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  • Showing only topics in ~comp with the tag "ask". Back to normal view / Search all groups
    1. On hiring for tech positions: How do you get what you need from the HR department?

      I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard a manager complain, “The HR department included ‘must have college degree’ in the job req even though I don’t care” or “They asked for 5 years of...

      I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard a manager complain, “The HR department included ‘must have college degree’ in the job req even though I don’t care” or “They asked for 5 years of experience in a technology that’s only been around for 3” or “I have no idea why they rejected this candidate without even contacting me.”

      Still, in many cases you don’t have a choice. If you want to hire someone, you need to deal with HR, at least to a small degree – especially if you work in a big company.

      So I’m writing a feature story for technology managers, collecting real-world advice from people who learned their lessons the hard way. Here’s the questions I’d like you to answer:

      • Tell me about a frustration you had with the HR department (in regard to hiring). That is, tell me a personal story of HR-gone-wrong. Because we all love schadenfreude, and that gives me an emotional example with which to begin.
      • Let’s say you have a new opening in your department. In what ways do you involve HR? (That could be anything from, “give them general guidelines and let them choose the best candidates for me to interview” to “I do the search myself, and use HR only for on-boarding.”) What makes you choose that path? How much choice do you have in the matter?
      • What weaknesses have you discovered in your HR department’s ability to serve the needs of a tech-focused department?
      • What have you done to cope with those weaknesses? Which of those efforts worked, and which failed?
      • What do you wish you knew “n” years ago about dealing with your company’s HR department?
      • So that I can give the reader some context: Let me know how to refer to you in the article (at least, “Esther, a software architect at a Midwest insurance company”), and give me some idea of your company size (because the processes appropriate for a 70-person company aren’t the same for one with 7,000 employees).

      You don’t have to answer all those questions! I asked these to get the conversation going. Tell me as much or as little as you like.

      Please don’t assume that I think HR always sucks. However, there isn’t as much to learn from “why HR is your friend.” The idea here is to help techie managers cope when HR doesn’t offer what you hoped for.

      16 votes
    2. Anyone here using Flutter?

      In the rare chance you haven't heard of Flutter, here's the link: https://flutter.io Flutter just officially left beta with v1.0 December 4, last year. The code is written in Dart, and deploys on...

      In the rare chance you haven't heard of Flutter, here's the link: https://flutter.io

      Flutter just officially left beta with v1.0 December 4, last year. The code is written in Dart, and deploys on Android, and iOS (and will run natively on the rumored Fuchsia OS).

      So for those of you that have used Flutter or are currently using Flutter.

      • What are you working on?
      • Why'd you choose Flutter?
      • What do you like about Flutter?
      • And what do you dislike about Flutter?

       

      I'll start:

      I'm working on a niche art app. I myself do not do that type of art, but knowing people that do, I wanted to create a tool to fill in the lackluckster market for Chromebooks and Android.
      I chose Flutter because:

      • I wanted to try something new, and what newer than something that was (at the time) in beta?
      • Custom Views in Android are a hassle.
      • I will be able to release on both Android and iOS (semi-)natively without having to code it twice.

      Here's what I like about Flutter:

      • Layouts are really simple.
        (though you can easily let it get clustered if you don't think too much about it.)
      • Design isn't an afterthought.
        Animations are built in (and simple), themes aren't hard-coded, and Material Components get more attention here. (Still waiting for Shapes on Android)
      • It's fast by design.
        Flutter uses its own custom rendering engine (Skia). I've never experienced any stutter with the built-in components, and when I caused lag (with heavy I/O) Flutter/Dart had tools in place for me to narrow down exactly what was causing it.

      What I don't like about Flutter:

      • It has poor mouse/trackpad support.
        Right clicks, not a thing. I can workaround this with a double-click/long-click, but for a desktop OS, this isn't optimal. Scrolling, that's panning, this should be differentiated. There's a difference between using a scrollwheel and moving finger around on the screen. According to Flutter there is not. There's also currently no support for mouse hovers which I have needed very much.
        There is a pull-request for adding support for all of these, but the developer hasn't done anything since code review.
      • Keyboard support, while there, is lackluster.
        Ctrl, Shift, Alt. These have to be gotten with the meta code. There's no built-in function for checking those. Text fields don't support the tab key to navigate. And text formatting (bold, italic, etc.) isn't possible with text fields without the use of a library (or making it yourself).

