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For anyone else that's curious; at first I thought it was double speak, so not to sound as bad.

Stack overflow refers specifically to the case when the execution stack grows beyond the memory that is reserved for it. For example, if you call a function which recursively calls itself without termination, you will cause a stack overflow as each function call creates a new stack frame and the stack will eventually consume more memory than is reserved for it.

Buffer overflow refers to any case in which a program writes beyond the end of the memory allocated for any buffer (including on the heap, not just on the stack). For example, if you write past the end of an array allocated from the heap, you've caused a buffer overflow.

http://stackoverflow.com/quest...

Suddenly Toyota lawyers sued this website http://stackoverflow.com/ and claimed they are victims too.

Is there anything Stackoverflow can't do?

The start menu in Windows 7 wasn't good, but the screen is worse:

1. It's effectively a modal dialog. Modal dialogs are evil (most of the time): http://stackoverflow.com/quest...
2. By taking over the screen, it switches your context.
3. By taking over the screen, it makes it difficult to follow instructions like "press start, type 'blahblahblah', then hit enter" since it can't be onscreen at the same time.
4. The type to launch bizarrely offers fewer settings-related results than Win7 did, making it harder to launch those. Typing to launch is mainly helpful when I'm not sure exactly how to get there already.

Much as apparently some people hated the cascading menus of XP, I think that was the best start menu *except* that it didn't have type to launch. Type to launch was important enough that I dealt with the crappy start menu (you were able to go back to the cascading menu in at least Vista and probably Win7, but that disabled search, so it was a step back). There's no real equivalent advance in 8. They did add filtered searches, but the distinction between Settings and Programs is so vague that each of those categories is less useful than a combined category. And yes, just about any sensible person admits the start screen is better for a tablet, but on a mixed-input interface (whether or not touch is available) there is good reason to prefer the old small modeless menu.

Oh, shut up.

Windows Vista/7 still haven't even completely separated GUI from ring 0.

Last year had like 5 or 6 vulnerabilities messing with kernel mode to varying degrees simply by trying to display malformed images (and those vulnerabilities were all there at least since WinXP).

My favorite, for sheer WTF-ness, was "display an iframe of a very specific height - get a BSOD". You can find a bunch more by searching for "win32k.sys+(vulnerability|cve)"

This guy wants to start altSlashdot: http://slashdot.org/~Okian%20W... - check his latest comments

I hope it will have UTF-8 support as well as mathjax - the math rendering engine used on stackexchange. Imagine how wonderful comments and posts could look like, if people could embed formulas easily!

Our wiki now collects all the most important ideas: http://www.altslashdot.org/wik...

Also you are welcome on IRC ##altslashdot on freenode

BTW, I haven't changed my sig since 2002, and it will be the same on new slashdot, whatever name we pick: http://www.altslashdot.org/wik...

...attempt to provide visual alternatives to this kind of discussion on IPv6/IPv4 regex constructs: http://stackoverflow.com/quest... Human brain seems to work well with information in text format, despite complexity.

“Programs are meant to be read by humans and only incidentally for computers to execute”. — Donald Knuth http://stackoverflow.com/quest... http://www.codinghorror.com/bl... http://www.codinghorror.com/bl...

Hi Bruce, I remember both times when you tried to start Technocrat.net. How about joining altslashdot ? Don't worry about bad name, we are now looking for some other name.

As much as I don't like javascript too, I like very much how http://math.stackexchange.com/ supports the math rendering engine MathJax. And along with UTF-8 support I think that we need the ability to discuss difficult topics using math to describe them.

Not quite the old hand you are, but I have been hanging here quite a while, and this is the first I'm hearing of Technocrat. If you start it up again, and I hear about it, I'll be there.

The really sad part about all this is that there actually is lots of room for improvement in they way Slashdot does things. I was here before the moderation system was introduced. It was really innovative at the time, and of course has been a huge success, but that was then and the world has moved on. StackOverflow took the concept, expanded it, and did some amazing things. Some of the same folks are looking to make similar advances with Discourse. There's no reason why Slashdot can't take some of those more modern user-moderation ideas back.

