The Big Programming Thread - Page 284

On April 14 2013 19:43 Yoshi- wrote:
The aforementioned site is w3fools.com btw.

On April 15 2013 06:11 Tobberoth wrote:

I'd say they are being quite anal about the issue. Sure, W3schools does contain a lot of misleading information, and even some downright errors, but some of the issues they bring up really don't matter to the people using the site: Complete newbies who are just trying to get into it. W3schools is good because the progression is very approachable, once you're done with their tutorials, you're ready for the more detailed and correct knowledge bases.

I mean, you could probably take any page trying to teach HTML and find issues with it, using an argument like "Lol, this is so misleading compared to the official W3 docs", but the point is that the user is looking for a tutorial, not the exact information which can be looked up when you know what you're looking for.

For example, w3fools.com whine about w3schools using "async: false" in a tutorial on jQuery ajax() usage. While I agree with their basic perspective that AJAX is MEANT to be asynchronous, I'd say it's quite valid to use it without async in a tutorial since it's easier to come up with non-asyncronous implementations for a newbie, and it's quite a lot easier to grasp for a beginner. Obviously, this should be clarified in the tutorial, which it isn't. My point though, is that you have to take a tutorial for what it is: A simplification made to make it easier for newbies. While factual errors have no place there, simplifications certainly do.

On April 15 2013 04:49 tec27 wrote:
Guys, w3schools is awful, period. Its full of bad information, outdated information, bad recommendations, and it takes really scummy approaches to making sure its hard to block in searches. Anyone who knows their stuff will tell you that its awful and you shouldn't use it.

I already linked a much better site, MDN. Please use it and stop recommending garbage content in this thread.

On April 15 2013 07:45 JudicatorHammurabi wrote:

+1 for MDN.

As a computer engineering/computer science student, I'd like to say a few things though for fellow CE/CS people interested into getting into front-end web dev for a living.

Front-end Web dev can be fun, but it's more of a thing you do for that. I'm about to graduate, and I can tell you that I cannot even fathom how people can do front-end web dev for a living. It's so simplistic and so dull, I'd get tired pretty quickly of doing HTML/CSS/JS on a full-time basis, and some people I know who work in that kinda thing say the same..

I actually rejected internship offers from a couple little-known web-based companies like Yahoo and Amazon because they wanted me to be a script kiddie. Last summer, I did a ton of back-end web dev, which is infinitely more enjoyable and productive than front-end, and yet it was still meh.
Being a CE guy, I'd like to actually get some experience working with hardware and embedded systems. So of the offers, I accepted the one from Qualcomm since that's what they offered me. I'll be working there this summer and starting graduate school next year.

Basically my point is, to CS/CE students, REALLY consider what you want to do in terms of software work. Yeah it may seem cool to be that guy who does the HTML stuff on Facebook's page because you use Facebook, but do you really want to do that 40 hours a week?

On April 15 2013 09:15 tec27 wrote:

Before I reply, that's a complete misuse of the term 'script kiddie' and not at all what its actual meaning is. Unless of course they wanted you to copy and paste scripts from the web with no knowledge of how they work, but I doubt that's the case

I think a lot of companies don't have this sort of front-end/back-end dichotomy post-hiring. There are certainly people that are going to have more familiarity working on user-facing vs service-facing things, but there is still an expectation that you'll have an understanding of both (and honestly, I think at this point they have a lot of the same problems to solve).

Being a front-end developer is certainly not just writing some HTML and calling it a day. Modern web applications have a lot of complex code running in the browser, stuff like rendering dynamic content, querying remote APIs and maintaining local datastores. A lot of logic that used to be kept on the server is now being run on the client, and honestly I think its a very interesting space.

If embedded systems are your interest, then yeah, web apps are probably not going to be something you enjoy working on. But if you are interested in web stuff, I think the sort of front-end work that modern companies need done can be every interesting, and you're being incredibly disingenuous in your description of it.

Some interesting reads/talks from that space:
http://backstage.soundcloud.com/2012/06/building-the-next-soundcloud/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unEuPvA2wnM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDmFZbP2b0A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx40CRwwkS8

On April 15 2013 10:17 phar wrote:
Also I hope you did accept an internship at a comparable company, because having an amazon or yahoo internship on your resume will be really good for you when you try to get an actual job. I would have killed for an amazon internship even if it was pure frontend while in undergrad, and I'd be willing to be a large sum that I had more backend emphasis.

Hope it works out regardless.

On April 15 2013 07:03 CecilSunkure wrote:

The problem is that it isn't being advertised as a simplified tutorial.

On April 15 2013 15:32 Tobberoth wrote:

I'm with you there, however, that doesn't have to stop you from recommending it to newbies, since you can let them know that as part of the introduction. "Go through this HTML tutorial quickly to get up to speed. Keep in mind that the site is quite simplified, here's some more advanced links you can check out once you're done with the basics here". Depends on the person wanting to learn though, resources like MDN are probably still superior for most beginners, unless they are computer illiterate.

On April 16 2013 09:04 Craton wrote:
Sounds like you just want a data source.

On April 15 2013 22:37 JonGalt wrote:
I am trying to create a website with multiple drop down text boxes.

I have no problem creating them and getting them to send the correct values. However, I have 2 drop down boxes that have the same data, and 16 drop down boxes that have the same data. Each drop down box holds a lot of choices. I want to create a javascript function that creates the drop down box, then I only have to do it one time and if the choices change it is a matter of altering the function and not all 16.

Is this possible?

On April 17 2013 05:09 LukeNukeEm wrote:
Hi guys.
I have a problem with tuples and vectors in c++.

std::tuple<unsigned int, unsigned int, unsigned int> tuple;
std::get<0>(tuple);

this works fine.

std::tuple<unsigned int, unsigned int, unsigned int> tuple;
std::vector<std::tuple<unsigned int, unsigned int, unsigned int>> vector;
vector.push_back(tuple);
std::get<0>(vector[0]);

this does not.

Error	10	error C2784: 'const _Ty &std::get(const std::array<_Ty,_Size> &) throw()' : could not deduce template argument for 'const std::array<_Ty,_Size> &' from 'std::tuple<<unnamed-symbol>,_V0_t,_V1_t>'

this is the errormessage on the last line. i'm not really that experienced with templates to understand all of it - any help?

On April 17 2013 05:09 LukeNukeEm wrote:
Hi guys.
I have a problem with tuples and vectors in c++.

std::tuple<unsigned int, unsigned int, unsigned int> tuple;
std::get<0>(tuple);

this works fine.

std::tuple<unsigned int, unsigned int, unsigned int> tuple;
std::vector<std::tuple<unsigned int, unsigned int, unsigned int>> vector;
vector.push_back(tuple);
std::get<0>(vector[0]);

this does not.

Error	10	error C2784: 'const _Ty &std::get(const std::array<_Ty,_Size> &) throw()' : could not deduce template argument for 'const std::array<_Ty,_Size> &' from 'std::tuple<<unnamed-symbol>,_V0_t,_V1_t>'

this is the errormessage on the last line. i'm not really that experienced with templates to understand all of it - any help?

On April 17 2013 05:17 halvorg wrote:


Hey, I'm not all too strong in c++, but as far as I know you need to add a space between your last two >'s, the c++ compiler thinks you are using the '>>' operator.