      I was trying to think of a third dislike, but I can't. My complaints are on missing APIs for Chromebooks. That's it. I really like Flutter, I plan on using it more, and if they won't add support for mouse/keyboard, maybe I'll have to contribute.

      I'd love to hear what your thoughts about it is.

      12 votes
    3. How to make money with Wordpress

      I have just graduated from uni, and am preparing for masters next fall. I'm a humanities student, but have some programming knowledge. Currently I'm looking for literary translation jobs, but...

      I have just graduated from uni, and am preparing for masters next fall. I'm a humanities student, but have some programming knowledge. Currently I'm looking for literary translation jobs, but should I fail that, I want to find some light freelance work (so that I can spare more time to my studies), and looking at e.g. freelancer.com, Wordpress is still quite popular.

      What are some good introductory material for Wordpress and PHP, that preferably does not assume total beginner to programming? How much can I expect to make, for how much effort? I'd be content if I could make $200-250 w/ 3-5hr work per day, or a couple full days a week, that's all I really need and such hours would mean that I could keep on doing such work even when I'm writing my thesis. I'm in Turkey, FWIW.

      7 votes
    4. What SSD should I buy?

      Right now I have this SSD and apparently it's pretty outdated. I wanted to get a 500GB one that's quite a bit faster without being too expensive (so less than $100 at the least.) Any suggestions?

      10 votes
    5. Need help with Switching to linux

      Hi all, Hope ya'll doing good. I am done with windows. So I want to switch to linux. I have used it a few times. I just wanted to know, how long will it take to have it setup? Also, I am learning...

      Hi all, Hope ya'll doing good. I am done with windows. So I want to switch to linux. I have used it a few times. I just wanted to know, how long will it take to have it setup? Also, I am learning data science. Will switching to linux have any serious implications? Thanks

      29 votes
    6. Cheapest way to put a hard drive on the internet.

      I'm currently researching the cheapest off site backup system and it looks like leaving a hdd at a friends house is the best option. The only thing I am stuck on is how to access it remotely. I...

      I'm currently researching the cheapest off site backup system and it looks like leaving a hdd at a friends house is the best option. The only thing I am stuck on is how to access it remotely. I need a system on a chip that I can plug in to the hdd and Ethernet and that provides ssh access. My first thought was a raspberry pi with a sata to usb cable but since I will only be doing weekly backups it makes no sense to keep the drive spinning 24/7. I need some way to turn off the drive and then back on over the internet. From what I understand there are linux programs that can do it but only directly over sata because the command doesn't work on usb sata controllers.

      What I need is a cheap linux SoC that has sata and ethernet. Does anyone have any ideas?

      13 votes
    7. How do I hack makefiles?

      If you have built from source, then you know the relief when nothing interesting comes out of ./configure && make && make install. In fact, the less interesting the output of these commands, the...

      If you have built from source, then you know the relief when nothing interesting comes out of ./configure && make && make install. In fact, the less interesting the output of these commands, the better.

      But occasionally, the source build process is so horrifying that you end up having to modify the configure script or makefile yourself.

      So far I have only been able to do this when I was lucky enough to find some poor, destitute stranger who had pretty much the same problem as me ( most recent I can think of is GNUTLS, where I had to adjust the version requirements for nettle ) and that is a problem -- there must be some way to learn this myself.

      Is this just something that comes with time and experience, or does anyone have a reliable guide or resource for modifying makefiles and configure scripts? I would appreciate advice / discussion: I am tired of "getting lucky" with these!

      15 votes
    8. Best 120mm fans for a desktop?

      I was looking for preferences on 120/140mm case fans. RGB is a want, but not at the expense of quality fans. I'm pretty new to the topic and not super familiar with the technical side. So open to...

      I was looking for preferences on 120/140mm case fans. RGB is a want, but not at the expense of quality fans.

      I'm pretty new to the topic and not super familiar with the technical side. So open to reading more in depth too.

      Thanks!

      7 votes
    9. What does your desktop look like? What tools do you swear by?

      Between the recent discussions on the Useful Shell Scripts thread, and some of the tangents on the Desktop Usability thread, I thought it might be an interesting idea to have a desktop screenshot...

      Between the recent discussions on the Useful Shell Scripts thread, and some of the tangents on the Desktop Usability thread, I thought it might be an interesting idea to have a desktop screenshot sharing / unixporn thread where we talk about our setups, preferred applications, and share some pointers. This doesn't specifically have to be a Unix circlejerk though. If you have a Windows/Android/ChromeOS/TempleOS setup with some novel innovations, you're more than welcome to share too.

