| 00:00.17 | allejo | ah joe just answered the question was gonna ask, if by automation you meant scripts |
| 00:00.42 | BulletCatcher | Typically it is small scripts, but other times it is larger projects. |
| 00:00.48 | joevano | a sysadmins scripts can get quite complex though |
| 00:01.31 | joevano | BulletCatcher: you guys use anything like puppet or chef? |
| 00:01.48 | BulletCatcher | For example, we have a custom account management system that includes a PHP web site, Oracle database, and complex Perl scripts. |
| 00:02.01 | BulletCatcher | We have been using cfengine for a long time. |
| 00:02.21 | ndim | A great thing for programming is learning multiple languages. |
| 00:03.28 | allejo | it's safe to assume that automation will be necessary in almost any computer related field, right? |
| 00:03.44 | ndim | Yes. Computers are made for doing stuff repeatedly. |
| 00:03.48 | ndim | I.e. automation. |
| 00:04.02 | allejo | <3 perl and bash for that |
| 00:04.52 | ndim | Python. Ruby. |
| 00:04.59 | ndim | Javascript. |
| 00:05.06 | ndim | C. C++. Java. |
| 00:05.14 | BulletCatcher | On multiple languages: (1) different projects will use different languages, and (2) knowing multiple languages will better equip you to choose the right one when you are allowed to do that. |
| 00:05.38 | ndim | Erlang. Scheme. Ada. |
| 00:06.22 | ndim | And knowing multiple languages teaches you many more concepts which are often useful for solving a particular problem, even though the language you are required to use makes it a little more difficult. |
| 00:06.39 | joevano | I'm currently a ruby guy mostly now, but multiple languages is a definate plus |
| 00:06.55 | BulletCatcher | Be sure to take a Cobol class in college if you have the opportunity, so you will know why you never want to use it again. Seriously. |
| 00:07.00 | joevano | I started with VB3 |
| 00:07.13 | allejo | Cobol? |
| 00:07.29 | ndim | scripting, imperative/procedural, imperative/OO, functional, assembly. |
| 00:07.32 | joevano | and all the cobol programmers are retiring and someone is going to have to read that crap |
| 00:07.39 | ndim | COBOL, actually. |
| 00:07.48 | BulletCatcher | COBOL is an old language still used for some business software. |
| 00:07.57 | ndim | They didn't invent non-capital letters until after COBOL wasn't fashionable any more. |
| 00:08.10 | allejo | and I plan to continue learning more languages, I usually try find projects where I can practice a certain language. bz is c++ |
| 00:08.16 | ndim | As is REXX. Still used on IBM Mainframes. |
| 00:08.27 | BulletCatcher | Instead of A = B + 1 you would write ADD 1 to B GIVING A. |
| 00:08.36 | joevano | it was a high demand skill for Y2K, but you were probably too young to remember that allejo |
| 00:08.54 | ndim | And 2038 is still a ways off. |
| 00:09.03 | ndim | And 2038 is still a ways off to be of a similar importance. |
| 00:09.11 | allejo | BulletCatcher, "ADD 1 to B GIVING A" is COBOL? |
| 00:09.19 | BulletCatcher | yes |
| 00:09.32 | allejo | joevano, yea I was too young for that. I barely learned of the y2k troubles around 2008 :P |
| 00:09.37 | ndim | Looks like COBOL to me (and I don't know COBOL) |
| 00:10.11 | allejo | BulletCatcher, just by that one line, I don't want to learn COBOL although it does make sense |
| 00:10.11 | BulletCatcher | The saying is that COBOL is a language designed to be read by managers. |
| 00:10.27 | ndim | If you want to wrap your head around the concurrency thing, Erlang (for software) and VHDL (for hardware) are good things to learn. |
| 00:10.37 | allejo | COBOL sounds like AppleScript to me |
| 00:11.17 | allejo | ndim, as for 2038, there's still time for that lol |
| 00:11.36 | allejo | Erlang and VHDL? |
| 00:11.49 | BulletCatcher | Taking a course COBOL it is a valuable lesson in what *not* to do. |