I've actually had no real problem with Slashdot UI upgrades in the past. Heck, if I didn't like learning new things, I'm definitely hanging out on the wrong website. And it is certainly time for some upgrades. For instance, why can't we vote on stories instead of just comments? Why can't we edit our own comments? Why can't high-karma users get more moderation perks? Why can't user-moderators do more than get an occasional miserly 5 votes (immediately rescinded when they want to comment, which is what got them the karma to get moderation votes in the first place).

But as near as I can tell, for this upgrade the operating principle instead of "our users' experience needs to be better", is "our advertisers' experience needs to be better".

we want UTF-8 + MATHJAX support - the math rendering engine that is used by http://math.stackexchange.com/

MATHJAX !! + UTF-8 !!

and we want UTF-8 + MATHJAX support - the math rendering engine that is used by http://math.stackexchange.com/

MATHJAX !! + UTF-8 !!

How it's done is here. Basically, you test to see which of the various XMLHttpRequest objects work (basically it's several for Microsoft and one for the rest of the world), and use the one that works. I personally don't do it exactly that way, I use a try/catch block but that seems like a good answer too.

Details on the return values here.

It's quite straightforward. While there are good reasons to use jQuery, there's no need to use it solely to handle AJAX calls for multiple browsers.

W3Schools is a site for web developers and does not represent the web despite the three W's in the name.

Net Applications(which measures visitors instead of page views like Statcounter) has it at ~50%.

Ahh... W3Schools, the programming site so bad at what it is purported to do that Stack Overflow has repeatedly debated whether to even allow links to W3Schools, and W3Fools was set up to point out all the bad code and antipatterns on the site.

Humm, as a developer I feel a bit idiot because I never really ask myself the question... and always think it was the same thing. After a quick look it seems I'm right, both compile and run the same way... it's different name for specific version of ECMA Script. http://stackoverflow.com/quest...

The linked "bug" is here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19350097/pre-calculating-in-gcc-4-8-c11 - which says, "Hey, this certain optimization isn't on by default anymore?" And to which the answer is, "Yeah, due to changes in C++11, you're supposed to explicitly flag that you want that optimization in your code."

That linked "bug" appears to be an actual "bug" since a fix for it was posted to 4.8.2. See here.

http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=57511

The article basically says:
"GCC 4.8 includes new optimizations! Because of this, the generated assembly code is different! This might be BAD."

Like, duh? Do you expect optimizations to somehow produce the same assembly as before, except magically faster?

The linked "bug" is here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19350097/pre-calculating-in-gcc-4-8-c11 - which says, "Hey, this certain optimization isn't on by default anymore?" And to which the answer is, "Yeah, due to changes in C++11, you're supposed to explicitly flag that you want that optimization in your code."

So, yeah. Total non-story.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1051333/combing-an-external-event-loop-with-qts

I'm getting cynical in my age I guess, but the majority of the claims people make are simply fluff to try and make a buck or name. Claiming that we need a new language for a special case is silly. Develop and release a library(or libraries) for your needs so that people can use it. Otherwise we end up with all these little tufts of crap that 3 people in the world use, and have to listen to them complain about why adoption is so low.

I can say this because your cynicism plays directly into my game. The new paradigm is Meta Programming. With my new Meta Programming tools I can write code in one single language and compile it into any other language that has an open source parser. My style guide language ensures the output code is consistent with whatever project I need produce code for. You are both the perfect candidate for, and also most likely not to learn such a language / platform.

That is why the creation of new languages and paradigms are needed for optimal competition. You see, the more divided they are, the more easily I can conquer them with my one language to rule them all. Yes, the little used obscure or languages can be leveraged. I can add that specialization to my capability feature-set with ease. As my library of meta code has grown I can now tackle even very large projects with very few programmers on the job, deployment is a bigger concern than (re)programming now. I can undercut nearly any bid with a far higher quality of output than my competitors -- And do it again and again on virtually any platform.

