Comment On A Collection Of Comments

I just have to comment on the last one ... No no! That's a Bad Perl! You Don't comment out "use strict." You'll make a mess all over the code. Bad Perl!

Yes, Windows NT is a butt-head OS. I suppose the code name for Mac OS X was "Beavis"?

The only good OS is one that has been dynamically generated by a dynamic OS Generating tool...

It might seem daunting at first, but take note that
"GetProfileCustomerEntityReceiverInformationReceiverAndProgrammingInformationListAccessCardInformationProgrammingListProductDetails"
instances could be referenced using much more manageable instance
names, such as "gpcerirapilaciplpdOne"

Original:

    //return greenwich mean time as expressed in nanoseconds since the
    //creation of the universe.  time is expressed in meters, so
    //divide by the speed of light to obtain seconds.  assumes the
    //speed of light in a vacuum is constant.  the file specified by
    //Filename is assumed to be in your reference frame, otherwise you
    //must transform the result by the path integral of the minkowski
    //metric tensor in order to obtain the correct result.

A few questions,

How can GMT and UTC have any meaningful values before the creation of the earth since they both depend on the variable rate of rotation of the earth?
Isn't the time of the creation of the universe undecided between 9 and 20 billion years because of the imprecision of the Cepheid yardstick and therefore the Hubble "constant"? 
Why express time in metres when time and the speed of light can be measured more precisely than distances?
To transform between frames, can't you just apply a Lorentz transformation - I thought the (Feynman?) Path Integral was for bringing in quantum mechanical effects.

Original:

    //return greenwich mean time as expressed in nanoseconds since the
    //creation of the universe.  time is expressed in meters, so
    //divide by the speed of light to obtain seconds.  assumes the
    //speed of light in a vacuum is constant.  the file specified by
    //Filename is assumed to be in your reference frame, otherwise you
    //must transform the result by the path integral of the minkowski
    //metric tensor in order to obtain the correct result.

A few questions,

How can GMT and UTC have any meaningful values before the creation of the earth since they both depend on the variable rate of rotation of the earth?
Isn't the time of the creation of the universe undecided between 9 and 20 billion years because of the imprecision of the Cepheid yardstick and therefore the Hubble "constant"? 
Why express time in metres when time and the speed of light can be measured more precisely than distances?
To transform between frames, can't you just apply a Lorentz transformation - I thought the (Feynman?) Path Integral was for bringing in quantum mechanical effects.

sorry for the double post, my finger slipped and i double clicked

OneFactor:

Original:

    //return greenwich mean time as expressed in nanoseconds since the
    //creation of the universe.  time is expressed in meters, so
    //divide by the speed of light to obtain seconds.  assumes the
    //speed of light in a vacuum is constant.  the file specified by
    //Filename is assumed to be in your reference frame, otherwise you
    //must transform the result by the path integral of the minkowski
    //metric tensor in order to obtain the correct result.

A few questions,

How can GMT and UTC have any meaningful values before the creation
of the earth since they both depend on the variable rate of rotation of
the earth?
Isn't the time of the creation of the universe undecided
between 9 and 20 billion years because of the imprecision of
the Cepheid yardstick and therefore the Hubble "constant"? 
Why express time in metres when time and the speed of light can be measured more precisely than distances?
To
transform between frames, can't you just apply a Lorentz transformation
- I thought the (Feynman?) Path Integral was for bringing in
quantum mechanical effects.

wo wo.... slow down egghead

OneFactor:

sorry for the double post, my finger slipped and i double clicked

Um... triple, including the apology...

Alex Papadimoulis:

#use strict;            #good perl

The hallmark of the exasperated OTP* coder finally giving up his struggle to understand perl semantics, opting instead for mediocrity, insanity, and a slow descent into hell.

*OTP = Other Than PERL

Anonymous:

OneFactor:

Original:

    //return greenwich mean time as expressed in nanoseconds since the
    //creation of the universe.  time is expressed in meters, so
    //divide by the speed of light to obtain seconds.  assumes the
    //speed of light in a vacuum is constant.  the file specified by
    //Filename is assumed to be in your reference frame, otherwise you
    //must transform the result by the path integral of the minkowski
    //metric tensor in order to obtain the correct result.