| 00:13.12 | ndim | allejo: Learning Erlang catches two birds with one stone: Concurrency (including to use single static assignments) and functional programming. Both are good things to know. |
| 00:13.23 | allejo | ohh i can see why a COBOL course would be useful then |
| 00:14.00 | ndim | And the single static assignment + concurrency ideas helped me construct the architecture for some software I wrote for an 8bit microcontroller in C and assembly. |
| 00:15.18 | BulletCatcher | Learning a functional language is definitely worthwhile, even if you don't use it much. It expands the way you think about programming. |
| 00:15.24 | ndim | Ack. |
| 00:15.42 | allejo | what do you mean by functional programming? |
| 00:15.43 | ndim | Very useful for Python as well. Probably also for Ruby, and other languages. |
| 00:16.09 | BulletCatcher | The functional language I learned is APL. I used it exactly once when it was the right language to process data in a physics lab experiment. |
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| 00:17.52 | BulletCatcher | IIRC, functional languages don't have loop constructs like for & while. But they do make it easy to say something like "add 1 to each element of this array." |
| 00:18.09 | ndim | And functions are first class objects. |
| 00:18.27 | ndim | And you write functions (mostly) side effect free. |
| 00:19.05 | ndim | But someone with a CS degree can explain that better. |
| 00:19.21 | BulletCatcher | Bah. I have forgotten too much of that stuff. |
| 00:19.49 | ndim | <- Engineering degree expected in August, with not much formal CS knowledge |
| 00:20.11 | BulletCatcher | got his CS degree a *long* time ago |
| 00:20.30 | allejo | I'll look into functional programming some more |
| 00:20.43 | allejo | congrats ndim |
| 00:20.58 | ndim | allejo: Scheme, Haskell, F# are also FP languages, in case you stumble over those somewhere |
| 00:21.11 | ndim | Or elisp, if you use Emacs. |
| 00:21.33 | ndim | allejo: thx |
| 00:21.55 | BulletCatcher | Quite simply, try to take every language course they offer in college. |
| 00:21.56 | BulletCatcher | You won't use most of them, but you will learn a lot about programming. |
| 00:22.14 | allejo | I think i'll take a look at those languages to get a better understanding of functional programming |
| 00:22.26 | allejo | will do bulletcatcher |
| 00:22.27 | ndim | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_Programming |
| 00:22.28 | BulletCatcher | Then when you need to learn the hot new language of 2018, it will be easy for you. |
| 00:23.02 | ndim | And do use languages for real world practices. |
| 00:23.52 | ndim | When I learned of Ada's way to align variables into bit fields in such detail, I was so excited... finally something to properly describe all those stupid bit fields hardware expects! |
| 00:24.23 | BulletCatcher | That is exactly why Ada has that kind of expressiveness. |
| 00:24.41 | ndim | Then I wrote some code in Ada which tried to boot an x86 CPU into protected mode, and the realworld bit fields of i386 are so broken that Ada does not help much there either. |
| 00:25.49 | BulletCatcher | It seems like there is always some part of the boot process that can only be done in assembly language. |
| 00:26.07 | ndim | allejo: And in case you didn't know, VHDL is kind of Ada's sister language, but where Ada programs describe how software works, VHDL programs describe how digital logic circuits (i.e. digital chips) work. You can program hardware. |
| 00:26.17 | ndim | BulletCatcher: Of course there is that asm-only part. |
| 00:26.21 | BulletCatcher | (Or at least is much easier to do in assembly than any other language.) |
| 00:26.59 | allejo | ndim, oohhhhh ok that clears things up for me. thank you |
| 00:27.01 | ndim | But then there is also the part where you want to enter some offset into some page table, and the page table format requires you to split that 12bit value into one 3bit, one 8bit and a 1bit part. |
