightly back (2/8 backup). So, I kicked off a roll back, waited 2 hours, then decided to let it run overnight, since it takes a while to restore the whole server

I woke up this morning, ran to my machine and saw that the restore is still going. I had a sick feeling that the StormOnDemand backup system might not have worked properly. And since the site's been down for over 10 hours, just in case folks were wondering about our downtime, I put up a quick redirect page via my Google Sites account. I figure at least people will know what happened instead of wondering.

After that, I contacted StormOnDemand/LiquidWeb support staff and found out that somehow, my 2/8 backup was also corrupted. (I'm not sure why they charge me monthly backup charges when the backups don't work, but that's another story) They suggested that I try the 2/7 backup and I agreed. After 2 agonizing hours, I got an email from them to let me know that everything is back up and running. I quickly flipped the DNS back to my server and was soon seeing traffic. The first thing I did was setup a notice so that our users can all know what happened and sent out an email blast to our recent active users so that they know to come back and check the site.

So, now we're up and running again. And what did I learn through this ordeal?

Don't do an upgrade right before high traffic time
Read all the support forum issues before attempting an upgarde, especially from vBulletin
Don't do an upgrade when the vendor's support team is off (my fault)

And I finally got a response from vBulletin support:

You have a third party addon that is using the same bitfield as vBulletin uses.
You'd need to remove your "credits" addon's bitfield file in the includes/xml folder

I have no idea what they mean by that. I am not even running the credits plugin. Also, even if I was, I have no idea how to "remove your "credits" addon's bitfield file in the includes/xml folder". Anyways, that's besides the point. I am just glad that the site is back up and that users are finding what they need again.

So, what's next for CODECALL now that vBulletin v4.10 upgrade failed? Well, for one thing, I'm definitely not going to try the upgrade again. I have already started investigating a new forum software package - IPBoard and am considering moving us to a more "modern" forum. The discussion we've had is here: http://forum.codecall.net/lounge/425...-ip-board.html

Musings on computer science (reposted from memory)

DarkLordofthePenguins — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:56:33 GMT

I've found that the best way to learn a mathematical or theoretical subject is to work things out in your head. Think about the material you're learning and come up with your own theorems, corollaries, proofs, etc. That's what I've been doing with the computer science subjects I'm studying. In a display of self-importance I've decided to call these DarkLord's Laws. Though to be fair, these have probably been worked out by countless people before me, and they're not the kind of thing I would submit to the peer review literature and expect to be taken seriously. Still, I'm proud of my ability to reason and think creatively about things. Here are some of the things I've come up with:

Sets computable by finite automata:

This was an exercise I did for my own amusement - think of sets of natural numbers that are computable not just by Turing machines, but by finite automata. Since automata process strings rather than numbers, it is necessary to encode the numbers in some base.

Residue classes:
Let's say you want to accept the set of all numbers x such that x mod n = m for some given n and m < n. Doing this on a finite automaton is fairly easy. Simply encode the natural numbers in n-ary notation and construct an automaton that accepts all strings whose last symbol is the symbol for m. For example, to find the residue class 2 modulo 3, the desired language would be the one given by the regex (0+1+2)*2.

Powers of n:
To compute the powers of n, once again encode the natural numbers in n-ary notation. Construct an automaton that accepts all strings where the first digit is 1 and the rest of the digits are 0. The language would be the one represented by 10*.

Natural numbers up to n:
This requires a slightly different approach. Encode the natural numbers in unary and construct an automaton that accepts strings of length ≤ n. The automaton would be one with a chain of n final states after the start state, and after that a nonfinal trap state. The language would be { 1^m: m ≤ n }.

Constructing the state diagrams is left as an exercise for the reader. :P

DarkLord's laws of computable sets:

A set S of natural numbers is computable by a finite automaton if and only if there is a function �: N --> ∑* for encoding the natural numbers into strings �(n) = |n|, such that { |n|: n ∈ S } is a regular language.

A set S of natural numbers is computable by a pushdown automaton if and only if there is a function �: N --> ∑* for encoding the natural numbers into strings �(n) = |n|, such that { |n|: n ∈ S } is a context-free language.

A set S of natural numbers is computable by a linear bounded automaton if and only if there is a function �: N --> ∑* for encoding the natural numbers into strings �(n) = |n|, such that { |n|: n ∈ S } is a context-sensitive language.

A set S of natural numbers is computable by a Turing machine if and only if there is a function �: N --> ∑* for encoding the natural numbers into strings �(n) = |n|, such that { |n|: n ∈ S } is a recursive language.

DarkLord's characteristic function theorem:

If A and B are sets of natural numbers with characteristic functions KA andKB respectively, then:

- The characteristic function for their union is KA+KB-(KA�KB).

- The characteristic function for their intersection is KA�KB.

- The characteristic function for their difference A-B is KA┴KB.

