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2021-09-12, 10:19 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Seoul
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Re: OOTS #1243 - The Discussion Thread
Cool elan Illithid Slayer by linkele.
Editor/co-writer of Magicae Est Potestas, a crossover between Artemis Fowl and Undertale. Ao3 FanFiction.net DeviantArt
We also have a TvTropes page!
Currently playing: Red Hand of Doom(campaign journal)Campaign still going on, but journal discontinued until further notice.
Extended sig here.
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2021-09-12, 11:04 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2006
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- Meridianville AL
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Re: OOTS #1243 - The Discussion Thread
Back when I was an undergraduate I had a bit of code that did some very complicated things with indexes to run a 3-D interpolator (relatively) quickly and efficiently with only about 8 executable lines.
I wrote the code, looked at it, and wrote a comment that basically said, "This code will never be understood by anyone including me as of a few months from now, leave it as is or just rewrite it."
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2021-09-12, 11:16 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2011
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2021-09-12, 11:17 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2009
Re: OOTS #1243 - The Discussion Thread
I had a somewhat similar experience when I was writing my M.Sc. thesis. I wrote a TeX macro that would take a file name as an argument, then read the file and convert it into a formatted table of the data in the file. It had to do iteration to support tables with more columns than the usual maximum for TeX tables. I spent two days with my brain completely immersed in the problem, and when I emerged, I knew that I would never understand it again.
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2021-09-13, 11:51 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2006
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- Raleigh NC
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Re: OOTS #1243 - The Discussion Thread
Speaking as a senior software engineer, while I maintain close to a hundred pages on the project wiki and am constantly curating it for accuracy in addition to the work I'm actually paid for, I look askance at commenting code.
The reason is simple: As a rule, if someone can't write clear code , they can't write clear documentation either. So what "commented" code means is thousands of lines of boiler plate of the form
/**
*
* This method executes smerdlyfoo
* Pre-conditions: N/A
* Post-conditions: N/A
* @param: int a the a value
* @param: int b the b value
* @return: N/A
*/
public void smerdlyfoo (int a, int b) {
}
For every one line of declaration you have six or seven lines of boilerplate that doesn't tell you any more than the original method declaration did. What's worse, the people who [silly] out this boilerplate don't bother to maintain it, so not only is it a bunch of cruft in the code base but it can be actively misleading. Which normally isn't a problem, because the same people who phone in their code comments don't read them either. It's only people who take maintainability seriously or those who actually try to make use of the comments who suffer .
Mind: I DO think code comments have a place but the very very first lesson is to be able to communicate clearly in ANY medium. A person who can write clean code can also embellish it with concise , useful documentation. A person who can't write code clearly won't be able to make things better with comments. That becomes 10x worse when you're dealing with an offshore team which is much, much more fluent in Java or Python than they are in English. In such cases, I greatly prefer 1) Tight, well-written code 2) Comprehensive unit tests as secondary documentation 3) Code comments in a distant third place after the other two.
Respectfully,
Brian P.Last edited by pendell; 2021-09-13 at 11:53 AM.
"Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."
-Valery Legasov in Chernobyl
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2021-09-13, 01:47 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2019
Re: OOTS #1243 - The Discussion Thread
+1. On pretty much all of it. (Especially boilerplate documentation). A brief look at a couple decades of programming:
I once believed code comments were a waste of programmer time.
I then believed code comments were essential.
I then believed that code comments should express the "why", not the "what" (those were a waste of time).
I then believed that if you needed code comments to explain the "why" the code needs to be better.
I now believe many things, including:
- Absolutes frequently aren't.
- My own learning journey continues, and hopefully will until I die.
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2021-09-13, 09:40 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2018
Re: OOTS #1243 - The Discussion Thread
When I started coding, comments were more important because comments were usually all you had for traceability. Anything you wanted to know about the history of a piece of code - who wrote it, why they wrote it, what problem it tried to solve, when they wrote it, how they tested it, etc. - was generally only available in the comments.
But in many development environments today, code metadata is linked to the code through other tools, and you can trace each piece of code from requirements through testing without some poor schmuck manually putting it in the comments.
Tooling has made many of the traditional use for code comments obsolete.
There are still a small number of places I still like to see comments, but I find that a big part of developer maturity is (1) learning all the places where a future developer will need comments to fix, modify, or extend the code, and (2) learning the best ways to minimize the number of places that communication has to happen.Last edited by Dion; 2021-09-14 at 07:36 AM.
