Ask General Programming Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread

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Oysters Autobio: Mar 13, 2017

Not sure if this is a relevant question for the database thread so thought I'd ask here first.

Now, I understand why using Excel as a database isn't a good idea because it's not relational, it has no validation and integrity, there's no audit trail etc. etc.

So, in an office/business environment where you need to do sort of a basic inventory management where types of entries go into database by multiple people, those entries need to have a couple fields/properties regularly updated, and then it needs to be copy-pasteable into Word so it can be formatted.

What is exactly the alternative solution to a bastardized Excel spreadsheet? I know SQLite or PostgreSQL get thrown around a lot, but these don't have any sort of basic GUI or front-end for a non technical user to be able to do CRUD functions.

So, if you were someone with time on their hands and wants to make their life easier and could gently caress around with Python or could maybe use something free and open source, what should I look into?

# ? Jul 30, 2021 04:03

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# ? May 18, 2024 04:18

Volmarias: Dec 31, 2002; EMAIL... THE INTERNET... SEARCH ENGINES...

Access apparently plays with Word nicely, this might be something you want.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/export-access-data-to-a-word-document-6e954c8e-2243-4cb9-8544-607e5b7bfc12

# ? Jul 30, 2021 04:26

Jabor: Jul 16, 2010; #1 Loser at SpaceChem

It sounds like you're describing ERP software, and the good news is that there is an entire industry of expensive consultants dedicated to setting up and customising things like SAP or Salesforce to match your requirements.

They're all poo poo, every single one of them, but from a business standpoint it can be nice just paying money to have someone else handle things that are outside your core competencies.

If you wanted to roll your own application that's plenty doable (that's effectively what the consultants are doing, just with the benefit of various modules from their underlying platform that make it easy to do things that come up repeatedly across all sorts of different businesses), it's just a question of how much time you can afford to commit to building and supporting this application, vs. how many and how complicated are the workflows you need it to be able to handle.

# ? Jul 30, 2021 04:29

America Inc.: Nov 22, 2013; I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even 500 would be pretty nice.

Does anyone have a recommendation for an intro to Machine Learning course? I'm currently taking the coursera Machine Learning course "taught" by Andrew Ng, but it's from 2012 and I can't even read the mathematical notation sometimes because the LaTeX is broken (I can report it but still wow, you want me to take your course seriously?). I do want to get a good mathematical grasp of machine learning beyond just knowing how to use libraries - maybe I might need a refresher on my multivariable calculus and differential equations.

E: VVV Thanks for this, I'll take a look. I think my main problem with this course is that it tells you to follow certain rules without providing the mathematical explanation behind it, so you don't get a good mathematical intuition. For example, Ng confuses Mean Normalization with Z-score Normalization, and tells us that normalization can help us perform gradient descent more efficiently with no deeper mathematical explanation behind it then drawing some graphs and hoping we get the general idea. He's bringing up various fields of mathematics - statistics, calculus etc. but apparently for people who have no background in these things so you're just blindly using equations with no idea why.

America Inc. fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Jul 31, 2021

# ? Jul 30, 2021 23:21

CarForumPoster: Jun 26, 2013; â¡POWERâ¡

no hay camino posted:

Does anyone have a recommendation for an intro to Machine Learning course? I'm currently taking the coursera Machine Learning course "taught" by Andrew Ng, but it's from 2012 and I can't even read the mathematical notation sometimes because the LaTeX is broken (I can report it but still wow, you want me to take your course seriously?). I do want to get a good mathematical grasp of machine learning beyond just knowing how to use libraries - maybe I might need a refresher on my multivariable calculus and differential equations.

Fast.ai is what got me into machine learning and deep learning. The first few lectures are technician level, then it goes into the concepts deeply and quickly. Its taught by an absolute legend in the field too, former president of Kaggle, dude has started and sold multiple ML startups, been part of many publications despite not being an academic.

If you want specifically machine learning here's that: (Playlist)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzdWqFTmn0Y

If you want deep learning they've done a few iterations of their deep learning course broken up into a beginner and advanced set. (Playlist)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QUEXsHfsA0

Again expect to start with a technician level and by lecture 5 or 6 diving into the fundamentals.

CarForumPoster fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Jul 30, 2021

# ? Jul 30, 2021 23:49

Urthor: Jul 28, 2014

Randomly learning CPP and systems programming from https://www.learncpp.com/

Just a weird insight. Is the way that C++ comments its poo poo... really really out of date?