A few questions,

How can GMT and UTC have any meaningful values before the creation of the earth since they both depend on the variable rate of rotation of the earth?
Isn't the time of the creation of the universe undecided between 9 and 20 billion years because of the imprecision of the Cepheid yardstick and therefore the Hubble "constant"? 
Why express time in metres when time and the speed of light can be measured more precisely than distances?
To transform between frames, can't you just apply a Lorentz transformation - I thought the (Feynman?) Path Integral was for bringing in quantum mechanical effects.

wo wo.... slow down egghead

Point well taken, if I had slowed down I would have realized that the path integral on the Minkowski really did make sense in order to account for a frame of reference that had non-constant velocity. I really should think more before posting.

OneFactor:

Original:

    //return greenwich mean time as expressed in nanoseconds since the
    //creation of the universe.  time is expressed in meters, so
    //divide by the speed of light to obtain seconds.  assumes the
    //speed of light in a vacuum is constant.  the file specified by
    //Filename is assumed to be in your reference frame, otherwise you
    //must transform the result by the path integral of the minkowski
    //metric tensor in order to obtain the correct result.

A few questions,

How can GMT and UTC have any meaningful values before the creation of the earth since they both depend on the variable rate of rotation of the earth?
Isn't the time of the creation of the universe undecided between 9 and 20 billion years because of the imprecision of the Cepheid yardstick and therefore the Hubble "constant"? 
Why express time in metres when time and the speed of light can be measured more precisely than distances?
To transform between frames, can't you just apply a Lorentz transformation - I thought the (Feynman?) Path Integral was for bringing in quantum mechanical effects.

I think you and the author should get together and chat about it sometime, but I fear that if you do it'll set off a matter/anti-matter chain reaction that will destroy the entire universe.

Anonymous:

OneFactor:

sorry for the double post, my finger slipped and i double clicked

Um... triple, including the apology...

I don't think posting _different_ messages usually counts as double posting. Then again, what do I know?

Anonymous:

OneFactor:

sorry for the double post, my finger slipped and i double clicked

Um... triple, including the apology...

Ach, how silly. That doesn't really count as a third copy of the post, does it?

kungFuDeathGrip();

I love it! And it is evidently used quite a bit -- http://www.koders.com/?s=kungfudeathgrip&_%3Abtn=Search&_%3Ala=*&_%3Ali=*

OneFactor:

Isn't the time of the creation of the universe undecided between 9 and 20 billion years because of the imprecision of the Cepheid yardstick and therefore the Hubble "constant"?

You are correct about Cephied uncertainty and a variable Hubble constant due to an accelerated expansion.  However, the age of the Universe estimated at 13.7+/-0.2 billion years is based on the WMAP analysis of the power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background. 

jsumners:

kungFuDeathGrip();

I love it! And it is evidently used quite a bit -- http://www.koders.com/?s=kungfudeathgrip&_%3Abtn=Search&_%3Ala=*&_%3Ali=*

Indeed. Considerably more than kungFuSuicideGrip() --

http://www.koders.com/?s=kungfusuicidegrip&_%3Abtn=Search&_%3Ala=*&_%3Ali=*

Alex Papadimoulis:

--SNIP--

Jeremy Lew found this little comment in some C++ source file.
Judging from the comment, the developer at least had an inkling of his
questionable sanity ...

void sysDraw::close()
{
  // Is this necessary????
  // probably not but what the hell.
  // better safe than sorry
  if (!this) return;                 
  
  // ... snip ...
}

--SNIP--

I have to comment on this one, depending on what other hackery he was
engaged in, this may have been a valid concern.  I've developed
C++ applications for small systems that used pointers to C++ member
functions as call-backs and it is conceivable that

the actual call site might get bad/null data.  Granted, the whole system was fugly, but that is a different story.



