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Astronomer Jill Tarter believes that by the end of this century, we will be able to find alien life. Just keep predicting it: there's a "possibility" you'll be right eventually
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Whilst I firmly believe that there's plenty of life out there to find, I just don't see SETI as being the way to find it. It's so reliant on another species evolving on similar lines and having the same idea, that the odds of finding anything are, well, astronomical.
We will, I suspect, discover life elsewhere in this solar system long before the end of the century but I wouldn't put too much money on SETI getting any results by the end of the millennium.
98.4% of statistics are made up on the spot.
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If the odds are astronomical, they should have already found it! If they were miniscule, on the other hand
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E.
Comport Computing
Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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I think there's already alien life discovered in the form of the POTUS.
#SupportHeForShe
Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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Tribbles are real, and they can control a homunculus reasonably well. 
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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The European Space Agency has pinpointed the vehicle’s reentry date to sometime between March 30th and April 2nd, with the event most likely happening on April Fools’ Day. Whoever gets hit is the April Fool?
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Microsoft looks poised to add a new Multi Session option to Windows 10, likely this fall, which will allow IT to provide multiple users with remote access to desktops/apps without relying on Windows Server. SSHiny?
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Organisations have failed to automate IT processes and still rely too heavily on manual intervention according to new research that has revealed that UK IT departments spend just 12 per cent of their time innovating. "Making it work. Takes a little longer."
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The South Korea government has created an initiative to force its employees to stop working so much. Over the course of the next three months, it will shut down government computers progressively earlier on Friday nights. Right in the middle of a compile. Again.
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Swift is becoming a first-class server-side programming language, with the aid of tools such as Kitura. It's also for breakfast?
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Microsoft today announced developers can now sideload custom Linux distributions to the Windows 10 Subsystem for Linux (WSL.) Because it's The Year of Linux (on Windows)
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Return as soon as you know your method cannot do any more meaningful work Returning this one before even looking at the if statement
Or: discuss
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"else" considered harmful 
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Dammit, how did I miss that one? 
TTFN - Kent
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What else is ambiguous about "else" ?
«... 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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The whole thought of processing the exception first upon returning from a call is so counter intuitive to the way we think; we process good/expected results first, THEN proceed to look at the outliers.
When I read the code, I think the developer is expecting an error so prepares to handle it first.
It all goes back to the maxim: write clean code; there is nothing wrong with indentation or else statements. Also, write comments on what the process is doing and why, don't assume the code is so well written its intuitively obvious what the desired result is.
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Tim Carmichael wrote: process is doing and why
Agree with the why. I can read the code to see what it's doing. I've seen so many comments // declare variables then // call the function then // process result
So helpful.
Tim Carmichael wrote: there is nothing wrong with indentation or else statements
egregious indentation and if/else's are problems when there are too many levels, usually more than two. This leads to functions that are too long and have multiple purposes. Better to refactor the code and move the different cases into different functions.
#SupportHeForShe
Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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TheGreatAndPowerfulOz wrote: Better to refactor the code and move the different cases into different functions.
I absolutely agree with this...
The worst If/Then block I ever had to write was in Fortran for some equipment routing in an automated factory. The 'If' statement was 23 lines - and that is just the 'If' portion, not the code executed if the statement was true.
I had a block of comments preceding it explaining what it was doing and why with a warning that 'if you break it, you get to maintain it'.
But, if was an if/then/else block to determine an action; it wasn't multiple nested blocks within each other.
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ugh. I feel the pain just reading that.
#SupportHeForShe
Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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I once encountered a method that was over 1000 lines long. :/
".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
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Tim Carmichael wrote: counter intuitive to the way we think; we process good/expected results first, THEN proceed to look at the outliers.
It's a mixed bag for me. I prefer to exit a method as early as possible, when it makes sense (performing sanity checks on method parameters to ensure they're not null at the top of the method, and throw argument exceptions if they don't meet expected values). After that, I let code go where it needs to go, letting the "true" conditions happen first, and let else handle the "false" conditions.. In the end, I also strive to have a single point of exit instead of having multiple returns sprinkled throughout a method.
".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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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: strive to have a single point of exit
That can sometimes produce code that looks like an extortionist got hold of it. Here's were some judicious use of goto may be warranted.
#SupportHeForShe
Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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TheGreatAndPowerfulOz wrote: Here's were some judicious use of goto may be warranted.
Just say no to goto.
I typically define a result variable, and progress through the method setting that variable as appropriate. If I have a longish chain of if/else clauses I indent them like so:
int result = 0;
if (condition)
{
}
else if (condition)
{
}
... and so on
return result;
If conditions are favorable, I'll use a switch statement instead of if/else, but I still try to have only one exit point (exceptions notwithstanding).
I also strive to keep my methods short and specific to the process/task described by the name of the method.
".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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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: keep my methods short and specific
That's the key.
#SupportHeForShe
Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: I also strive to have a single point of exit instead of having multiple returns sprinkled throughout a method.
Boring...You're taking all the fun out of debugging!!
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E.
Comport Computing
Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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