It feels like the entire code style suggested here, and that I've seen in a few repos, is HIGHLY dependent on TONS of comments. With REALLY short and indecipherable variable names.

It's like everyone is coding C++ in vanilla VIM without variable auto-completion, go to definition and an 80 character line length. So they make variable names really short, and then have to add comments *everywhere* so that people can understand their code.

Is "self documenting code" and "clean readable code, code is written once and read 20 times" something that really only the Python/Java community cares about? Is the C++ community a bunch of boomers, or is that an exaggeration. Do C++ developers think about the reader of their code?

Just feels so weird that 10-20 year old concepts like self documenting variable names are ignored.

no hay camino posted:

Does anyone have a recommendation for an intro to Machine Learning course? I'm currently taking the coursera Machine Learning course "taught" by Andrew Ng, but it's from 2012 and I can't even read the mathematical notation sometimes because the LaTeX is broken (I can report it but still wow, you want me to take your course seriously?). I do want to get a good mathematical grasp of machine learning beyond just knowing how to use libraries - maybe I might need a refresher on my multivariable calculus and differential equations.

E: VVV Thanks for this, I'll take a look. I think my main problem with this course is that it tells you to follow certain rules without providing the mathematical explanation behind it, so you don't get a good mathematical intuition. For example, Ng confuses Mean Normalization with Z-score Normalization, and tells us that normalization can help us perform gradient descent more efficiently with no deeper mathematical explanation behind it then drawing some graphs and hoping we get the general idea. He's bringing up various fields of mathematics - statistics, calculus etc. but apparently for people who have no background in these things so you're just blindly using equations with no idea why.

If you scour the internet hard enough you can find Andrew Ng's lectures from 2018 available, I forgot where. They are much better. I find just about every video that isn't Andrew Ng's to be rather garbage.

In terms of learning the math, see https://www.teachyourselfcs.com it has a good link to "DIY math"

Urthor fucked around with this message at 06:40 on Aug 1, 2021

# ? Aug 1, 2021 06:23

Urthor: Jul 28, 2014

Oysters Autobio posted:

Not sure if this is a relevant question for the database thread so thought I'd ask here first.

Now, I understand why using Excel as a database isn't a good idea because it's not relational, it has no validation and integrity, there's no audit trail etc. etc.

So, in an office/business environment where you need to do sort of a basic inventory management where types of entries go into database by multiple people, those entries need to have a couple fields/properties regularly updated, and then it needs to be copy-pasteable into Word so it can be formatted.

What is exactly the alternative solution to a bastardized Excel spreadsheet? I know SQLite or PostgreSQL get thrown around a lot, but these don't have any sort of basic GUI or front-end for a non technical user to be able to do CRUD functions.

So, if you were someone with time on their hands and wants to make their life easier and could gently caress around with Python or could maybe use something free and open source, what should I look into?

Don't try to do this.

There are solutions, but 99% of office environments will not value the hard work and extra hours you put in to make their lives better. Just study in your own time and find a better job.

Ultimately the only real solution involves the Excel users learning SQL. But they're lazy and won't be bothered to do this.

Technology solves problems, ultimately the solution is to move the "official" view of the data into Postgres, and use Excel/Word for one off tasks.

But unless the end user is willing to actually learn how to use a new piece of technology, it's not worth your time to try something new.

Urthor fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Aug 1, 2021

# ? Aug 1, 2021 06:33

pokeyman: Nov 26, 2006; That elephant ate my entire platoon.

Urthor posted:

Randomly learning CPP and systems programming from https://www.learncpp.com/

Just a weird insight. Is the way that C++ comments its poo poo... really really out of date?

It feels like the entire code style suggested here, and that I've seen in a few repos, is HIGHLY dependent on TONS of comments. With REALLY short and indecipherable variable names.

It's like everyone is coding C++ in vanilla VIM without variable auto-completion, go to definition and an 80 character line length. So they make variable names really short, and then have to add comments *everywhere* so that people can understand their code.

Is "self documenting code" and "clean readable code, code is written once and read 20 times" something that really only the Python/Java community cares about? Is the C++ community a bunch of boomers, or is that an exaggeration. Do C++ developers think about the reader of their code?

From the C++ code I've seen, there is no consensus on any aspect of C++ style, so it varies more from project to project than the Java or Python I come across. I don't know if the median C++ file is more or less clear, but at least Java type names will probably be capitalized the same way in different projects.

