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1. The lounge is for the CodeProject community to discuss things of interest to the community, and as a place for the whole community to participate. It is, first and foremost, a respectful meeting and discussion area for those wishing to discuss the life of a Software developer.
The #1 rule is: Be respectful of others, of the site, and of the community as a whole.
2. Technical discussions are welcome, but if you need specific programming question answered please use Quick Answers[^], or to discussion your programming problem in depth use the programming forums[^]. We encourage technical discussion, but this is a general discussion forum, not a programming Q&A forum. Posts will be moved or deleted if they fit better elsewhere.
3. No sys-admin, networking, "how do I setup XYZ" questions. For those use the SysAdmin[^] or Hardware and Devices[^] forums.
4. No politics (including enviro-politics[^]), no sex, no religion. This is a community for software development. There are plenty of other sites that are far more appropriate for these discussions.
5. Nothing Not Safe For Work, nothing you would not want your wife/husband, your girlfriend/boyfriend, your mother or your kid sister seeing on your screen.
6. Any personal attacks, any spam, any advertising, any trolling, or any abuse of the rules will result in your account being removed.
7. Not everyone's first language is English. Be understanding.
Please respect the community and respect each other. We are of many cultures so remember that. Don't assume others understand you are joking, don't belittle anyone for taking offense or being thin skinned.
We are a community for software developers. Leave the egos at the door.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
modified 16-Sep-19 9:31am.
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On a whim, this weekend I started re-reading "The Mythical Man-Month". I had forgotten what a delightful book it is:
Quote:
Why is programming fun? What delights may its practitioner expect as his reward?
First is the sheer joy of making things. As the child delights in his mud pie, so the adult enjoys building things, especially things of his own design...
Second is the pleasure of making things that are useful to other people. Deep within, we want others to use our work and to find it helpful...
Third is the fascination of fashioning complex puzzle-like objects of interlocking moving parts and watching them work in subtle cycles, playing out the consequences of principles built in from the beginning...
Fourth is the joy of always learning, which springs from the nonrepeating nature of the task...
Finally, there is the delight of working in such a tractable medium. The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff... Some of the stuff seems even more germane these days than it was when it was written:
Quote: The purpose of a programming system is to make a computer easy to use. To do this, it furnishes languages and various facilities that are in fact programs invoked and controlled by language features. But these facilities are bought at a price: the external description of a programming system is ten to twenty times as large as the external description of the computer system itself. The user finds it far easier to specify any particular function, but there are far more to choose from, and far more options and formats to remember.
Ease of use is enhanced only if the time gained in functional specification exceeds the time lost in learning, remembering, and searching manuals. With modern programming systems this gain does exceed the cost, but in recent years the ratio of gain to cost seems to have fallen Feel like trying new frameworks anyone?
Mircea
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I loved IBM Thinkpads. It's as if they sat me down, interviewed me for two hours, and then built a laptop based on their findings.
The little eraserhead pointer that everyone hates I wish I had on all my keyboards. I can use the mouse without taking my hands of the home row and my wrist isn't clicking an annoying trackpad all the time.
But it's more than that. They had the build quality, top tier LCD tech at the time, great bleeding edge hardware (first laptop with a mobile Pentium III for example), and stellar support. I had video hardware on one go tits up and IBM sent a tech to my workplace the next day who replaced my lappy's mainboard. I lost maybe 5 hours of productivity to my primary dev machine going out. That's not bad, actually.
The only real achilles heel they had were the HDDs - the "IBM DeskDeathStar" drives. Most were good, but they had a run of them that were just junk - but it was a misstep from a company that was usually pretty reliable about quality. The situation stood out for being the exception to the rule.
Then they sold everything to Lenovo. I haven't touched Lenovo machines. How's the build quality?
Are there laptops that have supplanted the thinkpad's former niche at the high end**?
Especially with those little pointing nubs. Love them.
** non-gaming
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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I'm completely fan of hp elitebook.
Unfortunately for you, no little pointing nubs 
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I won't buy HP. Too many bad experiences.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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They're OK, but I'll stick with Dell and Microsoft Surface laptops.
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Hmmm. I've had dell laptops before. I wasn't super impressed. It felt like driving a toyota. Standard trackpad, standard screen, standard keyboard. Stock upper mid shelf CPU.
Nothing to really hate about them (except the trackpad), but nothing I loved either.
I'm looking for something... sportier? I want to fall in love with it.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Dell is better than Lenovo, my experience...
diligent hands rule....
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I just got done telling someone else my experience with Dell laptops was totally middle of the road.