      34 votes
    10. Share your useful shell scripts!

      Disclaimer: Don't run scripts offered to you by randos unless you trust them or review it yourself I use this constantly, it just plays music by file name, specifically matching *NAME* with...

      Disclaimer: Don't run scripts offered to you by randos unless you trust them or review it yourself

      I use this constantly, it just plays music by file name, specifically matching *NAME* with case-insensitivity. Requires bash 4.something.

      # play -ln SONGS ...
      # -l don't shuffle
      # -n dry run
      mpv_args="--no-audio-display --no-resume-playback \
                --msg-level=all=status --term-osd-bar"
      shopt -s globstar nullglob nocaseglob
      
      shuffle=true
      dry=false
      while [[ "$1" == -* ]]; do
          if [[ "$1" == "-l" ]]; then 
              shuffle=false
          elif [[ "$1" == "-n" ]]; then
              dry=true
          fi
      
          shift 1
      done
      
      if [[ "$shuffle" == true ]]; then
          mpv_args="--shuffle $mpv_args"
      fi
      
      songs=()
      while [[ "$#" != 0 ]]; do
          songs+=( ~/music/**/**/*"$1"*.* ) # change this to match your music directory layout
          shift 1                                               # could probably use find instead
      done
      
      if [[ "$dry" == true ]]; then
          if [[ "$shuffle" == true ]]; then
              printf "Shuffle mode is on\n"
          fi
      
          for song in "${songs[@]}"; do
              printf "$song\n"
          done
        
          exit
      fi
      
      if [[ ${#songs[@]} != 0 ]]; then
          mpv $mpv_args "${songs[@]}"
      fi
      

      I make no claims to the quality of this but it works!

      36 votes
    11. Where would a beginner start with data compression? What are some good books for it?

      Mostly the title. I have experience with Python, and I was thinking of learning more about data compression. How should I proceed? And what are some good books I could read, both about specifics...

      Mostly the title. I have experience with Python, and I was thinking of learning more about data compression. How should I proceed? And what are some good books I could read, both about specifics and abstracts of data compression, data management, data in general.

      15 votes
    12. Help! I'm indecisive and I want a keyboard.

      I know there are at least fifteen threads on ~comp alone about mechanical keyboards, but, this one is mine. I recently had a run in with tendinitis, which taught me the importance of ergonomics,...

      I know there are at least fifteen threads on ~comp alone about mechanical keyboards, but, this one is mine.

      I recently had a run in with tendinitis, which taught me the importance of ergonomics, but I still wanted the clickety clack of a mechanical keyboard, so I decided to consider buying an ergonomic mechanical keyboard.

      The first one that I looked at was the ErgoDox EZ (it was the first one I saw). It had a split layout, open source firmware, and a positive review from Linus Tech Tips.

      The second one was the Ultimate Hacking Keyboard (I saw the Hacker News thread). I was interested in it for the Trackball Module.

      These two keyboards are different enough from each other, so it's hard to compare them.

      In conclusion, why should I choose one over the other?

      14 votes
    13. How Do I Make A Database?

      Hello everyone! I've recently got an idea for a Database as a Service I'd like to create. The only issue is - I don't know how to create or host a database! I've only ever used Mongoose/mLab with...

      Hello everyone!

      I've recently got an idea for a Database as a Service I'd like to create. The only issue is - I don't know how to create or host a database!

      I've only ever used Mongoose/mLab with Javascript, and a minimal amount of Postgres with Python.

      If I'm looking to create a database that will, eventually, be able to store images, songs, and videos, where should I start my homework?

      I can create the backend and the frontend with no issue - just stuck on this part here. If it's of any relevance, I most frequently use the MERN stack.

      13 votes
    14. New to Leading a Team of Software Developers

      Hey Tildes, I got a job directly supervising a small team of 4 software developers. I'm very excited at the prospect and would like to put my best foot forward. To that end, I would like to have a...

      Hey Tildes, I got a job directly supervising a small team of 4 software developers. I'm very excited at the prospect and would like to put my best foot forward. To that end, I would like to have a discussion around a few topics. Feel free to expand the scope if you believe the conversation would be beneficial. I'm sure I won't be the last person to be in this position. I've done research, read, and watched videos regarding several of these questions; however, since Tilde prioritizes high-quality discussion, I thought it would be a fun opportunity to chat with others about these topics.

