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That was my first article on CodeProject; there's a more modern version by another member - GeoNames .NET WCF Client[^]
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Eddy Vluggen wrote: "help urgently needed"
Google translates this to "I have to hand it in as my homework this morning".
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Regarding your addendum I wouldn't take the responses to your post too much to heart. You may be a little innocent regarding the general tenor of the lounge - probably been too busy writing articles.
In response to your original post I might add that the answers given in Q&A are not always edifying.
Peter Wasser
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell
modified 16-Jun-18 20:30pm.
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Thank you, much appreciated. I promise I'm not taking it too much to heart
I was (slightly) surprised that I upset folks with my post, not my intent. What can I say...I've got a weird sense of humor. At this point, simply looking to move on.
You're completely correct, I enjoy writing articles much more. I think I'll stick to that in the future.
Ironically, I also enjoy helping in Q&A, when I've been able. I'll still do that as well.
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pwasser wrote: I might add that the answers given in Q& are not always edifying. But, they are often as surreal as the questions.
«... thank the gods that they have made you superior to those events which they have not placed within your own control, rendered you accountable for that only which is within you own control For what, then, have they made you responsible? For that which is alone in your own power—a right use of things as they appear.» Discourses of Epictetus Book I:12
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What CP needs is an AI that automatically responds to "peeve" questions, particularly homework questions, so we never see them. Imagine the marketing potential -- a few tweaks, and it could filter out and answer 90% of the questions your SO asks! Alexa 2.0: "I'd be happy to answer that question..."
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I'm with you on that one...thank you, Marc
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Yeah, the first filter would be if the user ID starts with "Member", with a rep points value less than 500, and the user is from India.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010 ----- You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010 ----- When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Marc Clifton wrote: What CP needs is an AI that automatically responds to "peeve" questions,
That is, until the AI gets bored repeating itself then starts creating its own questions for entertainment purposes.
Common sense is admitting there is cause and effect and that you can exert some control over what you understand.
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One of my personal favorites is "I am new to ...".
And regarding the strange responses to your question: the Lounge has very restricted list of allowed activities, mostly "CCC", "I was sent this" and links to YouTube videos. Your post is not in this list, so ... lesson learned.
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Member 11917640 wrote: the Lounge has very restricted list of allowed activities, mostly "CCC", "I was sent this" and links to YouTube videos. I suggest you test the air you are breathing in your Lounge for nano-particles of reindeer piss with traces of amanita muscaria.
«... thank the gods that they have made you superior to those events which they have not placed within your own control, rendered you accountable for that only which is within you own control For what, then, have they made you responsible? For that which is alone in your own power—a right use of things as they appear.» Discourses of Epictetus Book I:12
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BillWoodruff wrote: I suggest you test the air you are breathing ...
Just confirms what I am talking about. Should I care about by brilliant member status?
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Member 11917640 wrote: Just confirms what I am talking about. "When you walk around with a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Abraham MaslowMember 11917640 wrote: Should I care about by brilliant member status? If the brilliance is too blinding, put on the same glasses you wear on the glacier when you go after reindeer.
«... thank the gods that they have made you superior to those events which they have not placed within your own control, rendered you accountable for that only which is within you own control For what, then, have they made you responsible? For that which is alone in your own power—a right use of things as they appear.» Discourses of Epictetus Book I:12
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BillWoodruff wrote: If the brilliance is too blinding
I like the way you are fighting with my brilliant brilliance.
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Pet peeves (not in "Peevishness" order):
- Posting your homework question verbatim, and nothing else.
- Posting your whole application and expecting us to work out what bit is faulty.
- "It doesn't work" as the whole error description
- SQL Injection prone code.
- Code which is clearly copy'n'pasted from SO, hit with a hammer and still doesn't do exactly what is wanted.
- Posting all in uppercase so I'll REALLY NOTICE IT AND ANSWER IT MORE QUICKLY.
- Bumping your question because it hasn't been answered for a couple of hours. Or minutes in some cases.
- Reposting the same question over and over because you didn't like the answer.
- Spending half an hour answering a question, getting a response from the OP and being unable to respond because somebody voted the question closed because they didn't understand it.
- Messages saying "My answer is much better than yours, you should look at it"
- People who get rude because we won't do their homework.