I compared it to driving a toyota. Reliable, but reliably boring. I don't know exactly what I'm looking for in a laptop, but I'll know it when i see it. I'm being difficult, I know.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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I've been an Asus Zenbook fan for years. The oldest one I still have went on countless boats, cranes and excavators, accompanied an 11 years old to school for 6 months (that was rough!) and is still kicking. Now it's enjoying its retirement talking only occasionally to a 3D printer and doing light duties around the house.
The latest one is still a respectable 3 years old but still very snappy and stylish. Love it to bits (and bytes).
Mircea
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Yeah, I'd consider ASUS if build quality was all I was looking for. My biggest stumbling block is trackpads. I can't bear them and would much prefer a laptop that didn't have one that I'd just disable anyway.
Anyway, I'll take a look at them.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
modified 4 mins ago.
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Thanks for making me look at ASUS again.
Asus ProArt Studio Book[^]
OLED 16" - Nice!
12th gen core i9 mobile
Onboard graphics that don't totally suck.
Shame about the trackpad, but that's the only thing I don't like so far, and expect I'm probably going to wind up having to settle for disabling it on whatever i end up getting.
Thanks again!
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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As the subject line says - not something I came up with, but I like it. I stole it from this discussion when researching the topic.
In any case. Not a programming question.
I like to label my fields, listboxes, etc so if the user is only allowed to make a single selection, the label is singular. If the user is allowed multiple selections (including just one), I like to indicate it as such by using a label such as "Widget(s)" (as opposed to "Widgets"). Maybe I'm thinking like a developer (or so I'm told), but to me the parens make it clear making multiple choices is possible, but still just an option.
One of my coworkers hates this. Or to use the example from the discussion at the link above, something like "Party(ies)".
What's your preference? Or has your company adopted something formal?
I'm thinking this might be a good survey question.
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If 1 - Singular
if 1 or more - Plural
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But do you use the plural version using the parenthesis, is really my question. That's what my co-worker hates, to the point of having searched our entire codebase and checking in "corrections"...
I'm okay with that...just wondering what the world at large thinks...
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I wouldn't put Parenthetical Pluralization in a UI. Even a Tooltip should be along the lines of "Select one or more Widgets", "Select up to ten Parties".
In documentation sure, but only when it's a simple (s) , (ies) is an abomination. Better to reword the statement to avoid the issue and possibly the meaning will be clearer as a result.
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How do you feel about online data storage? Is it really secure?
Paranoid.
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The data can be technically secure, but then there's always this...
xkcd: Security
With this out of the way...
If I absolutely, positively, had to upload data I don't want shared, I'd only be uploading TrueCrypt (or similar) file containers. That'd be missing the point of convenience, but that's hardly ever part of the question when it comes up.
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I use OneDrive as it's the easiest way to share stuff between my desktop, Surface, and phone - but if it's anything I don't want public, it gets encrypted first. (Even if it's just "normal" photos with identifiable humans in).
Is it secure? I assume it's at the "Chocolate Teapot" security level.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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That's exactly what I use it for as well - I have a bunch of tiny, self-contained utilities (one EXE, no install, etc - think the SysInternals stuff) that I like to keep up to date and synchronized across the systems I use. OneDrive is great for that.
If it gets breached? Obviously I'll be concerned there was a breach at all, but the fact that those files got compromised is completely unimportant.
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I also use OneDrive for general stuff. It has a section called "Personal Vault" requiring 2FA with Microsoft Authenticator that I use for more sensitive stuff.
Really sensitive stuff stays on an SSD in a bank vault. Different levels of paranoia
Mircea
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I don't put any of my data online, not knowingly anyway.
Who knows what security they have and even then it can be hacked. Not that I have top secret information, I just don't want anyone to know about that cheeze-whiz incidence.
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No one can protect your stuff as well as you can.
If security is important, then don't let anyone else have your stuff.
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Strangest supermarket online shopping substitutions[^]
To save you going near the Sky News (which requires PPE at the best of times), I'll summarize:
Dog chews instead of chicken breasts.
Toilet rolls instead of bread rolls.
A bag of onions instead of a loaf of bread.
Shoe polish instead of fruit.
Bacon rather than BBQ-flavoured crisps (Chips for the west ponders).
Easter egg despite ordering hot dog rolls.
A roll of tinfoil which was swapped out for a chocolate Santa.
Strawberries instead of bin bags.
Alcohol-free bottle of wine in place of a standard bottle.
And my personal favourite: Toilet roll replaced with Sellotape (Scotch tape for West ponders, Durex for Ozzies).
I'm assuming that either this was computerised via QA, or the UK supermarkets employ surrealist packers ...
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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OriginalGriff wrote: or the UK supermarkets employ surrealist packers
If those in my area are anything to go by, just take a look at these people, and try to convince me they care about the job they do.
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