      • As a member of a software development team, what are things that your supervisor has done that has had the greatest (a) positive and (b) negative impact?
      • Supervisors, when you joined your new team, what was your methodology for reviewing the team, projects, and processes? What was the scenarios behind your review and the outcome? What would you do differently?
      12 votes
    15. How important is response time in monitors and how distinguishable is it?

      I'm currently looking for a new monitor and I have the ASUS MG279Q, the ASUS PG248Q and the ASUS MG278Q. Now, my setup is not the highest end, but decent with an i7 and a 1060 3GB, and there are...

      I'm currently looking for a new monitor and I have the ASUS MG279Q, the ASUS PG248Q and the ASUS MG278Q. Now, my setup is not the highest end, but decent with an i7 and a 1060 3GB, and there are three concerns I have currently not found an answer for:

      1. The (potential) difference in quality between the MG279Q's IPS panel and the MG278's TN panel
      2. And the delay difference, the TN panel having a 1ms response time and the IPS' 4ms
      3. If my setup can even handle 1440p/144Hz (I don't need to play on the highest settings, nor do I need to reach those 144 FPS), in which case I would tend more towards the PG248Q

      I'd love to upgrade towards 1440p as the screen real estate would be good for working (which I do a lot on the PC) and I would, I could later upgrade my GPU if the performance in games isn't satisfactory. I think my setup wouldn't have any issue handling day to day tasks and if need be I can play on lower resolutions or lower graphic settings. Also I wonder how large the difference between the IPS and TN panel is and if it's noticeable, particularly with colours.

      Does anyone of you have experience with the subject or with the monitors named in particular?

      20 votes
    16. Getting Started as a Developer from Scratch

      I have been interested in making the gradual career change to software development from my current humanities field. This stems from a handful of different places. Of course the pay and...

      I have been interested in making the gradual career change to software development from my current humanities field. This stems from a handful of different places. Of course the pay and flexibility are strong drivers but I like the idea of a field that is somewhat of a creative expression; one where you can manifest your knowledge and experience into something tangible.

      I have no experience with programming other than SQL use in ArcGIS and am hoping to gain some knowledge about the field; so anything would be helpful. Whether what to expect from this line of work, where someone with no experience should look to get started and what to expect, personal journeys, etc.

      Cheers!

      14 votes
    17. Any resources exploring the gap between beginner and top 5% expert in various tech fields?

      I am looking for any resource that could tell me how much knowledge and training is needed to go from a beginner to expert, in let's say application software development for example. Or in...

      I am looking for any resource that could tell me how much knowledge and training is needed to go from a beginner to expert, in let's say application software development for example. Or in artificial intelligence.

      If there isn't any one source, are there any general type of sources I can use to piece together one mega-source?

      14 votes
    18. What editor do you use?

      Hey y'all, first time actually posting something here! Just curious what editor people use, whether its for coding, writing, or just the occasional note, whatever. I've gone through most of the...

      Hey y'all, first time actually posting something here! Just curious what editor people use, whether its for coding, writing, or just the occasional note, whatever. I've gone through most of the well-known ones (vim, emacs, atom, vs code for starters), but only ever really messed around with vim enough to like it, and I've also been trying out gedit for the last little while and really liking it, but I'm curious to see what other people use!

      33 votes
    19. In search of the dark mode holy grail

      I've been thinking a lot about dark mode lately, now that macOS and Windows 10 both officially offer some implementation of it. I think dark modes make a compelling case for eye strain prevention,...

      I've been thinking a lot about dark mode lately, now that macOS and Windows 10 both officially offer some implementation of it. I think dark modes make a compelling case for eye strain prevention, but the dealbreaker for me is revealed when switching between apps and one of them isn't dark. That jarring flash of bright light completely ruins whatever gentleness the dark environment provided in the first place. So despite my curiosity I've kept everything in light mode for years, tempered by f.lux to keep myself sane after sundown.

      Anyway, now that there's official OS support I'm reconsidering. I think there's a growing pro-dark movement that was just waiting for that formal recognition. Today the programs I use most all offer dark modes so I'm taking an experimental plunge. My goal: 90% elimination of white flashes while in my normal workflow.