I once thought as you, and then I realized I could not stem the flood of wheel reinvention without reinventing the wheel myself. You wouldn't put a wagon wheel on a sports car... I sought to end this madness once and for all, but soon I would realize that I must not for fear of even greater madness. Humanity is not ready for this powerful technology. It will wait to be released until after I retire from the competitive market. You may think me greedy, but I am not. You just haven't seen the horror of a library including all manner of design patterns as utilized in Java or C/C++ compiled into SQL triggers with a single external main() function interfacing the DB query. I recoiled in horror at my first glimpse of at this Thing-that-Should-Not-Be, even as I allowed the birth of ever more monstrous abominations: An entire Trouble Ticket system running atop Apple Script. Excel spreadsheets hosting systems diagnostic tools. JavaScript crashing browsers running AI meant for Prolog.

I sat in perverse fascination as Ruby on Rails destroyed an entire Intranet to produce a glacial slide show of spinning tetrahedron via distributed 3D software rasterizer. No! Cluster fscks of epic proportions flashed before my eyes, and it was soon clear that you do not have the technology to defend against such terrible beasts. I mused, "Well, surely none would do such things in real world applications", but I knew I was wrong before my search began. Do you understand the Danger that approaches?! Have you seen ASM.js?!

With great power comes great responsibility. For once someone will decide that just because we can doesn't mean we should. If true Meta Programming is unleashed before the world is ready the blood won't be on my hands. For a queer little project an aged experienced dev can learn a new language or methodology in a matter of days, then it's only the API ref you'll require, as always. Before you thumb your nose at domain specific special-case languages consider the alternative approach and be grateful it does not yet have you in its clutches.

One Final Word: Debugger.

Not really. Most of this answer is still true: http://stackoverflow.com/a/13550632/1953590 Android 4.4+ fully supports Java 7, but that's what, about 1% of the device market right now?

If you are a Windows user, you can reduce the task of launching+arranging multiple windows to just one click of a batch file

If you are a Windows user, you can reduce the task of launching multiple specified windows to just one click of a batch file

>> I'd have to do a lot of manual movement and resizing of windows to get things to...

If you are a Windows user, you can reduce the task to just one click of a batch file

If you aren't afraid of the command line, then you can do this on Windows, too.

Using the "win" command in NirCmd, you can screw around with window sizes and placement. The "window" command of the for-pay software Take Command can do this as well. There are also ways to manipulate windows in Powershell.

I'm probably the wrong person to comment on this, since by your classification I'm one of the jerks.

You're only half right. If the plugins were properly isolated, you could compile C onto the JVM and have the same level of security. In fact, tools exist for compiling C and C++ into bytecode. Your general point is valid though. It's not the language. It's the crappy plugins.

Here is a remote Mic and sound, not generic X but you can get it to work on Linux, you just have to pay and set it up, not as straight forward as a single X session : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5651202/can-local-usb-device-be-used-by-remote-application-through-x11-forwarding

so by remote usb you mean from a console you setup a ssh session? I don't think my manager or VP is gonna do this...

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5651202/can-local-usb-device-be-used-by-remote-application-through-x11-forwarding

Yes, you can enable SSH on ESXi. There are also varying levels of support from third parties, most of which are easier to deal with than Microsoft.

Perhaps I should clarify what I mean when I say I'm a "Windows sysadmin"... For the past two years, I've been doing systems work with Windows. For the first year, it was mostly in a bog-standard admin capacity, but for the past year I've been working exclusively on a project in Windows Server 2012, using PowerShell heavily. I'm now in charge of maintaining and improving about 10k lines of PowerShell scripts.