In my experience, "self-documenting code" usually isn't, and there is nothing wrong with comments explaining things (or, if I'm dreaming, actual documentation beyond some comments above a declaration). By all means avoid outright obfuscation, but calling that "documentation" is a bit much.

(Disclaimer before my next point: I am very bad at C++.)

C++ also proves the rule of "comment the non-obvious". You know those comments that explain a pedestrian language feature/idiom that the author just recently learned? They seem like a total waste of space when you are already familiar. C++ never met a feature it didn't like and has an expansive sense of idiom, so I have no idea what might form a reasonable core of knowledge that the reader is expected to have. In such a hostile environment, comments are a godsend.

# ? Aug 1, 2021 08:21

rjmccall: Sep 7, 2007; no worries friend; Fun Shoe

Urthor posted:

Randomly learning CPP and systems programming from https://www.learncpp.com/

Just a weird insight. Is the way that C++ comments its poo poo... really really out of date?

It feels like the entire code style suggested here, and that I've seen in a few repos, is HIGHLY dependent on TONS of comments. With REALLY short and indecipherable variable names.

It's like everyone is coding C++ in vanilla VIM without variable auto-completion, go to definition and an 80 character line length. So they make variable names really short, and then have to add comments *everywhere* so that people can understand their code.

Is "self documenting code" and "clean readable code, code is written once and read 20 times" something that really only the Python/Java community cares about? Is the C++ community a bunch of boomers, or is that an exaggeration. Do C++ developers think about the reader of their code?

learncpp.com is not some sort of official website for the C++ community. I don't know much about it either way, but you shouldn't take its domain name as a sign that people think highly of it in general. For example, cplusplus.com is a terrible resource, and it's a real disservice to the community that it's got such a prominent domain.

Long comments tend to be a sign of one of three things:

a junior programmer who writes down the self-evident behavior of their code because they're still uncomfortable with the programming language / library environment they're working in;
a subtle algorithm, maybe even one taken from a research paper or some other academic source, which you really should take a moment to learn about abstractly before diving into the code; or
a self-important senior programmer who wants to pretend that everything they do is worthy of the above.

I would expect a tutorial to have long comments because by definition it's being read mostly by people who are going to be uncomfortable with the mechanics of the language and who would benefit from having those mechanics explained at length. That's particularly true for C++, which is a pretty complex language with a lot of subtle unexpected behavior.

Similarly, short variable names tend to be a sign of one of three things:

a programmer who doesn't put any effort into making their code readable;
an algorithm that's been transliterated from something like a math paper, which readers probably ought to have open when trying to understand the code, and so matching the paper is more important than having abstractly nice names;
(when only specific variables have short names) a codebase with some established idioms that you're expected to master before putting much work into it, like that "i" and "e" are used for the current and end iterator in a loop.

Java programmer culture definitely encourages long, very explicit variable and method names. My experience is that this is usually very good, but that for local variables especially it sometimes lead to so much text (frequently repetitive with types and method-name components) that it actually turns around and undermines readability again, and some people really need to come to terms with calling the occasional thing "i".

I'm happy for you that you've had similarly good experiences with Python, but that is, uh, far less universal, and there is a ton of Python code that is totally unreadable.

# ? Aug 1, 2021 08:30

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

What's so bad about cplusplus.com? I've always found their documentation to be good enough for whatever I want to know.

# ? Aug 1, 2021 14:27

rjmccall: Sep 7, 2007; no worries friend; Fun Shoe

Hmm. Maybe it used to be worse, or maybe I�m thinking of a different site that used to show up in search results more prominently. It doesn�t look that bad now, although I still generally prefer cppreference.com.

# ? Aug 1, 2021 16:13

Plorkyeran: Mar 22, 2007; To Escape The Shackles Of The Old Forums, We Must Reject The Tribal Negativity He Endorsed

cplusplus.com is no longer as incredibly terrible as it once was, but cppreference.com is more up-to-date and safer to trust. It is what people who actually work on C++ (either the standard or an implementation) tend to reference.

# ? Aug 1, 2021 17:13

Volmarias: Dec 31, 2002; EMAIL... THE INTERNET... SEARCH ENGINES...

rjmccall posted:

Long comments tend to be a sign of one of three things:

You forgot the most important one:

This is horrible and I hate myself for writing it, but it was the least horrible option of all of them. In case you were thinking of rewriting this, here's the options that were discarded and why they were discarded. Here's a link to the bug tracking system which may or may not even exist anymore. If we have finally (finally!) upgraded to v5678 of libturds, this entire section can be very likely just be replaced with a call to eatshit(gently caress).