--The BitShifter, certified language abuse specialist.

surelyReachableObjectsWhichShouldHaveBeenProcessedButWereLockContentedSize

Just reading this gives me carpal tunnel.

Xargon:

OneFactor:

Isn't the time of the creation of the universe undecided between 9 and 20 billion years because of the imprecision of the Cepheid yardstick and therefore the Hubble "constant"?

You are correct about Cephied uncertainty and a variable Hubble constant due to an accelerated expansion.  However, the age of the Universe estimated at 13.7+/-0.2 billion years is based on the WMAP analysis of the power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background. 

Question for you, since you'd seem to know:  What happens when you put silverware in the cosmic microwave? Just curious.

WTF Batman:

Xargon:

OneFactor:

Isn't the time of the creation of the universe undecided between 9 and 20 billion years because of the imprecision of the Cepheid yardstick and therefore the Hubble "constant"?

You are correct about Cephied uncertainty and a variable Hubble constant due to an accelerated expansion.  However, the age of the Universe estimated at 13.7+/-0.2 billion years is based on the WMAP analysis of the power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background. 

Question for you, since you'd seem to know:  What happens when you put silverware in the cosmic microwave? Just curious.

The glass rotating plate breaks and God's kitchen starts on fire.  In anger, God throws the resulting debris out the window.  But that only happened once, at the K-T boundary.  The dinosaurs weren't too happy about it, but then again what do they know?

Anonymous:

OneFactor:

Original:

    //return greenwich mean time as expressed in nanoseconds since the
    //creation of the universe.  time is expressed in meters, so
    //divide by the speed of light to obtain seconds.  assumes the
    //speed of light in a vacuum is constant.  the file specified by
    //Filename is assumed to be in your reference frame, otherwise you
    //must transform the result by the path integral of the minkowski
    //metric tensor in order to obtain the correct result.

A few questions,

How can GMT and UTC have any meaningful values before the creation of the earth since they both depend on the variable rate of rotation of the earth?
Isn't the time of the creation of the universe undecided between 9 and 20 billion years because of the imprecision of the Cepheid yardstick and therefore the Hubble "constant"? 
Why express time in metres when time and the speed of light can be measured more precisely than distances?
To transform between frames, can't you just apply a Lorentz transformation - I thought the (Feynman?) Path Integral was for bringing in quantum mechanical effects.

I think you and the author should get together and chat about it sometime, but I fear that if you do it'll set off a matter/anti-matter chain reaction that will destroy the entire universe.

If a matter/anti-matter chain reaction destryed the entire universe and there was no one left to witness it, would it still be cool?

Let's try it and see ...

Alex Papadimoulis:

It's time once again to give all those cool-but-too-small-to-make-a-full-post submissions a home ...

And like a new puppy, they make messes on the rug.

...comments budget...

A very apt turn of phrase.  From a quick Google, it looks as if it may be an original.

And I suppose I'll wrap it up with this comment that Adam Lazur found at the top of just about every single in-house-developed Perl script. Note that the "#" is the comment character ...

#use strict;            #good perl

Get that puppy out of here!

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

WTF Batman:

Alex Papadimoulis:

#use strict;            #good perl

The hallmark of the exasperated OTP* coder finally giving up his struggle to understand perl semantics, opting instead for mediocrity, insanity, and a slow descent into hell.

*OTP = Other Than PERL

Are Perl and the Necronomicon isomorphic?

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

For all-too-many Perl "programmers", #use strict; is the Perl equivalent of PleaseCompile.