Powershell is the second-worst language I've encountered in almost two decades of programming. Here's a few reasons why:

• It's supposedly all based around objects, but you can't natively define your own classes. You have to embed C# for that.
• The "pipeline" passes objects from one command to the next, but there is no standard for what semantics a passed object must support.
• Opaque objects can't easily be manipulated or constructed for debugging.
• Commands are loaded modularly, but there are no namespaces. Collisions are inevitable.
• No include-like functionality for scripts. You can import (with .) a modular script multiple times, but it'll run multiple times.
• Multiple overlapping APIs. In addition to the PowerShell native commands, there are interfaces to .NET, WMI, COM, and command-line executables, any one of which may be the expected (or only) way to accomplish a given task, and of course the available features change with every revision of Windows.
• Context-sensitive errors. Assign several kinds of Get-* results to variables, and you can check that variable safely in an IF condition. Checking the Get-* directly in the condition will throw an error if the Get-* operation returns an empty set.
• Moving to an inner scope is copy-on-write.
• Far too much boilerplate to declare constants (38 characters) or globals (27 characters).
• Symbol aliases like "%" and "?" are not obvious when reading old code, and text aliases are also rarely intuitive unless you use them frequently.
• No cross-platform support whatsoever.
• Incomplete support in older OS versions, and no upgrades.
• No unified documentation (due mainly to aforementioned modularity hell and split APIs)
• Whitespace sensitive.
• No native support for test-driven development.
• No support for multiple entry points.
• Worse multithreading support than Perl.
• Little control over command output. Either you nitpick each command to accommodate its error, warning, and output streams, or you change the global error-handling variables
• As with all Microsoft products, absolutely no guarantee of support beyond the current version. As soon as Microsoft decides that SuperShell is the next big thing, PowerShell will go join other abandoned systems like COM, WSH, and VBScript.

My theory is that PowerShell started as a way to tack .NET support onto batch files, but then some brain-dead executive thought it'd be a suitable competitor to Bash, so they had to add pipes, but it's just gotta use objects, because Windows is all about the objects! Then somebody actually tried to use it for something productive, and realized it was still limited, so they added half-assed module support so it could be more useful later. Executives saw the progress, and declared that it had to be integrated into all the new 2012 stuff, so that meant that each team had to figure out their own way to make PowerShell make sense. Of course, in typical Microsoft fashion, nobody thought to look over a

Its almost sad to me that so many techies are falling back into the "I dont understand it so I hate it" mentality.

StackExchange has a pretty good explanation of the whole Powershell vs Bash thing, with the takeaway being, they have different designs and are good at different things. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/573623/is-powershell-ready-to-replace-my-cygwin-shell-on-windows

There are a lot of reasons to criticize powershell (startup time for one, memory usage for another), but sadly the ones here basically amount to "I hate closed source" or "I gave it 5 minutes and I didnt like it" or "im a unix guy and see no need for it". Those may be true, but theyre not faults with powershell

Let me clarify my point from a few replies ago. As an admin, it's not about BASH vs. Powershell, it's about having tools I can use across multiple platforms *without modification*.

If I have to write Powershell scripts to accomplish something on Windows and then Perl or Python scripts to accomplish *the same thing* on UNIX/Linux, I'm duplicating effort in creating and maintaining those scripts.

Us admins hate duplicating work. We like to do things in a way that takes the least effort to do the job correctly. Any kind of "religious war" about this is stupid.

I don't have time to worry about which tool is "cooler" than another. I have real work to do.

Its almost sad to me that so many techies are falling back into the "I dont understand it so I hate it" mentality.

StackExchange has a pretty good explanation of the whole Powershell vs Bash thing, with the takeaway being, they have different designs and are good at different things.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/573623/is-powershell-ready-to-replace-my-cygwin-shell-on-windows

There are a lot of reasons to criticize powershell (startup time for one, memory usage for another), but sadly the ones here basically amount to "I hate closed source" or "I gave it 5 minutes and I didnt like it" or "im a unix guy and see no need for it". Those may be true, but theyre not faults with powershell

In respect to our Python-coding brothers and sisters, both Python and Ruby are very developer-friendly. Anyway, here is a nice comparison of the two languages' features: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1113611/what-does-ruby-have-that-python-doesnt-and-vice-versa

Obviously I prefer Ruby and to touch on the meta-programming aspect (whether good or evil), IMHO Ruby does a better job in this area. Mutable classes might give some people the heebie-jeebies, but it's saved my bacon several times. Ruby's Smalltalk-like message passing is sweet. Writing DSLs in Ruby is much more straightforward than in Python. There are many things to like.