      The biggest obstacle is, not surprisingly, the web. There are some beautiful dark browser themes available but that really only affects the UI elements around the page, not the page itself. I want to darken the web too. I have a few thoughts about this:

      • Plugins like this one try to automate a dark mode for every site you visit. This is hit-or-miss, resulting in ugly color combinations, sometimes unreadable text. Some methods just invert the page colors, which can lead to all sort of other visual wonkiness. I haven't found a plugin like this that isn't fiddly and annoying.
      • This plugin looks interesting. From what I can tell, it uses some kind of server-side heuristics to determine the optimal way to darken every page you visit. I haven't actually tried it because I'm concerned about the privacy/security implications of sending all my web activity to this unknown third party. Or what kind of performance hit that would involve. Also, they bury this information on their site, but this is a paid service with an annual subscription.
      • I'm aware of Stylish and its huge library of user-maintained custom site styles. This seemed like a good approach, except that following a recent acquisition, the new owners of Stylish betrayed their users' trust in a very shady way so I'm afraid to go near it now. If there's a credible alternative with a decent style library I'd love to know about it. Especially if there's a way to automate style application so I don't have to manually activate it for every site I visit.
      • Tangentially, the W3C is having an interesting conversation about adding CSS media query support for recognizing user dark-mode preferences. This could absolutely be the future of the web(!!), but I suspect it won't because it puts the responsibility on designers to basically double the amount of work they have to do. Speaking as someone in that field, I would not want to have to add this to my already-long list of design considerations.

      Are there any other good web darkening methods I've overlooked? How do you deal with the white flash problem? Should I just give up and go back to black-on-white? Interested in any and all thoughts on the matter.

      24 votes
    20. Batch-saving websites for offline viewing

      Anybody here have a good setup for batch-downloading articles/news from several sites you specify, similar to youtube-dl but for general websites? I'm sure it could be scripted with not too much...

      Anybody here have a good setup for batch-downloading articles/news from several sites you specify, similar to youtube-dl but for general websites? I'm sure it could be scripted with not too much effort but I'm interested what polished solutions there are.

      The idea would be so people with rare internet access could go to a hotspot weekly or something and sync that week's worth of content.

      12 votes
    21. Advice for those who want a computer science career?

      Those that have pursued a career that deals with any type of computer science, what advice would you give to students before they get a job in it? What do you do on a daily basis? What would you...

      Those that have pursued a career that deals with any type of computer science, what advice would you give to students before they get a job in it? What do you do on a daily basis? What would you have wanted to know before you started?

      17 votes
    22. Need recommendation for codecademy-like course for PHP

      Hi there, It looks like codecademy took down their PHP course, which stinks becuase I love, love, love how that site approaches teaching by doing. Any other free resources out there for a...

      Hi there,

      It looks like codecademy took down their PHP course, which stinks becuase I love, love, love how that site approaches teaching by doing. Any other free resources out there for a do-not-show approach for learning PHP?

      Looking to get my feet wet so I'm a little less dangerous when tinkering with my WordPress templates.

      14 votes
    23. Do technologies like Snap and Flatpak have a future?

      I just gave up on installing Gimp via flatpack because it required a 2GB download. I run i3 on top of Xfce. I have lots of Gtk libraries already. Storage is cheap and my internet has no limits,...

      I just gave up on installing Gimp via flatpack because it required a 2GB download. I run i3 on top of Xfce. I have lots of Gtk libraries already. Storage is cheap and my internet has no limits, but this seems very inefficient to me. What if I had to install all my software that way?

      27 votes
    24. Total noob looking for (hopefully) simple greasemonkey script

      I have knowledge of the basic concepts of programming in general and html and some very basic knowledge of javascript, but this specific task is proving a little beyond me. I'm actually using...

      I have knowledge of the basic concepts of programming in general and html and some very basic knowledge of javascript, but this specific task is proving a little beyond me. I'm actually using tampermonkey, in case that matters.

      www.bricklink.com is a site to buy Lego from private sellers. By default, when looking at a shop's listing of items, it shows 25 per page. I would like to automatically switch to 100 per page every time.

      Here's a randomly selected store page (no affiliation) at the default 25 per page:

      https://store.bricklink.com/TheBricky#/shop?o={"itemType":"P","catID":"18","showHomeItems":0}

      Now, same page set to display 100 per page. Note how "pgSize" is added to the url but doesn't appear by default:

      https://store.bricklink.com/TheBricky#/shop?o={"pgSize":100,"itemType":"P","catID":"18","showHomeItems":0}

      What I would like is for pgSize to be set to 100 only IF

      "shop" appears in the url

      AND

      "pgSize" does not appear in the url OR "pgSize" does appear in the url but does not equal 100.

