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Falsehoods programmers believe about time

Posted on June 19th, 2012 at 5:42 by John Sinteur in category: Software

[Quote]:

That thing about a minute being longer than an hour was a joke, right?

No.


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Comments:

  1. Desiato on June 19th, 2012 at 9:28:

    Good stuff. Thing is, you need to either find really good platform support for these kinds of things, or you end up making assumptions just to get something “done”. One of the annoying things with moves to newly fashionable languages is the loss of rich existing libraries, etc.

  2. Sue W on June 19th, 2012 at 15:14:

    One of the annoying things about moving to an elderly legacy system is the former programmers who started out on it when it was newly fashionable. They were full of the joys of discovery and wanted to show off their party tricks. What were they thinking?

    One of the really annoying things is that I did it as well, long ago. What was I thinking?

  3. Roland Hesz on June 20th, 2012 at 13:43:

    I find it hilarious how people lashed out in the comments “so what should we do?” and “who would need all these rules?” when all the guy said: next time think before you implement name handling.
    Instead of assumptions, make decisions.

    But that flew over the head of a lot of the commenters.

  4. Roland Hesz on June 20th, 2012 at 13:46:

    And that comment was supposed to go to the “Falsehoods programmers believe about names” post.

Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names

Posted on June 19th, 2012 at 5:42 by John Sinteur in category: Software

[Quote]:

So, as a public service, I’m going to list assumptions your systems probably make about names. All of these assumptions are wrong. Try to make less of them next time you write a system which touches names.


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Comments:

  1. Roland Hesz on June 20th, 2012 at 13:46:

    I find it hilarious how people lashed out in the comments “so what should we do?” and “who would need all these rules?” when all the guy said: next time think before you implement name handling.
    Instead of assumptions, make decisions.

    But that flew over the head of a lot of the commenters.

  2. John Knight on June 21st, 2012 at 1:39:

    Another wrong assumption by programmers: No person has the family name “Or”.

    In the scientific publications databases “Web of Science” and “Science Citation Index”, when I search for the publications of Dani Or at ETHZ, http://www.ites.ethz.ch/people/professors/danior the system breaks and I get the error message
    “Search Error: Missing search term. Check your query to make sure search terms and boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) are used properly”.

    Try it for yourself if you have access to Web of Science through your university library.

Ninth Circuit to DEA: Putting a Gun to an 11-Year-Old’s Head Is Not OK

Posted on June 19th, 2012 at 5:37 by John Sinteur in category: Do you feel safer yet?

[Quote]:

At 7 a.m. on January 20, 2007, DEA agents battered down the door to Thomas and Rosalie Avina’s mobile home in Seeley, California, in search of suspected drug trafficker Louis Alvarez. Thomas Avina met the agents in his living room and told them they were making a mistake. Shouting “Don’t you fucking move,” the agents forced Thomas Avina to the floor at gunpoint, and handcuffed him and his wife, who had been lying on a couch in the living room. As the officers made their way to the back of the house, where the Avina’s 11-year-old and 14-year-old daughters were sleeping, Rosalie Avina screamed, “Don’t hurt my babies. Don’t hurt my babies.”

The agents entered the 14-year-old girl’s room first, shouting “Get down on the fucking ground.” The girl, who was lying on her bed, rolled onto the floor, where the agents handcuffed her. Next they went to the 11-year-old’s room. The girl was sleeping. Agents woke her up by shouting “Get down on the fucking ground.” The girl’s eyes shot open, but she was, according to her own testimony, “frozen in fear.” So the agents dragged her onto the floor. While one agent handcuffed her, another held a gun to her head.

Moments later the two daughters were carried into the living room and placed next to their parents on the floor while DEA agents ransacked their home. After 30 minutes, the agents removed the children’s handcuffs. After two hours, the agents realized they had the wrong house—the product of a sloppy license plate transcription—and left.


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  1. itspast on June 19th, 2012 at 13:42:

    So, are they going to do something about it? This is why I won’t vote for Obama. He’s as corrupt and power mad as the rest of them.

  2. Sue W on June 19th, 2012 at 14:42:

    So you are going to vote for Mr. Romney?

  3. jironhorse on June 19th, 2012 at 14:59:

    Umm…notice the date this happened: January 20th, 2007. Obama did not take office until January of 2009.

  4. itspast on June 19th, 2012 at 16:58:

    Did Obama change the procedures or rules any? He’s has the authority, he’s responsible. And, no I won’t vote for Romney (I live in Texas, my vote doesn’t count anyway).

  5. Living in Thailand on June 19th, 2012 at 20:19:

    That’s why the executive matters. He can change how things are implemented de facto even if the rules themselves do not change. I certainly trust Obama over Bush on issues like this insanity.

  6. mysteryweapon on June 20th, 2012 at 0:03:

    Obama has been even worse than Bush, if you can believe it, with his DEA’s draconian implementation of drug laws. Obama and Romney are two sides of the same coin on this issue

  7. Sueyourdeveloper on June 21st, 2012 at 5:36:

    Sounds like Mr. Paul père would be your man if all you care about is drug policy.

Evil undead hawks tablet

Posted on June 19th, 2012 at 4:34 by Sueyourdeveloper in category: News

Quote

If this doesn’t make you cringe, you don’t have a soul to lose.


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  1. Desiato on June 19th, 2012 at 9:09:

    I don’t even have a clue what I’m supposed to cringe about. The fact that Ballmer vaguely resemles Hannibal Lecter?

  2. ghrider on June 19th, 2012 at 21:12:

    It’s destined to kill off the iPad just like the “Windows Sound System” killed off Creative Soundblaster.
    huh? Never heard of the Windows Sound System? I hadn’t either until I found one on the manager’s special table in the early 90′s
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Sound_System

  3. mykolas on June 20th, 2012 at 14:36:

    @Desiato…Wow, he does look like Hannibal Lecter!