[Context: I do computational research in the natural sciences.]

I have been tasked with verifying the correctness of a ~3000 LOC software project written in a mix of Fortrans 77 and 90. I have made some small amount of headway with getting the program up and running, but it seems like every time I make one step forward I take ten steps back.
Some issues with the program:

• It only compiles with one, specific, closed-source compiler
• Useless variable names
• Minimal comments (the ones that do exist are near-gibberish, explain the obvious, or comment out debugging print statements)
• Weird decisions are made with no justification, e.g. the code author decided that, if we are considering the calculations on the first molecule, we are only to consider its first atom
• Magic numbers everywhere, very few of which are known physical constants or their conversions
• etc, etc, etc.

I am reaching peak frustration after having worked with this code for only a few weeks. At this point, the idea of sitting down and rewriting the program from scratch is very, very tempting.
Do I need to just step back, relax, and keep hitting my head against the wall, or is this a situation where a rewrite may be necessary?

Maybe this has already been talked about but there isn't a search so I can't tell (I know it's being developed when the API goes public) but right now when I get a reply in my inbox the only link I have is to the entire post not the specific comment. Right now the site is small enough that it isn't a huge deal to scroll down and find my comment but it is something that eventually needs to be added

Kafka once wrote in a letter that he thought we ought to read only the books that wound or stab us. The quote is longer (because it's German), but I think we all get the drift.

This thread was inspired by a question that @scituselectrum asked me in the last book-reading thread: what books have you read that have allowed you to see the world in a new light? Put in Kafka-esque terms, what books have impacted you like a disaster and acted as an axe for the frozen sea within you?

I thought it was such a good question that I wanted to know other answers. Maybe add some reading to my already intimidating list.

At the bottom of this thread, there is a deleted comment. It appears there is no way to collapse all of its children. So, two suggestions:

1. Allow users to expand/collapse deleted comments children
2. Start deleted comments collapsed

Suggestion 1 seems like either a bug or just not yet implemented. For 2, I can imagine differing opinions on this, any other thoughts?

I may have inadvertently created the first repost in Tildes in ~comp and was wondering if there are plans for a notification on posting a new topic that has already been posted.

I know that this sort of check is easily 'bypassed', but personally, had I know it had been posted already I would have voted & joined the existing discussion.

I think if we could detect the same URL, at least in the same group, maybe even with a time modifier of within the last week, it would help consolidate the discussions.

Just wondering if there are a lot of Warframe players on here?

Anyone want to team up and play together? If so, what missions do you mostly play? Personally, I enjoy playing any endless fissures in the Void for as long as I can, long Kuva Fortress for a lot of Kuva, Eidolons, farming things for Plat, and helping other players in recruit chat.

My In game name is KalleDemos, just like my username. Feel free to hit me up on here or send me a request and message in game! I play on the PC version.

As this site is being started because of low-quality content overall on the other sites, it's necessary to do something to maintain that quality. Most sites start out good but don't age well, and the userbase too is responsible for that. Many sites offer points on the content that is shared, but there are no points for contributions towards the sites (?). I think it would be really great if the user gets some points say for reporting unrelated, unnecessary, troll, and other such posts or contents that don't maintain the quality. But those points are not awarded to the user immediately. The user will get points after enough reports about the content are reported and the content is made unavailable.

This point system can be separate from the content submission points that user gets, or it can be summed up all in one.

Noticed the ability to generate the three invite codes a few days ago (ed: go to your user page and under Misc. hit “Invite Someone”) and started excitedly going through my mind with who I would add. That came to a crawl and then a pause when I started thinking about a few things:

• Do I want family to know my Tildes handle? I’m not doing anything bad here, and certainly don’t plan to, but I may want to ask a question regarding something happening to the family at one point. Hard to know what the future will bring.
• I have several friends who would certainly join, and probably wouldn’t do anything bad/wrong, but more importantly would they actively contribute?
• What about my “fun” colleagues? Well, again do I want them to know my ~handle or would that be setting things up for something awkward down the line?

Lots to consider. To those of you who have already sent invites, what did you think about? What was the final process that worked for you? Or, alternatively, who thinks I need to stop whining and send out the damn invites already?

Hey everyone,
I've seen a bunch of posts discussing the design of the site, and I was wondering if there are any other designers on here that would be interested in discussing the interface more precisely, and coming up with potential improvements. I wrote up a design audit and gave it to @Deimos last week, and I wanted to share it with everyone and generate some discussion about minutiae such as colors, placement and styles of buttons and links, etc. I feel like these are just as important as larger features that people are asking for (such as a markdown preview), and have the added benefit of being very fast to iterate on.

hey all,

if you're like me, or like most folks nowadays, you'd rather browse the web on your phone over dragging around an entire desk, tower, and monitor everywhere (that's the other alternative right???). but!! tildes doesn't have a mobile app, and probably won't until APIs happen and some kind soul builds a third party one.

tildes, if you haven't noticed, is pretty minimal and runs like greased lightning on mobile browsers. but if you go that route you don't get full screen or home screen shortcuts or any of that stuff!

this is where i tried using Hermit to decent results. it's basically a wrapper for webpages that turns it into more of an app-like experience. if tildes ever adds RSS feeds for comment notifications, it'll support that too. unfortunately it's only on android but i'm sure iOS has something similar.

maybe one day tildes will be a PWA and we won't have to worry about any of that! but for now, I think hermit works nicely. hopefully it helps someone else too!

are you doing something else that works just as well? better? on iOS? please share!

There's a game that was coming out that let you play as either an active shooter or as the SWAT team that responds to it.

IMO, it looked pretty garbage to play, but seemed to be banking on controversy. And... controversy it got.

What are your thoughts on this? Should steam have banned it?