- People who are used to Mummy doing everything for them if they order them to, scream, and shout, and expecting it to work on me.
- People who post an answer without actually trying it ...
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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The secret to answering homework questions is to provide an answer that uses advanced techniques that you're pretty sure the OP wouldn't have already been taught, and hope that if he uses your answer, the instructor will be able to determine that the student got his answer off the internet somewhere, and even better, mark the student down for not working it out on his own.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010 ----- You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010 ----- When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Having someone down-vote your answer after the OP makes changes to his question which renders your answer invalid.
Having someone down-vote your answer because you gave a solution to a homework question.
Having someone down-vote your answer because you vocalized a snarky response that everyone else wishes they had the balls to say themselves.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010 ----- You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010 ----- When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
modified 17-Jun-18 10:59am.
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Watching John Simmons behave like someone whose prom date just jilted them because he got down-voted.
«... thank the gods that they have made you superior to those events which they have not placed within your own control, rendered you accountable for that only which is within you own control For what, then, have they made you responsible? For that which is alone in your own power—a right use of things as they appear.» Discourses of Epictetus Book I:12
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: Having someone down-vote your answer because you vocalized a snarky response that everyone else wishes they had the balls to say themselves has the sensible reaction to keep to themselves.
This one is easily remedied.
Are you really surprised that a snarky answer would get downvoted?
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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After reading several dozen poorly worded, incomprehensible, code-only, or poorly described "questions", my inner snark escapes and I just gotta say something.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010 ----- You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010 ----- When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Sadly proves nothing; need a larger sample size for a meaningful result.
This internet thing is amazing! Letting people use it: worst idea ever!
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the foolishness of youth...i guess they never taught him never play with sharp objects period...
Caveat Emptor.
"Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long
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I guess I was taugth so.
But my brother in law, whose father was a lumberjack in his younger years, got a sharp lumberjack style key for his fifth birthday. "He better learn to handle it as soon as possible. And to keep it sharp." A dull knife is far more dangerous than a sharp one. And if a five year old cuts his finger, he doesn't have the force to seriously injure himself, and his body heals much faster than the body of a grown man. So let him cut himself while he is young, then he learns.
You got lots of things like that. I was out in bad snowstorm with my daughter when she was ten, and she proved that she could dress up for a snowstorm. I read enough books to her when she was little that she could handle adult themes very early (she read Umberto Eco: The name of the rose, at eleven). You can teach a six year old to swim in a cold river stream. You can early make kids familiar with visual and other information that some people think should wait until they turn eighteen; if they have encountered this sort of information is a safe and assuring framework, they will not be hurt by it.
Kids kan handle a lot more roughness than modern Western parents seem to believe today. Bringing them up to never experienced any hardship, any stress, any danger, any threat, is NOT protecting them. It is making them vulnurable.
As this is a computer based forum, I'll include a computer related story:
I am so old (and that partially explains why I am not over-protective!) that when I started my University Comp.Sci studies, we wrote our Fortran code on coding sheets, that the punching ladies wrote to card stacks, which we had to read into that huge, batch oriented mainframe. Depending on the load, turnaround was from 24 to 72 hours before we could read the compiler's error messages, so we could replace cards in the stack with corrected ones and submit for anoter 24 to 72 hours turnaround.
After Chistmas, we called for a class meeting to direct a complaint to the University, describing how bad we felt the learning environment. One of the very brightest girls in the class failed to see the problem: Why did it matter if we recieved the printoout from the run a little later? When you've solved the programming problem, the work is done, isn't it? ... After some discussion, it dawned upon us that this girl had never seen an error message, after half a year as a Comp.Sci. student - she had done everything perfectly correct on the very first try (and her handwriting on the coding form so clear that the punching ladies never made a single error transferring them to cards). Once she had left the room, one of the others made a sigh: Poor girl! and we all nodded confirmingly. If you have never been corrected by the compiler (or runtime system) in half a year, you have missed something very important!
It must be said that this girl got her share of error messages in later university courses, and she turned into a very successful and respected software designer. But hardships is a fundamental element of growing up.
Today I happen to wear a T-shirt stating: "Experience, the ability to recognize a mistake when you repeat it". I think it is relevant here.
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Niven & Pournelle wrote:
--- Oath of Fealty "Think of it as evolution in action"
There are definitely times when the gene pool needs more chlorine.
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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