- The characteristic function for the complement of A is 1-KA.

Because the sets of primitive recursive and μ-recursive functions are closed under addition, multiplication, and proper subtraction, the classes of primitive recursive and μ-recursive sets are closed under union, intersection, difference, and complement.

DarkLord's relational model:

The database book I was reading (which was written in 1995 so it may be out of date) defines a relation as a set of attribute-domain pairs and a set of tuples, with each tuple being a set of attribute-value pairs in one-to-one correspondence with the attribute-domain pairs in the first set. This definition bothered me as it's inconsistent with the set theory definition of a relation, that is, a subset of a Cartesian product. Therefore I define a relation as:

Let attributes A1, A2, ..., An be sets equal to the domains D1, D2, ..., Dn respectively. Let P = A1 x A2 x ... x An be the Cartesian product of these attributes. A relation is a subset of P.

This makes sense if you think of the attributes as being the columns of the table and the rows as being ordered pairs from the Cartesian product. By this definition a database relation is truly a relation in the set theory sense. My relational model is vastly superior to any other and I hope to receive a Turing award for it.

Some things I've been noticing

DarkLordofthePenguins — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:30:16 GMT

It seems Microsoft's marketing strategies have been going steadily downhill. Here are some things I've noticed.

1. They can't put attractive people in their ads.
If you look at a banner ad for an iPhone or Android, you'll probably see a hot girl holding a phone. Ads for Microsoft products tend to show homely people and/or people in business suits. This has the effect of 1) not attracting people's eyes, and 2) once again associating MS with office work.

2. They put the "Windows" label on everything, as if that makes it better.
Steve Ballmer apparently hasn't figured this out yet: Nobody likes Windows. People use it because they're used to it, not because they like it. No one's going to buy a completely different phone or a completely different tablet just so they can use an OS that they hate. Sure, the die-hard Microsoft fanboys will (you know, the kind of people who would choose Vista over Ubuntu), but the average person doesn't give enough of a fu�k.

3. Steve Ballmer and Steven Elop are sore losers.
Throwing a hissy fit and suing people when no one buys your product, or attacking salespeople for not responding to bribery just makes you look like a douche. I think by this point even MS fanboys can see that they're just looking for something to complain about. This is not good for your public image.

4. Ballmer doesn't care about Microsoft anymore.
MS makes more money off Android phones than Windows phones. It would be in their best financial interest to just drop WP7 and make money collecting royalties off Android. Also, preventing people from installing Linux on a Windows 8 computer doesn't help them either. If someone buys a Windows computer, MS still makes money from it, regardless of what that person decides to do with it afterward. Ballmer is just doing this because he hates Linux.

I see Steve Ballmer as analogous to Khan Noonien Singh in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Khan hates Admiral Kirk so much that he's willing to blow up his own ship to kill him. When I look at Ballmer's relationship with Linux and Google, that's what I see. Seriously.

I love you Duplicati!

bbqroast — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 06:16:52 GMT

Duplicati is one of those small miracles that occurs once every millennium. I can already see people lining up to say "Eww it's a GUI", "You call yourself a programmer??" and "I use to use GUIs then I took an arrow to the knee" but to be honest it works, and it works well. I spent ages searching for some backup software that would connect to my server and do an incremental backup. I mean the other way round with servers SSHing into my laptop would be inconvenient (if I didn't have it on at the right time it would just forget the backup in most cases) and annoy me (my laptop is Windows- emulators aren't my favorite).

So yeah Duplicati is awesome. Also it encrypts my files. Also it works. Also it's awesome.
http://code.google.com/p/duplicati/

Basic programming is too much for me...HELP

Japp — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 01:57:35 GMT

I have to write a program that will calulate the total currency value of a number of coins using only pennies. 2 dimes, 25 nickles, 15 quartes with the total in pennies. I'm completely lost Please help
I can't get pass the Declare.

Ahh Java... My thoughts

bbqroast — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 05:44:18 GMT

Great language/concept.
Terrible Implementation.
The language and design concepts are great: a language where you can compile once run anywhere, a language where you can pass objects easily without any pointers, a language where everything seamlessly fits.
As for the implementation, the runaway memory usage drives me nuts (3GB of RAM for some thing that shouldn't scrape 512MB?) and the CPU overhead is also annoying (but understandable once you consider the portability besides it's becoming a fine line.

100 skills every geek should have

DarkLordofthePenguins — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:00:58 GMT

I've found quite a lot of pages on skills that geeks should have in order to ascend to the rank of geekdom. A lot of them, of course, are written by people who have no idea what geekhood is all about (pseudo-geeks I call them). Take this page for example. This is just one of the many posts on the Geek Dad blog on Wired. Granted, these posts are not really serious, and this is Wired after all, so you have to expect this sort of thing, but still this page succeeded in pushing my Geek Elitist buttons.