# ? Aug 1, 2021 18:22

Urthor: Jul 28, 2014

Volmarias posted:

You forgot the most important one:

This is horrible and I hate myself for writing it, but it was the least horrible option of all of them. In case you were thinking of rewriting this, here's the options that were discarded and why they were discarded. Here's a link to the bug tracking system which may or may not even exist anymore. If we have finally (finally!) upgraded to v5678 of libturds, this entire section can be very likely just be replaced with a call to eatshit(gently caress).

I mean this is fine usually, but I put this in the docstring etc. I should say that "self documenting code" doesn't exist, because there are all *sorts* of things that really really should be in the procedure/subroutine's description. I do however generally find comments in the middle of a block to be... poor form.

Except in tests kinda where it makes sense, because mock test data goes out of date so quickly putting context in comments makes more sense, because mock tests are an eternal fight to keep your mock test data from going stale.

But that depends on how anal you are about "single responsibility, microscopically short" functions/methods.

The thing I did at least like is that the tutorial advised having a "usage" comment before the procedure's definition, and an implementation comment in the body of the procedure. That makes a lot of sense to me.

rjmccall posted:

I'm happy for you that you've had similarly good experiences with Python, but that is, uh, far less universal, and there is a ton of Python code that is totally unreadable.

Yeah maybe, I'm probably just generalizing and everyone is different.

It does seem like the Python/Java community at least tries though, Pep8 etc is fairly strictly followed etc etc. But there's certainly tons of people who just don't care everywhere.

Urthor fucked around with this message at 13:13 on Aug 2, 2021

# ? Aug 2, 2021 13:09

Oysters Autobio: Mar 13, 2017

Urthor posted:

Don't try to do this.

There are solutions, but 99% of office environments will not value the hard work and extra hours you put in to make their lives better. Just study in your own time and find a better job.

Ultimately the only real solution involves the Excel users learning SQL. But they're lazy and won't be bothered to do this.

Technology solves problems, ultimately the solution is to move the "official" view of the data into Postgres, and use Excel/Word for one off tasks.

But unless the end user is willing to actually learn how to use a new piece of technology, it's not worth your time to try something new.

Yeah fair enough about recognition, I am really not looking at this from that standpoint, I'm looking at it purely from a selfish and saving myself the monstrosity of a thousand+ column spreadsheet of regular edits, entries and deletion from other ppl and being blamed when there's mistakes on it.

What about a solution that I cook up that simply makes my life easier having to manage all these entries in a dumb massive Excel file? Is there a way I can separate some sort of Excel entry sheet from a master? Or if I can finagle my way to Python or jupyter lab, some better ways to manage .csv's with them instead?

# ? Aug 5, 2021 00:13

BrianRx: Jul 21, 2007

Anyone have resources for learning about UML, specifically in the context of MagicDraw's API? I'm replacing a plugin we use to generate reports that is going away and am creating the document template with Velocity. Everything involved seems to be ancient and poorly documented at this point, but it's what I was given. Does anyone have experience with similar projects?

# ? Aug 5, 2021 00:57

arcticmog: Jan 9, 2018; Goona get you!

I am incredibly rusty when it comes to programming, anyone got any reccomended materials or stuff to look at for someone with a computer science background to help re-sharpen the old pointers, as alot of resources ive looked online tend to be very basic stuff, like solving modulus division or just handling subroutines/functions and not something a little bit more challenging/thought inducing.

# ? Aug 5, 2021 12:11

leper khan: Dec 28, 2010; Honest to god thinks Half Life 2 is a bad game. But at least he likes Monster Hunter.

arcticmog posted:

I am incredibly rusty when it comes to programming, anyone got any reccomended materials or stuff to look at for someone with a computer science background to help re-sharpen the old pointers, as alot of resources ive looked online tend to be very basic stuff, like solving modulus division or just handling subroutines/functions and not something a little bit more challenging/thought inducing.

http://emulator101.com/ ?

