Re: [tlug] No video playback in Iceweasel

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

Josh Glover writes:

 > All you have to do to be horrified at the state of your profession
 > (and, by extension, all other professions)

You would enjoy Robert Townsend's "Up the Organization".  Among other
things he sees your "horrifying programmers" and raises you a whole
industry of CEOs with comments like "Does it horrify you to know that
your industry doesn't have one honest CEO?  Me, too."  (Cf Takana
airbags.)

 > And don't get me started on programmers who can't convert decimal to
 > binary to hexadecimal (not to mention octal, though I don't ask that
 > on my interviews).

Oh, I can't resist!  Here's how I do binary:

;; This is the exact code posted, except @jmg comment was added.
(defun show-binary (n)
  "Documentation left as exercise for the reader."
  ;; hexadecimal version also an exercise
  (let ((s (format "%o" n)))                ; @jmg: print s & octal is done!!
    ;; loop unrolled for creativity conservation
    (setq s (replace-in-string s "0" "000"))
    (setq s (replace-in-string s "1" "001"))
    (setq s (replace-in-string s "2" "010"))
    (setq s (replace-in-string s "3" "011"))
    (setq s (replace-in-string s "4" "100"))
    (setq s (replace-in-string s "5" "101"))
    (setq s (replace-in-string s "6" "110"))
    (setq s (replace-in-string s "7" "111"))
    ;; stripping leading zeros or padding to wordsize, more homework
    (concat "#b" s)))

For context (especially the crack about loop unrolling which is
normally a *useful* optimization -- nb, `replace-in-string' uses
regexps), see thread starting at
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2014-12/msg00266.html
especially
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2014-12/msg00271.html

Of course I don't object to people asking the software to do it
(faster and more accurate), but "underlying standard C library"?  Give
me a fscking break!

 > Even though you almost never do that in a language such as Java,
 > not knowing something that basic in your field is akin to an
 > accountant not knowing how to do long division by hand.

I hate to tell you, Josh ....  (Yes, I had to teach some of those kids
when I was at OSU, so I *know*.)

 > On the other hand, the truly excellent programmers out there are so
 > much more productive than the mediocre majority that our industry is
 > in remarkably good shape (think Amazon, Google, Netflix, and many
 > other top shops).

I tend to think of Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, IBM, ..., not to forget Red
Hat, Dropbox, ....  There's more to the software industry than the
web, even today.