      Since Bricklink remembers pgSize per shop page per session, once pgSize is set to 100 for a particular shop greasemonkey doesn't need to do anything. Intercepting the url before the page loads would be nice but unnecessary since loading is fast and I'm not worried about bandwidth.

      I tried making this but wasn't sure how to input what I'm trying to test for in the url. Of course now that I've thought about it some more it seems the task is more probably difficult than I thought it would be at first. Any help would be appreciated.

      EDIT: This comment below seems to be working, although the way Bricklink makes their urls feels funky at times.

      10 votes
    25. Coding Noob Needs Help/Guidance on Small Project

      Hi, There's a certain site which hosts media files and has a player that depends on a lot of third-party resources to play, while browsers have native support for those file types. Those 3rd-party...

      Hi,

      There's a certain site which hosts media files and has a player that depends on a lot of third-party resources to play, while browsers have native support for those file types. Those 3rd-party resources are often blocked by ad blockers and I have no desire to white-list them. I would like to extract the direct link to the media file and make it playable on my custom web page.

      The link to the media file is present in the page source of each page, always on the same line. It's not anchored in HTML but present in the JavaScript for the player, like so:

          $(document).ready(function(){
            $("#jquery_jplayer_1").jPlayer({
              ready: function () {
                $(this).jPlayer("setMedia", {
                  [ext]: "https://[domain]/[filename.ext]"
                });
              },
      

      In this example it's on line #5. [ext] = the file extension.

      I want to build the following:

      • A web page with a form with a single input field meant to receive links from that specific file host
      • [Something] that extracts the file link from the source of the host's page
      • Present the linked file as playable in an embedded native player

      So far I've managed to create a form with an input box and a submit button, but it doesn't do anything yet. What is the best way to build the actual functionality? I know HTML/CSS. I have some rudimentary understanding of JavaScript/jQuery and Python3, so those would be my preferred tools.

      For those worried about piracy: The files in question are not copyrighted and I'm not looking to make copies. I just want to make them playable. This is for personal use.

      Thank you for reading this far. Any and all advice is welcome!

      10 votes
    26. What are your unsolved programming problems?

      I thought it could be fun to discuss problems that we've encountered in our programming or programming-related work and have never found a solution for. I figure that at worst we can have a lot of...

      I thought it could be fun to discuss problems that we've encountered in our programming or programming-related work and have never found a solution for. I figure that at worst we can have a lot of fun venting about and scratching our heads at things that just don't make any sense to anyone, and at best we might be able to help each other find answers and, more importantly, some closure.

      16 votes
    27. Let's talk about tooling.

      Hey! Since it's a small community at the moment, I think we can have a very genreral thread about anything regarding tooling: interesting technologies you use at work/home, your editor, plugins,...

      Hey! Since it's a small community at the moment, I think we can have a very genreral thread about anything regarding tooling: interesting technologies you use at work/home, your editor, plugins, themes, bruh let's even share some screenshots. I find this kind of shit exciting and know more people like me exist out there :)

      13 votes
    28. Website Admin Question: How to Block Google?

      I have a personal website, and while I don't mind it showing up in SERPs for DuckDuckGo, Bing, etc. I do not want it showing up on Google at all. Google doesn't send traffic my way, I pay for my...

      I have a personal website, and while I don't mind it showing up in SERPs for DuckDuckGo, Bing, etc. I do not want it showing up on Google at all.

      Google doesn't send traffic my way, I pay for my site out of my salary from my day job instead of running ads, and preventing Google from indexing my site seems like the best form of nonviolent direct action I can take to protest their continuing dominance and their "embrace, extend, and extinguish" campaign against the Web.

      I figure the easiest way to do this is to add the following to my site's .htaccess file since I don't have access to the server config file:

      X-Robots-Tag: googlebot: none, noarchive, nosnippet, notranslate, noimageindex
      

      Are there any downsides that I should know about besides not showing up in Google results?

      11 votes
    29. Inexperienced Programming Question

      TLDR: What programming language would be useful for taking info in an excel file and producing a text file (that is organized and arranged in a particular way) containing that info? Which would be...

      TLDR: What programming language would be useful for taking info in an excel file and producing a text file (that is organized and arranged in a particular way) containing that info? Which would be useful for this problem but also helpful in general? And also, are there any recommended online courses where I could learn it?


      I have no real experience coding or anything but have always wanted to learn. Recently at work we've encountered a problem. My boss had created a matlab program in order to take text/numbers from an excel document and transfer them to a text file, but in an organized way.