Python gives you a nice sense of structure, but that can be a curse as well as it feels quite rigid. Most of the people I know who code in Python come from an engineering background, and that kinda makes sense to me. It feels like an engineering language. Ruby on the other hand is more fluid. It lends itself to more organic styles of coding.

The original AC post about "Ruby adds nothing to the existing languages" is clearly a troll, though I'd say the poster is right in a way. Ruby doesn't necessarily introduce anything new - it just puts it all together in the one place. Plus it's a joy to code in.

Am I misunderstanding what you mean with the struct member reordering? According to this Stack Overflow question's accepted answer the compiler isn't allowed to do reordering. I don't see why typedef would change that, but I freely admit I'm in the 90% of C programmers, hence this post.

Some of the most elegant code that I've seen has been with web scripting languages. $('img').bind('mouseenter mouseleave', function() { $(this).attr({ src: $(this).attr('data-other-src') , 'data-other-src': $(this).attr('src') }) }); Shameless plug

Try doing that in C

In modern C++:

img.mouseenter = img.mouseleave = [] () { std::swap(img.attributes["src"], img.attributes["data-other-src"]); };

Ofcourse it requires the C++ programmer hasn't been too damaged by exposure to Java and tries to pointlessly ruin the language by using getters and setters instead of real property access.

Some of the most elegant code that I've seen has been with web scripting languages.

$('img').bind('mouseenter mouseleave', function() {
        $(this).attr({
                src: $(this).attr('data-other-src')
                , 'data-other-src': $(this).attr('src')
        })
});

Shameless plug

Try doing that in C

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12556968/getting-crash-logs-debug-information-from-android-users

I used to try to do that, but there are several problems. First, it's non-portable as hell. Second, have you ever tried turning on all the warning options in gcc (and some other compilers)? I'm not sure it's possible to write 10 lines of code that won't generate at least one warning.

All my code is compiled with

-Wall -Werror -pedantic

What is the problem writing correct code?

Because that's not all the available warnings.

Also (not to double post but), while I could have tested the assertion that browsers do not cache HTTPS resources, I think I will just let StackOverflow handle that one.

By default web browsers should cache content over HTTPS the same as over HTTP, unless explicitly told otherwise via the HTTP Headers received

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/174348/will-web-browsers-cache-content-over-https

That's from the accepted answer with 79 up votes. The second answer which has 119 upvotes says:

As of 2010, all modern, current-ish browsers cache HTTPS content by default, unless explicitly told not to.

OK, let's back up a second and make sure that we are not kidding ourselves into thinking that any music played on a computer cannot somehow be recorded.

The record labels and movie studios have become comfortable with analog reconversion for private use that includes a DAC-speaker-microphone-ADC or DAC-display-camera-ADC in the path, just not digital reconversion that doesn't include this highly lossy step. Besides, a lot of video streams are considered rentals, and the provider wants to deter users from keeping the video past the rental period, which is a violation of terms of service.

I'm also not going to google for you how to maintain session state without cookies.

I just did, and I'm going to explain why I don't like the solutions that I found on the first couple pages of results.

• Associating a session with an IP address allows session hijacking if multiple users are behind one NAT or proxy.
• Including the session ID in all URLs and as a hidden input in all forms is fragile: someone using the back button would end up starting a new session. And as this page points out, it's more vulnerable to session hijacking when a user shares a link to product pages that happen to include old session IDs that may refer to private information.
• Storing a session ID in the modification date of an image is also fragile, as it causes session loss when a device's RAM fills up and the user's browser starts purging things from cache. I don't see how it would work anyway, as there's nothing to associate the HTML page load with the image load other than the IP address, which I mentioned above.
• window.name requires JavaScript and doesn't obey the same-origin or even same-domain policy.
• HTTP authentication requires users to register and log in before shopping, which users find prohibitively inconvenient.
• This page recommends making an order form that lets users copy and paste SKUs from another browser window and key in quantities, but it's almost as inconvenient as a phone order.

What keywords should I have used instead?

But as long as you make sure that the back buttons works, on all pages, all the time, even on your landing page

Cookies handle the back button better than the leading cookieless solution (session ID in URL) does.

you will be a much better developer.