If you're just trying to interview prep, hackerrank or leetcode

# ? Aug 5, 2021 13:25

Golbez: Oct 9, 2002; 1 2 3!
If you want to take a shot at me get in line, line
1 2 3!
Baby, I've had all my shots and I'm fine

I've been a PHP developer for 20 years whose growth, for various reasons, was stunted at PHP 5. I've still been getting work, but it's time to move on. I've been trying to pick up Java but, understandably, most Java courses are mostly how to do programming, rather than how to do Java. I know programming. I know it very well. What I need to know is the differences between PHP and Java. I know compiled, I know that the file and class structure in Java matters a lot more than in PHP, I know PHP's arrays and Java's arrays and arraylists are differing concepts, and I know all about strongly vs weakly typed things, but I worry that I'm not learning the language all that efficiently.

This is a long shot but is there any course (company is willing to pay!) or even FAQ that goes through what an experienced PHP 5 developer needs to do to learn Java? I'm specifying PHP 5 (and not even 5.3) because I never picked up namespaces and other concepts introduced in later PHP versions.

Golbez fucked around with this message at 14:44 on Aug 5, 2021

# ? Aug 5, 2021 14:42

nielsm: Jun 1, 2009

Golbez posted:

Have you tried just diving head first into existing projects to see how it all looks when set up and working? Open source wise, Apache Foundation projects tend to use Java a lot.

# ? Aug 5, 2021 15:10

arcticmog: Jan 9, 2018; Goona get you!

leper khan posted:

http://emulator101.com/ ?

If you're just trying to interview prep, hackerrank or leetcode

No just trying to suck alot less at programming, I moved into cyber security work and away from software engineer/programming and I have gotten a good bit weaker in the actual programming/design of systems, which makes my ability to do code analyses weaker and hurts my ability to adapt, bringing me much closer to being a script kiddy then id like, particularly pernicious if I am consulting/advising software engineers on best security practices for example.

But this is a pretty cool topic actually!

# ? Aug 5, 2021 23:54

spiritual bypass: Feb 19, 2008; Grimey Drawer

Golbez posted:

I've been a PHP developer for 20 years whose growth, for various reasons, was stunted at PHP 5. I've still been getting work, but it's time to move on. I've been trying to pick up Java but, understandably, most Java courses are mostly how to do programming, rather than how to do Java. I know programming. I know it very well. What I need to know is the differences between PHP and Java. I know compiled, I know that the file and class structure in Java matters a lot more than in PHP, I know PHP's arrays and Java's arrays and arraylists are differing concepts, and I know all about strongly vs weakly typed things, but I worry that I'm not learning the language all that efficiently.

This is a long shot but is there any course (company is willing to pay!) or even FAQ that goes through what an experienced PHP 5 developer needs to do to learn Java? I'm specifying PHP 5 (and not even 5.3) because I never picked up namespaces and other concepts introduced in later PHP versions.

I know you asked about Java, but Go is probably the most similar language to PHP out there. It has interfaces, classes (kinda), builtin library handling, and most things are pass-by-value. The book The Go Programming Language will teach you everything you need to know.

# ? Aug 6, 2021 00:36

barkbell: Apr 14, 2006; woof

Golbez posted:

I've been a PHP developer for 20 years whose growth, for various reasons, was stunted at PHP 5. I've still been getting work, but it's time to move on. I've been trying to pick up Java but, understandably, most Java courses are mostly how to do programming, rather than how to do Java. I know programming. I know it very well. What I need to know is the differences between PHP and Java. I know compiled, I know that the file and class structure in Java matters a lot more than in PHP, I know PHP's arrays and Java's arrays and arraylists are differing concepts, and I know all about strongly vs weakly typed things, but I worry that I'm not learning the language all that efficiently.

This is a long shot but is there any course (company is willing to pay!) or even FAQ that goes through what an experienced PHP 5 developer needs to do to learn Java? I'm specifying PHP 5 (and not even 5.3) because I never picked up namespaces and other concepts introduced in later PHP versions.

What are you or your company looking to accomplish with you learning java? Do they have a java server they want you to help on or something?

# ? Aug 6, 2021 14:10

rolleyes: Nov 16, 2006; Sometimes you have to roll the hard... two?

I've got a slightly niche file management problem I want to solve, and I'm hoping this is the right place to ask.

I'm on Windows 10. I've got two folders full of files, let's call them "Originals" and "Edits". The files in the "Originals" folder have different extensions (let's say "abc") to those in the "Edits" folder (let's say "xyz"). What I want to do is delete any file in "Originals" that doesn't have a corresponding file in "Edits" with the same base name.

For example...

