Randy Maddocks

Hi Sourabh,

My post is more of a big THANK YOU than a question. Your timing of putting out this book couldn't be any better, as where I work APIs are being heavily promoted and used by developers to reap the benefits of more easily interfacing with various systems across our network. So thank you for this!

what Fred said...

Tim Holloway wrote:Monday is a time of repeated beginnings. It's the start of the Western week, And everything that was an unsolved problem last week is going to be an unsolved problem again on Monday morning. And if you don't absolutely love your job, it's the time when you lose the freedom you had over the week-end and have to drag your sorry rear end into work (well, at least unless you're work-from-home) and deal with all those things you left behind on Friday evening.

I am going to print and frame this. This pretty much describes me, although I do honestly love what I do.    

I find it both interesting and ironic that the one earthly material that I find can be the most difficult to encounter (for example, when digging to pour footings, etc...) is used to make cob. I love the finish on the floor, has that natural "earth-tone" look (no pun intended). I picture it easy to work with, something like a parging cement that can easily be applied. You may indicate otherwise.

Very interesting clip Paul. Cheers.  

Campbell Ritchie wrote:What's uncivilised about 5:00am? It's a perfectly good time to go to bed.

Insomniac, or overworked??

Jake Siso wrote:My issue that I dealt with was free/delicious snacks and too much sitting

I have been fortunate enough that I have never been overweight, which is probably why I can get away with eating a lot of high-carb/refined sugar foods (much to the chagrin of my wife!). However, I am in my mid-50s and am more than aware that that refined sugar and all those carbs are not doing my arteries, or most other internal organs, any good.

I try to weight lift every night (I am not a morning person, so although I have great admiration for those that can wake up at 5:00 am and do a workout, I do not share such dedication at that uncivilized hour). I have a lot of equipment in my basement, so there is no excuse for me to go down and exercise.

As for throughout the day, I try to move around every 30 minutes or so, which, let's face it, when you're in meetings or trying to meet project deadlines or providing support at any given time day or night, is not always easy. But most days I manage to move as much as possible. I also try not to miss my half hour brisk walk at lunch (I work downtown in a small city, just off a lake, so there are trails to walk, etc...).

Amazing, especially, how it maintains balance over very uneven and unstable surfaces!! But it's weird to me looking at the ones that don't have some kind of "head". Or maybe I am humanizing it too much!?!

Tim Holloway wrote:And the fact that Alaska spends more and more days being warmer than Florida shouldn't mean anything

I am not denying there is some truth as to the impact we are having on climate change, but, the fact that they are seeing vegetation beneath ice and snow that has receded in recent years, would indicate there wasn't always ice and snow covering the vast landscape of the Arctic. The earth has seen it's share of ice ages, large-scale fires, shifting land masses, disappearing islands, etc...In fact, has there ever really been a period where earth was at a complete standstill, relatively speaking?

My attempt at being philosophical for today.

Sorry Ron, as I am in the habit of doing in this particular forum, I have strayed from your original topic...

To be honest Paul, unfortunately, seldom does this happen where a company digs this deep and resolves the problem, at least in my experience. Usually it's one of those "Company so and so is at fault, take it up with them" type of responses. So glad it worked out in the end!  

A very unfortunate incident Paul! I feel bad for both A and B...A because he wanted to gift his friend with a high-end laptop, and B, because he didn't want to upset his friend over getting a low-end laptop. I have to agree with Dave in that the burden falls on Office Depot to provide proof that they issued the refund. This is a classic case of business "A" blaming business "B" and vice versa, and the customer is left out in the cold. I would suggest not giving up. As for legal recourse, if you happen to have a lawyer, having even just one session with him/her might be worth the fee, at least to find out if you do have legal recourse.

Going through small claims court can be expensive, which is why a lot of people don't bother taking their case to court. If you win it works in your favour - sometimes the person you are seeking a settlement from ends up having to cover your legal costs as well. But please don't take this as solid legal advice. I am by no means a legal expert. I am just putting it out there based on experiences of others who have taken their case to small claims court and their experiences with that process.

I sincerely hope this has a happy ending. Cheers my friend.

I am thinking of situations where comments are inserted simply for the sake of inserting comments, rather than taking the time to add comments that have some thought behind them, that offer some insight into what the purpose of the class, method or variable, is. Regardless, I find comments can be invaluable if properly used. I look at them as kind of like time capsules, information we can look at down the road and get a feel for what is going on, saving time and frustration.

Campbell Ritchie wrote: I read somewhere recently that code is written once and read many times, so its legibility is very important.

So very, very true. Consider a situation where a developer writes code and includes meaningful, clear comments, then leaves a company and some time later another developer has to work with same code to apply updates, etc...If the comments are lacking/confusing it could make what may be a simple task much more complicated and frustrating. I have been tasked over the years with updating programs that were several years old, and if the previous developer took the time to include relevant comments, and put some thought into the logic and structure of the code (read: logical, concise methods and meaningful variable names), it made things go much smoother. But if comments were missing or useless (e.g. "This getter method gets value"), and the logic hard to follow....  

Tim Holloway wrote:Ah, you mean It Doesn't Work Is Useless.

I think we also have a canned "Do My Homework" entry, but I'm too lazy to check.

That's it!  Someone once began their response to a vague post with "we're not mind readers...". My thoughts exactly!

I prefer coming here for reasons pointed out in previous replies to this post. Offhandedly, if you want something akin to looking up answers in the back of the book go to sites like SO. However, if you want to break down the problem, look at it from different angles and perspectives, and ultimately come to an understanding of the problem and how to resolve it, then you come here.

Slightly off-topic, but one thing that really bothers me is when people post very vague questions, provide little or no information on what their intent is and what they have done thus far to try and fix the problem. This isn't a defence of sites like SO where you often see people being berated for their post, it's never okay to blatantly put people down because they don't understand how something works, or how to proceed on fixing a problem. However, I think one can be forgiven for getting a little agitated when someone does not take the time to submit a meaningful, clear and organized post. The "I do this, but it doesn't work..." phrase we see all too often is, dare I say, an insult to the people who volunteer their time, energy and skills freely to help others resolve their problem(s). The other I see quite often is the "...here's my homework question, do it for me..." type of post.

I'll leave it there.

My venting for the day...

All Hobbs wrote:Wow yall are old

Maybe, but like fine wine we have gotten better with age...or something like that.

I remember figuring out how to structure the flow of a program first in a flowchart (had to prove to the teacher that you fully understand the intent, structure and outcome of your program before even touching code), then in pseudo-code, and then, only if it passed the teacher's utmost scrutiny (and in my case multiple trips back to the drawing board until I had it right), were we allowed to then transcribe it to code. In my case I started with BASIC (the ol' LET A = 1). Once you had the code done, you took 80-column punch cards and pencilled in each column the appropriate character that made up the individual lines of code. Then you took the stack of cards to the card reader, hoping and praying you didn't have an endless loop that would send the machine into a tailspin. Once I cut my teeth on BASIC we moved on to FORTRAN (very cool language, at least in my opinion). Unfortunately, I graduated before I got a chance to really get into COBOL.

Fun times...