It's exactly this sort of programmer that caused me to make my big list of 
computer questions you should be able to answer in one sentence before you 
come work for me.

http://us.php.net/manual/en/function.abs.php#58508

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Understanding the structure of the universe
    via religion is like understanding the
     structure of computers via Tron.

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On Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:11:48 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> It's exactly this sort of programmer that caused me to make my big list
> of computer questions you should be able to answer in one sentence
> before you come work for me.
> 
> http://us.php.net/manual/en/function.abs.php#58508

I think my brain just exploded.  Dammit, now there's brain matter all 
over my desk and monitor.  That's going to make work in the morning 
difficult, I gotta clean this mess up first.

Jim

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> http://us.php.net/manual/en/function.abs.php#58508

either a joker or some true PL n00b... :)

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> It's exactly this sort of programmer that caused me to make my big list of 
> computer questions you should be able to answer in one sentence before you 
> come work for me.
>
> http://us.php.net/manual/en/function.abs.php#58508

I don't think it's a joke, there just genuinely are lots of people out there 
who aren't very good at quickly spotting good ways to do things.

We have a list of questions for graduate Engineers here too, it's surprising 
how many don't spot the obvious ways to solve most questions.  It takes some 
time to write good questions that are capable of separating out the 
applicants.

My favourite is the parametric equation we give and ask them to calculate 
the area under the curve between two limits.  It's funny how many go on for 
sometimes over a page of algebra and integration without realising it's just 
a circle and you can write down the answer in one line :-D

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Darren New wrote:

> http://us.php.net/manual/en/function.abs.php#58508

I believe the term is "epic fail"...

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> http://us.php.net/manual/en/function.abs.php#58508

  Why do I seem to be the only one who is not getting a page with such
an anchor in it? I even checked all the anchors in that page, and that
one does not appear. The closest ones are #55694 and #58653.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:41:14 +0200, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> http://us.php.net/manual/en/function.abs.php#58508
>
>   Why do I seem to be the only one who is not getting a page with such
> an anchor in it? I even checked all the anchors in that page, and that
> one does not appear. The closest ones are #55694 and #58653.

I get the same, though one of the comments that do exist is apparently in  
reply to #58508. I presume it was simply deleted.



-- 
FE

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> http://us.php.net/manual/en/function.abs.php#58508
> 
>   Why do I seem to be the only one who is not getting a page with such
> an anchor in it? I even checked all the anchors in that page, and that
> one does not appear. The closest ones are #55694 and #58653.
> 

I'm not getting it either.

However, the very bottom comment is several lines of code to perform a 
negative absolute... when all that's needed is "-abs(x)".  I think that 
might be what he's referring to.

...Chambers

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Warp schrieb:
>   Why do I seem to be the only one who is not getting a page with such
> an anchor in it? I even checked all the anchors in that page, and that
> one does not appear. The closest ones are #55694 and #58653.

Because, apparently, someone did the only sane thing, and removed that post.

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Chambers <Ben### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> However, the very bottom comment is several lines of code to perform a 
> negative absolute... when all that's needed is "-abs(x)".  I think that 
> might be what he's referring to.

  Having been a teaching assistant that the University of Technology here,
in a course where several tasks are programming-related, you wouldn't
believe the programming horrors I have had to witness.

  For example, you wouldn't believe how complicated the task of writing
a function which calculates the distance between two 2D points can get.
Where normal people would just write a "sqrt(vx*vx+vy*vy)"-based solution
in 3 lines (two of them to calculate vx and vy), the worst examples I saw
spawned over 100 lines of code. And I'm not exaggerating the least bit here.
And these are university students who have gone through math courses in
grade school, high school and several years in the university.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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