| 00:28.45 | allejo | wait what? ._. |
| 00:29.23 | ndim | And the really interesting part about programming digital logic circuits is that every logic cell in there works concurrently, so you really need to wrap your head around things happening simultanously instead of sequentially. |
| 00:29.28 | ndim | allejo: ? |
| 00:29.54 | allejo | I lost you after digitical logiv circuits |
| 00:29.55 | ndim | allejo: backwards compatibility. first they had space for some 8bit value. |
| 00:30.38 | ndim | then a new chip generation came along and extended that. and there was unused 3bits in one place and 1bit in another... so they were combined. |
| 00:30.53 | ndim | allejo: All the transistors in a chip work all the time, basically. |
| 00:31.23 | ndim | Not like in a program, where you write a=b+c; c=3*d; and know in which sequence stuff happens. |
| 00:32.07 | ndim | s/program/sequential program/ |
| 00:32.51 | ndim | I think I might be going a little too far over your head. |
| 00:33.41 | allejo | you kinda of are lol |
| 00:33.49 | allejo | s/kind/knida |
| 00:34.03 | allejo | kinda* |
| 00:35.35 | ndim | Summarizing: Learn at least half a dozen languages, from many different categories of languages. And BulletCatcher concurs. |
| 00:35.56 | BulletCatcher | I concur with ndim. |
| 00:36.19 | allejo | I'm working towards that :) |
| 00:40.57 | short_circuit | \o/ Venus transit!!! |
| 00:41.19 | BulletCatcher | 4 more days, short_circuit |
| 00:42.05 | short_circuit | yep yep |
| 00:42.24 | short_circuit | oh wow... Opera locked up on me |
| 00:42.34 | BulletCatcher | Plenty of time to test your viewing apparatus for safety. |
| 00:44.03 | short_circuit | I'm hoping a simple box/pinhole thingy will be good enough.. |
| 00:44.17 | short_circuit | #os crashing... reboot time |
| 00:44.34 | short_circuit | that's what I get for playing with strange modules |
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| 00:48.14 | short_circuit | No more of that module tonight |
| 00:48.47 | BulletCatcher | Venus will look like a small black circle on the sun. A pinhole device may not have enough resolution to see it well. |
| 00:50.10 | BulletCatcher | http://www.intersoft.it/galaxlux/VenusTransit.jpg shows the 2004 transit. |
| 00:50.12 | short_circuit | dont need to see it well... just to say I could make it out... since it will be over a century to happen again |
| 00:50.32 | short_circuit | according to local news for this area |
| 00:50.36 | BulletCatcher | It may be large enough to see with a pinhole after all. |
| 01:00.41 | ndim | I'll use binoculars for projecting an image of the sun onto a piece of paper. |
| 01:01.35 | short_circuit | I got some tasco binocs but they are in storage right now :( |
| 01:02.21 | short_circuit | I think they are tasco.. Perhaps that's the scope on my 30-06 :confuzzled: |
| 01:02.46 | short_circuit | ooOOoo! I know where my scope is... perhaps I could use that to project on a piece of paper? |
| 01:04.26 | BulletCatcher | That should work, although you may have to attach a piece of cardboard to the scope to block the direct sunlight. |
| 01:06.24 | short_circuit | is googling... My welding helmet/shade that came with my last rig should work :) |
| 01:10.27 | short_circuit | i wonder if I placed the view plate from my welding face shield over the end of my binoculars if this would permit direct view... Prolly not.... meh |
| 01:36.41 | short_circuit | has found and started checking out his WarTowers map |
| 01:37.30 | short_circuit | Need to start up a local bzfs of 2.4.0 and make sure everything is still compatible. |
| 01:37.59 | short_circuit | heh! I wonder if my old 'badtanks' file has useful info that would apply to current players :D |
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