Alex Papadimoulis:

synchronized (surelyReachableObjectsWhichHaveToBeMarkedAsSuch) {

  waitRecommended = 

    surelyReachableObjectsWhichShouldHaveBeenProcessedButWereLockContentedSize

      == surelyReachableObjectsWhichShouldHaveBeenProcessedButWereLockContented.size();



    surelyReachableObjectsWhichShouldHaveBeenProcessedButWereLockContentedSize = 

      surelyReachableObjectsWhichShouldHaveBeenProcessedButWereLockContented.size();



    while (!surelyReachableObjectsWhichShouldHaveBeenProcessedButWereLockContented.isEmpty()) 

    {

      surelyReachableObjectsWhichHaveToBeMarkedAsSuch.push(

        surelyReachableObjectsWhichShouldHaveBeenProcessedButWereLockContented.getFirst() );

    }

}

Well that just proves that good code CAN be self documenting!

jsumners:

kungFuDeathGrip();

I love it! And it is evidently used quite a bit -- http://www.koders.com/?s=kungfudeathgrip&_%3Abtn=Search&_%3Ala=*&_%3Ali=*

After reading the occasional comment in the results of the search, am I right in thinking the kungFuDeathGrip is a instance of a smart pointer created to keep the ref count above nil?

Gene Wirchenko:

Are Perl and the Necronomicon isomorphic?

They can be. It depends heavily on whether you 'use strict;'.

OneFactor:

Original:

    //return greenwich mean time as expressed in nanoseconds since the
    //creation of the universe.  time is expressed in meters, so
    //divide by the speed of light to obtain seconds.  assumes the
    //speed of light in a vacuum is constant.  the file specified by
    //Filename is assumed to be in your reference frame, otherwise you
    //must transform the result by the path integral of the minkowski
    //metric tensor in order to obtain the correct result.

A few questions,

How can GMT and UTC have any meaningful values before the creation of the earth since they both depend on the variable rate of rotation of the earth?
Isn't the time of the creation of the universe undecided between 9 and 20 billion years because of the imprecision of the Cepheid yardstick and therefore the Hubble "constant"? 
Why express time in metres when time and the speed of light can be measured more precisely than distances?
To transform between frames, can't you just apply a Lorentz transformation - I thought the (Feynman?) Path Integral was for bringing in quantum mechanical effects.

I think that's what happens when a programmer is told the function needs more commenting.

It probaby orginally said something like:
//Return the current value of Time.

But why would you need a wrapper to return the value of an (I assume) intrinsic?  Wouldn't

SQLWord sqlWT = Time;

have worked just as well?

Funny -- after seeing the Commentator for the first time yesterday, I put together a post on some of the best comments that I've come across in various chunks of code.

My all-time favorite?  A little one-liner dumped into a couple thousand lines of byzantine code.  I like to picture the expression on the coder's face as they finally figured out what it was all actually supposed to do:

;;; oh sh!t, it tries to write to oracle, too...

Cirdan:

Anonymous:

OneFactor:

sorry for the double post, my finger slipped and i
double clicked

Um... triple, including the apology...

I don't think posting _different_ messages usually counts as double posting. Then again, what do I know?

Cirdan:

Anonymous:

OneFactor:

sorry for the double post, my finger slipped and i double clicked

Um... triple, including the apology...

Ach, how silly. That doesn't really count as a third copy of the post, does it?

Testing your double post with different messages theory?

KungFuDeathGrip is the semi-official name for CTRL-ALT-DELETE equivalent on SGI systems. I think it was CTRL-ALT-F7-BACKSPACE. Try this out and you can get a good idea of where the name came from.

WTF Batman:

Question for you, since you'd seem to know:  What happens when you put silverware in the cosmic microwave? Just curious.

You end up with the Fantastic Fork(TM).

Anonymous:

KungFuDeathGrip is the semi-official name for CTRL-ALT-DELETE equivalent on SGI systems. I think it was CTRL-ALT-F7-BACKSPACE. Try this out and you can get a good idea of where the name came from.

With one hand?