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2021-09-14, 12:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2008
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- North Carolina, USA
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Re: OOTS #1243 - The Discussion Thread
Every day I have come back to this site to check on a new comic, I have re-read 1243 - Rogue Up, Rogue Down. Normally I might re-read an OotS strip once. This time? Haley is just so freaking awesome that I re-read it every time.
Thank you Ceika for the wonderful Avatar avatar!
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2021-09-14, 02:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2010
Re: OOTS #1243 - The Discussion Thread
Thanks Giant!
To find in order to lose; To fall in order to stand up
To freeze in order to ignite; To find myself within, and not fear the edge
To die in order to be reborn to the new world
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2021-09-15, 09:50 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2011
Re: OOTS #1243 - The Discussion Thread
Oh, I forgot my prediction for 1244. Sunny is so shocked he turns center eye on Haley again - technically just continuing to follow directions - which also dispels Serini's invisibility. Someone recognizes her and everyone is like oh hey wtf.
I'm going to guess Elan, because even if he isn't the smartest of the group that just seems like a Bard thing to do.
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2021-09-15, 10:57 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2013
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Re: OOTS #1243 - The Discussion Thread
Agreed -- I think Sunny's AMF eye would be a cool moment for revealing Serini to the Order.
And if they realize who she is...do you think an armor-piercing question might be the thing that stops the fight?
Something tells me Serini isn't down and out yet. Well, she IS down, but...you get what I mean
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2021-09-15, 08:22 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2011
Re: OOTS #1243 - The Discussion Thread
I'll go with... not the question itself, but a reveal from Belkar. "OH, HEY. You're that chick Shojo told me he hooked up with... why are you here, he thought you were dead?"
And she'll be like wait wtf. And it'll turn out they were lovers (would their kid be a three-quarterling?) before Xykon make her a three-eigthling and she never saw him again but always still loved him and it just distracts her from wanting to kill them for a moment long enough to have a conversation... which enables them to somehow persuade her to stop fighting and rejoin with the pallies.
Just a wild ass guess though. Which now Rich will absolutely NOT do this.
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2021-09-15, 11:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2015
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Re: OOTS #1243 - The Discussion Thread
I definitely doubt that will happen, because it's completely unnecessary for it to happen for the Order to recognize Serini, because it doesn't add anything to the story for this to be the reason the Order recognizes Serini, and because Rich has expressed frustration with how readers sexualize his female characters. (Can't find the quote now, but it's definitely in relation to the BRITF-era discussion that Laurin's favor from Tarquin would involve sex.)
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2021-09-16, 12:15 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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2021-09-16, 01:05 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2016
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Re: OOTS #1243 - The Discussion Thread
This probably isn't the point, but I wonder how much of that was due to Laurin being a caster-type? She may not have been able to fly - good flight powers are surprisingly uncommon for psionic manifesters - but don't high-level casters fly a lot?
Honestly I wasn't around at that point so I dunno how I'd think about it. Then again, Haley didn't even speak to Laurin, so probably not.Cool elan Illithid Slayer by linkele.
Editor/co-writer of Magicae Est Potestas, a crossover between Artemis Fowl and Undertale. Ao3 FanFiction.net DeviantArt
We also have a TvTropes page!
Currently playing: Red Hand of Doom(campaign journal)Campaign still going on, but journal discontinued until further notice.
Extended sig here.
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2021-09-16, 06:28 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2016
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2021-09-16, 06:50 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2018
Re: OOTS #1243 - The Discussion Thread
I don't think they need to "recognise" her.
She's not an goblinoid or an undead, which is probably enough for a "wtf, why are you helping Xykon?". And it might be enough for one of the members of the OOTS to think "wait, maybe she's the guardian of this gate, let's talk to her and explain that we're allied!".
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2021-09-16, 06:55 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2016
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- Seoul
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Re: OOTS #1243 - The Discussion Thread
I mean, how many people are they expecting to be at this Gate? An old halfling in the place where Serini built a Gate? Why wouldn't you wonder if it's Serini?
Cool elan Illithid Slayer by linkele.
Editor/co-writer of Magicae Est Potestas, a crossover between Artemis Fowl and Undertale. Ao3 FanFiction.net DeviantArt
We also have a TvTropes page!
Currently playing: Red Hand of Doom(campaign journal)Campaign still going on, but journal discontinued until further notice.
Extended sig here.
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2021-09-16, 08:35 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2015
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Re: OOTS #1243 - The Discussion Thread
Well, we got our answer.
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2021-09-16, 12:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2015
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- Texas
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Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society