I took a good look at the items on this list, and it bothered me. I consider myself a computer geek, definitely, and this list doesn't do that label justice. Most of these "skills" are about things like gadgets, toys, and TV shows, rather than actual computer skills. Seriously, comic books? WTF? Also, several of them rely of being a parent (not really possible for a 22-year-old virgin like me. Statistically speaking, I have only 50% chance of ever getting laid, less since I'm not actually trying.). Furthermore, this list includes absolutely no skills related to programming.

So as a bona fide geek, I feel it's my duty to rectify this. To that end, I've constructed my own list (I didn't actually get to 100. Feel free to suggest more.) Most of them are computer skills, though there are also some on math/science, gaming, and electronics. Here (in no particular order) are 78 skills every geek should have:

1 Create a web page in vi or Emacs.
2 Edit the Windows registry to completely eradicate Internet Explorer.
3 Repair, defrag, and format a disk from the DOS prompt.
4 Program in a language other than Visual Basic.
5 Write a fully formatted research paper without using a word processor.
6 Use a real database (not Access).
7 Play MS-DOS games in DOSBox.
8 Use a Z-machine emulator to play Zork.
9 Swap out a hard drive and replace it with another one.
10 Dual boot between two operating systems.
11 Run one operating system in a VM on top of another one.
12 Use a makefile to build software from source.
13 Build your own LFS.
14 Tell the difference between different types of connectors.
15 Set up a RAID array.
16 Create a Hackintosh.
17 Compile C/C++ code, including linking multiple modules together.
18 Use network or cloud storage to back up your valuable data.
19 Read a state diagram.
20 Simulate finite automata and pushdown automata in any programming language.
21 Interpret the hex codes in the BSoD.
22 Jailbreak an iPhone.
23 Configure a routing table.
24 Configure Slackware Linux.
25 Use the UEFI firmware interface for your computer.
26 Understand the relationship between information, entropy, and redundancy.
27 Use recursion to write a factorial function.
28 Build a binary tree, and write traversal algorithms for it as well.
29 Build and program a LEGO Mindstorms robot.
30 Explain that the colors in the rainbow are rygcbm and not roygbiv.
31 Prove that the set of real numbers is uncountable.
32 Fu�k 10 places. Recite pi to at least 30 places (I've already memorized 65).
33 Beat Quake in under an hour.
34 Find the Amulet of Yendor.
35 Do arithmetic in binary, octal, and hexadecimal.
36 Design a sequential logic circuit from Boolean logic gates.
37 Do functional programming.
38 Do object-oriented programming.
39 Program a graphing calculator.
40 Use a calculator with RPN notation.
41 Go without food, sleep, sex, or showers for extended periods of time. (Only a real geek will understand why this is important.)
42 Use a proxy server to browse the web anonymously.
43 Configure keybindings in your desktop as well as your command shell.
44 Read Steve Wolfram's World of Science and actually understand it.
45 Prove geometric formulas with integral calculus.
46 Understand the difference between free and bound variables.
47 Use big O, big theta, and big omega notation correctly.
48 Do modular arithmetic (both on paper and in a computer program).
49 Write a regular expression parser.
50 Schedule tasks with cron.
51 Understand what all the processes listed in the Task Manager are doing.
52 Convert an image from JPEG to PNG and vice versa.
53 Hide files. (No, burying them in a heap of nested folders doesn't count.)
54 Securely erase files with sensitive information.
55 Implement at least two sorting algorithms.
56 Program in the Sockets API for Unix or Windows.
57 Identify virus signatures without using an antivirus program.
58 Use a port scanner.
59 Monitor packets entering and leaving your computer.
60 Add and delete user accounts in Mac, Linux, and Windows.
61 Log into a computer if you've forgotten your password.
62 Set up and use a VPN.
63 Set up and run a web server.
64 Set up and run a mail server.
65 Boot an operating system off a flash drive.
66 Use a revision control system.
67 Read the color-coded bands on a resistor.
68 Solder a circuit board without making a mess.
69 Use a multimeter.
70 Build a killer Magic deck. (I'd do one on D&D too, but I know nothing about it.)
71 Learn a subject by reading a textbook cover-to-cover.
72 Consume LD-50 of caffeine without dying.
73 Read schematic diagrams.
74 Calculate your geek code.
75 Prove that a language is Turing-complete by simulating a Turing machine in that language.
76 Understand why the halting problem is unsolvable.
77 Track the IP addresses of script kiddies trying to break into your system.
78 Find open-source alternatives for any commercial product.

Hope you enjoyed this list.