      Say you have something you call "Pancakes" and the cell next to it has the number "3", as in there are three pancakes. I want to be able to create a text file that would read something like this:

      NUMBER OF PANCAKES

      • Pancakes: 3

      We recently have changed around the format of the excel document for a different item, for example "French Toast". I've tried to mess with matlab briefly but was unable to change the program to compensate, and I no longer easily have access to matlab.

      I'm seeing this as an opportunity to learn some programming and also fix some stuff at work. So what programming language would be useful for fixing this problem? Which would be useful for this problem, but also helpful in general? And also, are there any recommended online courses where I could learn it?

      Thanks for any help, I appreciate it.

      16 votes
    30. Rubber Duck just saved me. What about you?

      To put this into context: I'm still minor, in Europe, and I was hired into SW company as backend developer. I'm making about 2-3 times as much as my friends in fastfoods. I'm basically making WS...

      To put this into context: I'm still minor, in Europe, and I was hired into SW company as backend developer. I'm making about 2-3 times as much as my friends in fastfoods.

      I'm basically making WS that would be unified wrapper for about 15 another WS - instead of crafting request for each of those, you will just call the API and it will do everything for you.

      Everything was fine, until I encountered a nightmare: WSDL/SOAP protocol over HTTPS with need to use client certificate.

      Full of false hope, I thought: "It'll be easy, I finished communication with another companies in few hours, this will be quick".

      I was very wrong. I spent countless hours on this. I tried 3 programming languages and 4 different frameworks, copy-pasting solutions from stack overflow and wondering why does this still throw errors! I copied it from stack overflow! I used windows alongside linux and installed like 10 wsdl/soap clients from 2008 forums.

      I created 8 or so SO questions, most about different language/framework, but the same problem.

      Worth of mentoining, at the time, I could obtain wsdl and xsd of the WS with usage of two certificates (crt.pem and key.pem) over PHP. I tried to use PHP SoapClient, which accepted just one certificate file. I used .pem certificate that I received and should get the work done.

      Then, I started writing the final question. Including PHP that downloaded wsdl and SoapClient that didn't work. Knowing someone will probably want to see certificates, I used cat key.pem cert.pem > certCombined.pem and diff certCombined.pem cert.pem. cert.pem was the certificate I received and should work. I expected no differences. When I saw two pages of differences, I started to suspect the cert I was given is wrong. So I pointed the PHP SoapClient to certCombined - and it started working!

      This would have never happened (at least for several more hours) unless I known someone will want to see diff between working and not-working certificates. Thank you, rubber duck debugging! Next time I'll be solving something, I'll write on paper everything I use and know.

      What are your stories?

      13 votes
    31. What conferences are on your wish list? (for team leads or wannabee managers)

      Imagine that your boss told you that the company is happy to send you to one or two conferences next year, with the aim of helping you to improve your leadership skills. In this context,...

      Imagine that your boss told you that the company is happy to send you to one or two conferences next year, with the aim of helping you to improve your leadership skills.

      In this context, "leadership" includes Culture; Coaching & Mentoring; Teamwork; Continuous Improvement; Collaboration; Agile; Culture Change.

      You want to make a list of conferences worth considering in order to estimate the budget. What events would you put on your list?

      7 votes
    32. Now that Ubuntu 18.04.1 is out, have you upgraded from 16.04 LTS?

      The first point release came out July 26, and enables upgrades from 16.04 LTS. https://blog.ubuntu.com/2018/07/26/first-point-release-of-18-04-lts-available-today Have you upgraded your desktop?...

      The first point release came out July 26, and enables upgrades from 16.04 LTS.

      https://blog.ubuntu.com/2018/07/26/first-point-release-of-18-04-lts-available-today

      Have you upgraded your desktop? Server?

      Happy with it? Any pitfalls?

      20 votes
    33. Learning to Program

      Hi folks, I figured this would be a good place to ask a rather simple question. Where do I start to learn to code? I'm in high school, so I have (some) time to dedicate to it, and it seems there...

      Hi folks,

      I figured this would be a good place to ask a rather simple question.

      Where do I start to learn to code?

      I'm in high school, so I have (some) time to dedicate to it, and it seems there are a plethora of websites/resources out there, so I ask: what do you recommend, and why has it worked for you? I have no prior experience. I believe that this would really help out in the long run, as I will graduate high school with an Associate's Degree in Business. Thank you!

      EDIT: Thank you for all your responses! I'll start with Python and move on from there. You guys have been a great help, and I'll vote you up or reply.