Originals:
File1.abc
File2.abc
File3.abc
File4.abc
File5.abc

Edits:
File1.xyz
File3.xyz
File4.xyz

The outcome I looking for is that after running this process the Edits folder would be unchanged, and the Originals folder would look like this:
Originals:
File1.abc
File3.abc
File4.abc

I've figured out how to do this using Powershell but I'm a bit cautious about allowing the execution of Powershell scripts on a desktop PC connected to the internet, although if I had to I could set the security policy to AllSigned and then self-sign the script.

Before going down that road, I wanted to see if there were any easier options I've overlooked. Any thoughts?

# ? Aug 8, 2021 17:57

nielsm: Jun 1, 2009

I think it can be implemented in a cmd batch file too.

# ? Aug 8, 2021 18:53

Gin_Rummy: Aug 4, 2007

Can anyone recommend a good starting place for machine learning/predictive algorithm stuff? I can't really think of an interesting starting project that isn''t a pointless endeavor (like trying to predict the stock market), but I'm sure someone knows a good resource that starts off small and builds on practical applications nicely.

# ? Aug 11, 2021 13:54

Magnetic North: Dec 15, 2008; Beware the Forest's Mushrooms

Gin_Rummy posted:

Can anyone recommend a good starting place for machine learning/predictive algorithm stuff? I can't really think of an interesting starting project that isn''t a pointless endeavor (like trying to predict the stock market), but I'm sure someone knows a good resource that starts off small and builds on practical applications nicely.

More than a year ago, I watched about half of the Crash Course AI hosted by Jabrils. (I didn't finish because it became clear we weren't going to move forward with the AI stuff at work.) It's certainly low-level and simplified, and I never finished it or applied anything, but it's probably as good a place to start as anywhere.

# ? Aug 11, 2021 14:50

Dominoes: Sep 20, 2007

You guys think Jai's going to make it? Cut a share from C++/Rust/Zig? The Witness is my fav single-player game, so Jai's got to be good, right? The main way to learn about it is 1-2 hour video streams. Overlap of these 4 languages is TBD. I do most of my coding in Rust, but the language and community are both prone to over-abstraction, and paranoia about safety.

# ? Aug 12, 2021 15:00

barkbell: Apr 14, 2006; woof

jonathan can blow me

# ? Aug 12, 2021 15:26

Doom Mathematic: Sep 2, 2008

Dominoes posted:

The main way to learn about it is 1-2 hour video streams.

Regardless of the merits of the programming language itself, this is a strike against it. People dramatically underestimate the importance of "soft" stuff like documentation, references, tutorials, examples, Q&A forums, and a supportive, inclusive community. Assembling all of that stuff takes a fair number of people a fair amount of time. One person working alone can't do it, even if the underlying language is legitimately wonderful. Videos are fine for promotional and educational purposes but ask any programmer in this forum how much they like using them for reference when they have actual work to do.

# ? Aug 12, 2021 21:50

leper khan: Dec 28, 2010; Honest to god thinks Half Life 2 is a bad game. But at least he likes Monster Hunter.

Dominoes posted:

You guys think Jai's going to make it? Cut a share from C++/Rust/Zig? The Witness is my fav single-player game, so Jai's got to be good, right? The main way to learn about it is 1-2 hour video streams. Overlap of these 4 languages is TBD. I do most of my coding in Rust, but the language and community are both prone to over-abstraction, and paranoia about safety.

No.

# ? Aug 12, 2021 23:56

qsvui: Aug 23, 2003; some crazy thing

Dominoes posted:

The Witness is my fav single-player game, so Jai's got to be good, right?

# ? Aug 13, 2021 05:25

Hammerite: Mar 9, 2007; And you don't remember what I said here, either, but it was pompous and stupid.; Jade Ear Joe

basically guy needed someone to take him by the shoulders and shake him and yell "creating your own programming language for making bideo games is narcissism. use an existing language and get some actual work done"

you're going to make a new language that doesn't have the design flaws and warts you dislike in existing languages? guess what, you're not

e: lol, I thought I was in the coding horrors thread for some reason. I stand by it though.

Hammerite fucked around with this message at 12:49 on Aug 13, 2021

# ? Aug 13, 2021 11:40

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Sometimes the horrors thread leaks over here.

# ? Aug 13, 2021 14:27

chglcu: May 17, 2007; I'm so bored with the USA.

TBF the existing mainstream game programming languages are pretty terrible and there�s little chance of fixing them without creating a new one. Blow does still seem like a prick, though.