Alex Papadimoulis:

synchronized (surelyReachableObjectsWhichHaveToBeMarkedAsSuch) {
  waitRecommended =
    surelyReachableObjectsWhichShouldHaveBeenProcessedButWereLockContentedSize
      == surelyReachableObjectsWhichShouldHaveBeenProcessedButWereLockContented.size();

    surelyReachableObjectsWhichShouldHaveBeenProcessedButWereLockContentedSize =
      surelyReachableObjectsWhichShouldHaveBeenProcessedButWereLockContented.size();

    while (!surelyReachableObjectsWhichShouldHaveBeenProcessedButWereLockContented.isEmpty())
    {
      surelyReachableObjectsWhichHaveToBeMarkedAsSuch.push(
        surelyReachableObjectsWhichShouldHaveBeenProcessedButWereLockContented.getFirst() );
    }
}

If everyone used names like these, spotting bugs would be so much easier. For example, it's clear the sixth line needs to be:

surelyReachableObjectsWhichWouldHaveBeenProcessedButWereLockContented.size();

Unsincerely,

--Rank

Alex Papadimoulis:

synchronized (surelyReachableObjectsWhichHaveToBeMarkedAsSuch) {

  waitRecommended = 

    surelyReachableObjectsWhichShouldHaveBeenProcessedButWereLockContentedSize

      == surelyReachableObjectsWhichShouldHaveBeenProcessedButWereLockContented.size();



    surelyReachableObjectsWhichShouldHaveBeenProcessedButWereLockContentedSize = 

      surelyReachableObjectsWhichShouldHaveBeenProcessedButWereLockContented.size();



    while (!surelyReachableObjectsWhichShouldHaveBeenProcessedButWereLockContented.isEmpty()) 

    {

      surelyReachableObjectsWhichHaveToBeMarkedAsSuch.push(

        surelyReachableObjectsWhichShouldHaveBeenProcessedButWereLockContented.getFirst() );

    }

}

"...LockContented..."?

"contention" is not from "content" but "contend".

Carnation Condensed Milk: From Contended Cows.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Can I just say that ending every post with

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko


is not only annoying as hell, but redundant. Your username is Gene Wirchenko, you don't need to reinforce the fact that it was you who posted the message. Maybe i'm the only one that cringes everytime I read



Sincerely,



Gene Wirchenko

but oh well.

Sincerely,

hash.

Xargon:

OneFactor:

Isn't the time of the creation of the universe undecided between 9 and 20 billion years because of the imprecision of the Cepheid yardstick and therefore the Hubble "constant"?

You are correct about Cephied uncertainty and a variable Hubble constant due to an accelerated expansion.  However, the age of the Universe estimated at 13.7+/-0.2 billion years is based on the WMAP analysis of the power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background. 

Aren't some stars dated at 16 billion years old though? I'm rather fond using the planck temperature divided by the cosmic background temperature, squaring it and saying thats the age of the universe in planck time. Though all theoretical calculations have a factor of 2pi as the margin for error.Which is bigger than the Cepheid uncertainty.

OneFactor:

Original:

    //return greenwich mean time as expressed in nanoseconds since the
    //creation of the universe.  time is expressed in meters, so
    //divide by the speed of light to obtain seconds.  assumes the
    //speed of light in a vacuum is constant.  the file specified by
    //Filename is assumed to be in your reference frame, otherwise you
    //must transform the result by the path integral of the minkowski
    //metric tensor in order to obtain the correct result.

How can GMT and UTC have any meaningful values before the creation of the earth since they both depend on the variable rate of rotation of the earth?

It's a joke. How do you know when the Universe was created? Maybe it was created a second ago. :-)

OneFactor:

Isn't the time of the creation of the universe undecided between 9 and 20 billion years because of the imprecision of the Cepheid yardstick and therefore the Hubble "constant"? 
Why express time in metres when time and the speed of light can be measured more precisely than distances?
To transform between frames, can't you just apply a Lorentz transformation - I thought the (Feynman?) Path Integral was for bringing in quantum mechanical effects.

Yeah, that stuff is just a mistake. Someone trying to be clever and doing it by saying a lot of nonsense that seems like it makes sense until you actually know something about the topic.

Anonymous:

OneFactor:

Original:

    //return greenwich mean time as expressed in nanoseconds since the
    //creation of the universe.  time is expressed in meters, so
    //divide by the speed of light to obtain seconds.  assumes the
    //speed of light in a vacuum is constant.  the file specified by
    //Filename is assumed to be in your reference frame, otherwise you
    //must transform the result by the path integral of the minkowski
    //metric tensor in order to obtain the correct result.