      26 votes
    34. Personal Wikis

      I have been looking for some software where I can brain dump all the things I need to remember on a constant basis so I can easily find it again in the future. A personal wiki basically. I am...

      I have been looking for some software where I can brain dump all the things I need to remember on a constant basis so I can easily find it again in the future. A personal wiki basically. I am wondering what any of you tilderians are using?

      The things I am looking for:

      Absolute requirements:

      • Open Source: I want to be in control of the data myself, and I want to be able to hack on it myself as the need arises.
      • Self Hostable: Goes hand-in-hand with with open sourceness, I want the data to live on the server in my apartment, under my own control.
      • An API of some sort so I can programmatically add/read/modify data.

      Nice to haves:

      • Revision history of some sort.
      • Common/simple data format for easy backup and longevity.
      • Web interface, with mobile compatibility.
      • Lightweight as possible, so I can run it on a low powered server.

      Does anything know anything like that?

      Options I have heard of:

      Here is a previous discussion on the topic @ Lobste.rs

      25 votes
    35. Thoughts on agile and scrum

      When I started working with development teams 3 years ago, I started learning all about agile and scrum. I'm currently a product manager working with two dev teams that loosely follow scrum. Since...

      When I started working with development teams 3 years ago, I started learning all about agile and scrum. I'm currently a product manager working with two dev teams that loosely follow scrum. Since we don't have an official scrum master, I somewhat fill that role too. I've done my best to learn as much as I can about it and so far I'm a big fan. However I feel like most of the things I hear about it are from the scrum and agile community, which means I don't hear too many negatives. What's your experience with these been and if you were in the right position, how would you try to structure people to produce software?

      8 votes
    36. What operating system do you use?

      I'd imagine that this website probably has an above average linux user percentage, considering that one of the main principles of tildes is to respect your privacy. Personally I use fedora. I...

      I'd imagine that this website probably has an above average linux user percentage, considering that one of the main principles of tildes is to respect your privacy.

      Personally I use fedora. I started with windows, than moved to ubuntu when windows 10 came out. I tried a few others and settled on fedora because I wanted an operating system with a quicker package update cycle than debian, but I wanted it to "just work".

      42 votes
    37. Any Rustaceans in the House?

      I'm just starting to get into the ecosystem by going through the Book of Rust, and then maybe playing with Parity. Just wondering if anyone else has been through this yet and is up for some...

      I'm just starting to get into the ecosystem by going through the Book of Rust, and then maybe playing with Parity. Just wondering if anyone else has been through this yet and is up for some conversation!

      11 votes
    38. Good open source projects for beginners to contribute to?

      I'm looking for a project to contribute too. I'm not that experienced with programming, so I want something that isn't too complex. I'm also looking for a fairly young project. Big, mature...

      I'm looking for a project to contribute too. I'm not that experienced with programming, so I want something that isn't too complex. I'm also looking for a fairly young project. Big, mature projects don't really have much that a newbie can work on.

      27 votes
    39. Need advice about Tomboy notes and note apps in general

      I'm looking for some advice on what note programs people recommend. Not a basic text editor, but something capable of doing some basic categorizing, chronological sorting, that sort of thing. I've...

      I'm looking for some advice on what note programs people recommend. Not a basic text editor, but something capable of doing some basic categorizing, chronological sorting, that sort of thing. I've used Evernote most recently, but I'm becoming less and less of a fan. I don't need cloud sync necessarily, although device sync could be handy. A pleasant UI (not fettered with extraneous crap) would be nice, but aesthetic appeal takes a backseat to navigation and stability. Target OS is mostly likely going to be windows 10.

      What are you experiences with note apps, what are your favorites?


      (A bit of context for anyone interested)
      Years ago, I used tomboy notes in Ubuntu for keeping track of timesheets/daily logs. It seemed like a good program to set up for my step dad to use as well. A few years later, Tomboy notes petered out without much fanfare. I've kept his laptop running with that setup for as long as I could, but the hardware is just getting worn out (it's about 10 years old now).

      So! Time to get him an upgrade. This time around, I don't think I'm gonna set up up with Linux. He isn't really up to the task of doing his own troubleshooting in linux (i.e. when an automatic update breaks something), and I haven't even been keeping up on Linux for the past few years myself. So I'm probably going to set him up on a Windows machine.

      I should be able to export the tomboy notes database fairly easy, but it would be a huge load off my mind if I could settle on a decent program to migrate to first.

      Thanks in advance for any input!

      11 votes