Random Haskell Stuff

Sysop_fb — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:24:56 GMT

--Calculate standard deviation
stddev ls = sqrt . fromIntegral . (`div` length ls) . sum $ map ((^2) . (minus . (`div` length ls) . fromIntegral . sum $ ls )) ls

--to evaluate a string as an expression - wish there was an easier way like in lisp mmmmm might look into this again at later date
--install hint and then
import Language.Haskell.Interpreter
runInterpreter $ setImports ["Prelude"] >> eval "3 + 5"

Random

Sysop_fb — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 03:43:47 GMT

For data to exist all that you need is a means by which to represent it and a means to interpret it.

Freedom on the Internet

DarkLordofthePenguins — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:03:13 GMT

Lately it has become increasingly apparent that the US government really is controlled by corporations. America is a command economy, a dictatorship, except the American dictatorship is ruled by CEOs rather than by a monarch. This is shown by the fact that the US government is willing to commit acts that will do far-reaching damage to everyone for the benefit of big businesses. This can be seen in SOPA and PIPA as well as the takedown of MegaUpload and a lot of other recent behavior.

The MegaUpload issue is very telling about what's going on. The US government has taken down a website based in a completely different country. Hong Kong is not and should not be affected by American law, but apparently the US government has enough jurisdiction over other nations to arrest people in Hong Kong for violating American laws. They seem to think they own the Internet and should have complete control over everything that goes on there. This can also be seen with Wikileaks, another website based in another country. If you're killing people in the US like Osama bin Laden did, then you should have to answer to the US government, but simply publishing data or information that might hurt an American corporation is not the same thing.

Imagine if other countries did this. Imagine if North Korea arrested and executed anyone on the Internet who made fun of Kim Jong Il. Imagine if China shut down every American porn site and jailed everyone involved in the adult entertainment industry (something that amounts to tens of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of participating individuals. That's a lot of arrests).

No one owns the Internet. It belongs to everyone. In kindergarden, people are taught to share, but apparently many adults haven't gotten to that level yet.

... about people's recommendations for languages

lespauled — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:06:59 GMT

From time to time there are people who are new to programming asking for guidance, which is something I wish existed when I started programming. When I answer these requests, I do everything possible to refrain from giving a specific language, unless that language is geared specifically to the program they wish to develop. I have my programming language preferences, I try not to impose my preferences on new programmers. Maybe what works for me will not necessarily work for them.

As far as my background. I began as a C/C++ programmer, moved onto Pascal, then onto Delphi. Delphi blew away VB in every way. It was object oriented, while VB was object "based". Whatever new additions were in the Delphi IDE would be seen in next year's version of VB. I was always in constant verbal battles with VB programmers. The last thing I was, was a Microsoft fan-boy.

From there, I started dabbling in JAVA. I was a bit underwhelmed, but it paid the bills. But when I heard that the genius that was behind Delphi, was hired by Microsoft and was developing a new language, I checked it out. I started programming in .NET and did some comparisons on speed, etc., and never looked back. I've been a C# programmer for a while now.

I noticed that a lot of people are anti-Microsoft, and I understand it. I was (and in some way still am ) one of you.

On many occasions, people will ask what language they should use, and most people will say "I would do it in .....", which works for them (mostly Java). Wouldn't it be better to outline the pluses and minuses of most of the popular languages, and let the individual asking make the choice?

Personally, I think everyone should start by learning C/C++. It gives you an understanding of both high level and low level programming. When you eventually move onto another language you will understand the garbage collection aspect (if that language has one) but will have the discipline to clean up any object references you have in your custom objects. There is a huge paradigm difference in code that is written by a programmer with a C/C++ background and say a VB background i ANY language. I can pick it out in minutes of seeing the code, or even the structure of the application.

Although some of the responses may help them get on the right track. I think keeping a pragmatic view would be best when answering new developers.

help me to stop SOPA and PIPA please!

baxe999 — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:23:34 GMT

look, i NEED a code to send messages to ALL my friends on facebook (a bot) in either java or visual basic 2010! i would GREATLY appreciate this, and ask that you do all you can to help, i know i may be young BUT i want to save the internet! it's pretty much all i have at the moment and without the internet i would loose contact with many of my good friends.
thank you for your time
Sincerely,
Baxe :D

Blogging?

confox — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:24:38 GMT

Ok, so i've heard about loads of people blogging this and blogging that, and to be frank. i don't see why:confused::confused::confused: surely not everyone in the world wants to know how your feeling, or cares whether or not you had your dog died?

anyways i'm going to stop going on now lol

bye !

Registering Java? Oracle you got it wrong!

bbqroast — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:01:20 GMT

So I downloaded the Java JDK after waiting for the download to slowly complete (slow internet) I was asked to register.

And I thought? Why not.
So I clicked the 'create account' link (you need one to register) to be presented with a huge form wanting to know all these things... It looked like an imigration form, I closed it deciding it was a complete and utter waste of my time.

Obviously Oracle gets something from me registering, but by making that form look like I was imigrating to Australia they put me (and probably many others) off.