# ? Aug 13, 2021 15:51

Munkeymon: Aug 14, 2003; Motherfucker's got an
armor-piercing crowbar! Rigoddamndicu𝜆ous.

ultrafilter posted:

Sometimes the horrors thread leaks over here.

It's more like the horrors are everywhere and we try to only acknowledge them there, but that's hard because, well, they're everywhere.

# ? Aug 13, 2021 16:42

Twerk from Home: Jan 17, 2009; This avatar brought to you by the 'save our dead gay forums' foundation.

I have no idea what thread this would belong in, so I figured I'd start here.

What on earth is a sane migration path from MS Access? I'm working with a group that has an 18? year old Access-based application that they have built a TON of input forms, flows, and in general turned it into a full blown solution for storing long-term medical research data that would not be trivial to replicate in any other tooling that I'm aware of. Access is the second version of this solution, they successfully migrated from Foxpro to Access in the 2000s.

They're not happy with Access, feel like it's coming apart at the seams, and want to move to some flavor of cloud solution to get this off of their on-premises servers and make it easier to grant collaborators access to views of the data. They don't have the budget for custom software development, spiked out replicating a single one of their data collection flows on Django on MySQL, and are looking for some type of tool comparable to Access that allows them to both replicate what the Access-based application does and continue to evolve and improve it in the future without having software developers on staff, or paying software-specific contractors. Is this a lost cause? I'm open to any suggestions to get inspiration.

It's possible that I could argue them into custom software as the only way forward, but even basic maintenance of a convention-over-configuration framework for decades upcoming will be work that they're not particularly well-equipped to do.

# ? Aug 20, 2021 16:35

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Twerk from Home posted:

I have no idea what thread this would belong in, so I figured I'd start here.

What on earth is a sane migration path from MS Access? I'm working with a group that has an 18? year old Access-based application that they have built a TON of input forms, flows, and in general turned it into a full blown solution for storing long-term medical research data that would not be trivial to replicate in any other tooling that I'm aware of. Access is the second version of this solution, they successfully migrated from Foxpro to Access in the 2000s.

They're not happy with Access, feel like it's coming apart at the seams, and want to move to some flavor of cloud solution to get this off of their on-premises servers and make it easier to grant collaborators access to views of the data. They don't have the budget for custom software development, spiked out replicating a single one of their data collection flows on Django on MySQL, and are looking for some type of tool comparable to Access that allows them to both replicate what the Access-based application does and continue to evolve and improve it in the future without having software developers on staff, or paying software-specific contractors. Is this a lost cause? I'm open to any suggestions to get inspiration.

It's possible that I could argue them into custom software as the only way forward, but even basic maintenance of a convention-over-configuration framework for decades upcoming will be work that they're not particularly well-equipped to do.

At a certain point, they're going to have to bite the bullet and either have whoever works on those Access forms learn other programming languages (not even necessarily software engineering), or they're going to have to pay someone to do something.

It is, maybe, possible that they could migrate to something like Google scripts, customized Sheets, forms, etc and have that backed by CloudSQL or something. You would be able to use some built in dashboarding tools, would eliminate any hardware headaches and would likely simplify backup procedures. That does mean learning just enough JavaScript to be able to make custom scripts however, and migrating away from Excel (although formulas will be similar)

I'm not aware of anything else that might be a gentle migration path for them, unfortunately.

# ? Aug 20, 2021 17:12

nielsm: Jun 1, 2009

If it isn't already, at least look into migrating the data storage into MS SQL Server. When the data is on a proper database server, it should be possible to build a new application over it, VB.NET with WinForms might even allow some level of copy-paste from the Access application.

# ? Aug 20, 2021 18:59

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# ? May 18, 2024 04:18

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Yeah, if you can point Access at a separate SQL database ,that would be a great start - that way, you could start replacing one part at the time without worrying about keeping data in sync. You wouldn't even have to use the same tech for the entire solution - maybe some things makes more sense as a desktop app, and some as a Web page, talking to the same DB?

I believe there are other tools that can do Access-like things, like LibreOffice Base ... but don't go there. I agree that it seems to be time to just accept that they need something custom. Going back to Django is not a horrible idea, or I guess this is kind of what Ruby on Rails is for? VB.net or C# would not be a bad idea either, I believe the .net stack has good tools for working with databases.

# ? Aug 20, 2021 19:43

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