I have tried to keep to this philosophy on an online store that I maintain on behalf of my employer, even though it does use a session cookie, does use the occasional (optional) animation, and does use the occasional (optional) script. We don't use anything like the Facebook/Twitter/Google+ social recommendation crap that too many sites use.

So called "zero cost exception handling" we have since over a decade.
See here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/691168/how-much-footprint-does-c-exception-handling-add
or google yourself ;)

Note that AC specifically said, "that nothing else does quite as well," which is not quite the same as "that nothing else does." Personally I'm not aware of any bothersome differences in implementation, but I'd be interested to hear them. I want to say that one editor I've used will plop a bunch of whitespace at the end of a line if you copy and paste the uneven ends of lines, but I just tried the three at my disposal at the moment (VS, Notepad++, gVim) and none of them did that.

Here is how to do it in a bunch of different editors, by the way.

OK, I give up. The fact that you still think that using a string as a vector of bytes is comparable with a class that is capable of understanding the text it stores, with some encoding conversion capabilities, and more, should be a clear enough indication that we don't have the same expectations on what is a class for human text. And the fact that you still try to put words in my mouth signals that it isn't worth wasting time with you.

Luckily enough that people admit that you should use a Unicode library, because even C++11 supports Unicode terribly, and there is work underway to improve it. Meanwhile, I'm happy to have QString. And I'll be happier if with Qt6 there is a type that can replace it.

OK, I give up. The fact that you still think that using a string as a vector of bytes is comparable with a class that is capable of understanding the text it stores, with some encoding conversion capabilities, and more, should be a clear enough indication that we don't have the same expectations on what is a class for human text. And the fact that you still try to put words in my mouth signals that it isn't worth wasting time with you.

Luckily enough that people admit that you should use a Unicode library, because even C++11 supports Unicode terribly, and there is work underway to improve it. Meanwhile, I'm happy to have QString. And I'll be happier if with Qt6 there is a type that can replace it.

Supported or not, <regex> may yield surprising results when used with UTF-8 or other Unicode text, so those may require a non-<regex> library or the proposed <unicode> header for C++14 anyway.

You must not think much of stackoverflow, either.
The number of programmers asking for help there is absolutely ridiculous.

Or, maybe people who do things professionally, have learned how to budget their efforts and time. Important things that I absolutely must grok: do research and learn. Consumption-based queries: delegate to a large body of humans that have probably already dealt with this issue using similar parameters to my own.

there's also IronPython and IronRuby, which were started externally but are now pretty official under MS.

Let me know when Python can be used in Xbox 360 games or apps for downlevel Windows Phone handsets. Right now, XNA on Xbox 360 and all third-party apps on Windows Phone 7 use the .NET Compact Framework, which lacks support for the Reflection.Emit module that all DLR languages use.

As a newish developer who knows only the minimum I need to about TCP/IP protocol, I was surprised that this, and a number of common things (apparently games, streaming video) use UDP at all. I thought it was basically just used for ping.

Out of curiosity can anyone point out good books for learning more about how to implement applications that use TCP/IP including udp in ways other than the common ssh/http/ftp connections.

ICMP is used for ping, friend. I recommend the Comer books. Also, I'd also recommend that you read the IP, UDP and TCP specs.

As a newish developer who knows only the minimum I need to about TCP/IP protocol, I was surprised that this, and a number of common things (apparently games, streaming video) use UDP at all. I thought it was basically just used for ping.

Out of curiosity can anyone point out good books for learning more about how to implement applications that use TCP/IP including udp in ways other than the common ssh/http/ftp connections.

Sounds like it's a mixed bag for all browsers (I'm mainly referring to the comments):

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17308690/how-do-i-enable-perfect-forward-secrecy-by-default-on-apache

#!/usr/bin/perl

use version;

my ($small, $large) = (version->parse('1.4.5'), version->parse('8.7.8'));

print "larger\n" if $small > $large;
print "smaller\n" if $small < $large;

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9941891/perl-compare-operators-and-stringified-numbers