A few questions,

How can GMT and UTC have any meaningful values before the creation of the earth since they both depend on the variable rate of rotation of the earth?
Isn't the time of the creation of the universe undecided between 9 and 20 billion years because of the imprecision of the Cepheid yardstick and therefore the Hubble "constant"? 
Why express time in metres when time and the speed of light can be measured more precisely than distances?
To transform between frames, can't you just apply a Lorentz transformation - I thought the (Feynman?) Path Integral was for bringing in quantum mechanical effects.

I think that's what happens when a programmer is told the function needs more commenting.

It probaby orginally said something like:
//Return the current value of Time.

No, this what happens when you put a bored physicist grad student in charge of coding and/or debugging your simulations.

hash:

Can I just say that ending every post with

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko


is not only annoying as hell, but redundant. Your username is Gene Wirchenko, you don't need to reinforce the fact that it was you who posted the message. Maybe i'm the only one that cringes everytime I read


Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

but oh well.

Sincerely,

hash.

I think he might be using an automated Signature Generator...

Gene Wirchenko:

Are Perl and the Necronomicon isomorphic?

I believe that you have discovered a hidden truth. It would explain a great deal.

Without kungFuDeathGrip(), unthinkableMayhem ensues.

Depends on what your other hand is doing.

Alex Papadimoulis:

#use strict;            #good perl

Well, at least it was good some time in the past.  I write and deal with a lot of perl.  You can tell a lot about the quality of the code, though, by whether or not the code will pass use strict and -w.  If I open a script for maintenance and find that warnings and strict are not on, I don't bother reading the code: I go ask someone what this script was supposed to do instead.  It's generally faster to re-invent the wheel than to try to round someone else's.

Perl's a great language, but there are a lot of perl 'programmers' who leave unreadable messes.

Anonymous:

After reading the occasional comment in the results of the search, am I right in thinking the kungFuDeathGrip is a instance of a smart pointer created to keep the ref count above nil?

Precisely.

My favorite error message of all time is still:

kernel panic:
mcs_unlock: lock not currently owned
the zombie walks, the sequel

OneFactor:

Xargon:

OneFactor:

Isn't the time of the creation of the universe undecided between 9 and 20 billion years because of the imprecision of the Cepheid yardstick and therefore the Hubble "constant"?

You are correct about Cephied uncertainty and a variable Hubble constant due to an accelerated expansion.  However, the age of the Universe estimated at 13.7+/-0.2 billion years is based on the WMAP analysis of the power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background. 

Aren't some stars dated at 16 billion years old though? I'm rather fond using the planck temperature divided by the cosmic background temperature, squaring it and saying thats the age of the universe in planck time. Though all theoretical calculations have a factor of 2pi as the margin for error.Which is bigger than the Cepheid uncertainty.

That was a problem when comparing globular cluster ages to 1/H0, and probably still when WMAP results were first results.  However, the uncertainty in the age of stars in globular clusters (which contain the oldest stars in galaxies) is dependent on the accuracy of the distance to the star.  Distance measurements have since been improved (IIRC, the inital Hipparcos had some serious accuracy issues) and observed star ages now fall within the age of the Universe.

Anonymous:

My favorite error message of all time is still:

kernel panic:
mcs_unlock: lock not currently owned
the zombie walks, the sequel

I still like:
*** INVALID COMPILED FORMAT ***
YOUR PROGRAM HAS MOST LIKELY CLOBBERED ITSELF.
followed by legnthy details (since it was a batch job).  (I wrote into an area of memory that I was not supposed to.)

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

OneFactor:

Isn't the time of the creation of the universe undecided between 9 and 20 billion years because of the imprecision of the Cepheid yardstick and therefore the Hubble "constant"?

No, no, no... everyone knows that in accordance with today's religious nutjobbery, the universe was created by God Almighty in 4004 BC.