# What is the Raging Debate in your area of geekery? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 16, 2006, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981 "2006-08-16T17:48:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/61 "2006-08-17T16:36:44Z")
[QUOTE=MrDibble] My geekery doesn’t have much Raging Debate, other than a 1600 or 1650 cutoff (1650! and Milipitas can kiss my axe), and the “Is Heavy a real Martial Art?” one. I guess the “is Cut&Thrust going to kill Heavy” one has come up, but it’s not serious. [/QUOTE] I feel whooshed. Absolutely no clue what you are referring to! Enlighten me/us! As for the Lego Raging Debate (please note I didn’t go near the “s”!!) - wow, had no idea. That’s exactly the type of RD I am talking about! So, I am hearing that mixing colors is _verboten_… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![NinetyWt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@NinetyWt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinetyWt)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/62 "2006-08-17T16:45:50Z")
Why not do both? Cost, mostly. To model the effects of a flood peak occuring simultaneously with a breach peak, one really needs a 3-D finite element model. The programs we are using are only 2-D. When you begin to require people to use 3-D modeling, the engineering fees required to do that become out of reach of most dam owners. Having _some_ sort of intelligent answer, reasonably attainable by current methods, is more realistic IMO. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/63 "2006-08-17T17:00:12Z")
Which is better? Big-name commercial antivirus apps like Norton, Trend Micro or McAfee, or little free apps like Avast or AVG? I’m on the side that the little guys are better for the average user. Virus writers test their code against the popular programs - ie, they try to sneak past Norton, but might not get around to testing themselves against Avast. The little guys’ development is just as good as the big guys, and lately, it’s been pretty much random who gets the “signatures” out for new viruses first. Sometimes Trend Micro or Norton gets them out to the world first, but Avast and AVG are just as likely to be first. AVG and Avast being available for free is just a nice bonus, but there’s still a sizeable number of people that won’t use something unless it comes in a big shrinkwrapped box at CompUSA. ---
**Author:** ![borschevsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/97f17d/32.png) [@borschevsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/borschevsky)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/64 "2006-08-17T17:16:56Z")
1. Who wins Fischer-Karpov 1975? 2. What (if anything) should be done about short draws? ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/65 "2006-08-17T17:21:38Z")
Seasons 6 & 7, The UPN Years: Simply misguided, or a blatant attempt to cause the apoplectic deaths of several thousand geeks? Conversely, Marti Noxon: Satan incarnate, or merely his Spawn? ---
**Author:** ![ENugent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/4af34b/32.png) [@ENugent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ENugent)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/66 "2006-08-17T17:31:32Z")
[QUOTE=borschevsky] 1. Who wins Fischer-Karpov 1975? 2. What (if anything) should be done about short draws? [/QUOTE] Hey, do you know [my](http://db.chessmetrics.com/) [brother](http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2345)? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/67 "2006-08-17T17:36:09Z")
[QUOTE=WordMan] I feel whooshed. Absolutely no clue what you are referring to! Enlighten me/us! [/QUOTE] [Society for Creative Anachronism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Creative_Anachronism) - specifically: when the cut-off period for society activities are (there’s an “official” ruling, but it’s hardly enforceable) Heavy is Armoured Combat using very fakey rattan& duct-tape swords, approached as a sport/martial art with _generally_ little historical technique Rapier uses either sport fencing swords or else historical repros. Currently doesn’t allow chopping-type attacks, but _generally_ has a lot of historical technique. Cut&Thrust is a currently probationary kind of Rapier that would allow chopping-style stuff, therefore closer to historical fencing manuals as we know it from [I.33](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I.33) onwards. So, playing at being Knights and swashbucklers, really. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/68 "2006-08-17T17:37:16Z")
The naming of one’s [Table Occurrences](http://www.dwaynewright.com/afa/articles/rel7_3.html). Heavily standardized naming conventions used by everyone, or invent your own? Are the people driving for standardized naming conventions all a bunch of procedural plodders and SQL-system enviers, or are the people who reject Table-Occurrence names like “Tpt\_Cl\_g.Next\_CliInvLineItem\_cr\_del\_NoSort” and go naming their TOCs at random and willy-nilly a bunch of disorganized dilettantes who are destined to paint themselves into corners? I myself haven’t seen a proposed “universal standardized” naming convention I like, but I can vouch for the usefulness of standardizing one’s own naming conventions if multiple similar table occurrences are going to be deployed. You never know but what you’re going to want to use _Evaluate_ or _GetField_ to snag values within a looping script, and looping through a series of relationships with minor changes to the table-occurrence name is a hell of a lot easier if your naming convention facilitates such looping. It’s the difference between: [color=red] Set Variable [$Suffix, GetAsNumber($Suffix + 1)] Set Field [Table::Whatever, GetField[“CostParameter”&$Suffix&“:EstCost”] and Set Variable [$NextRelationship, Case($NextRelationship=“This”, “That”, $NextRelationship="That, “Something Else”, $NextRelationship=“Something Else”, “Other Silly Name”, $NextRelationship=“Other Silly Name”, “More Silliness”, $NextRelationship="More Silliness, “Etcetera”, $NextRelationship=“Etcetera”, “CouldGoOnForQuite\_a\_LongTime”)] Set Field [Table::Whatever, GetField[$NextRelationship&"::EstCost] ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/69 "2006-08-17T17:38:55Z")
Fuck Can I try that again? The naming of one’s [Table Occurrences](http://www.dwaynewright.com/afa/articles/rel7_3.html). Heavily standardized naming conventions used by everyone, or invent your own? Are the people driving for standardized naming conventions all a bunch of procedural plodders and SQL-system enviers, or are the people who reject Table-Occurrence names like “Tpt\_Cl\_g.Next\_CliInvLineItem\_cr\_del\_NoSort” and go naming their TOCs at random and willy-nilly a bunch of disorganized dilettantes who are destined to paint themselves into corners? I myself haven’t seen a proposed “universal standardized” naming convention I like, but I can vouch for the usefulness of standardizing one’s own naming conventions if multiple similar table occurrences are going to be deployed. You never know but what you’re going to want to use _Evaluate_ or _GetField_ to snag values within a looping script, and looping through a series of relationships with minor changes to the table-occurrence name is a hell of a lot easier if your naming convention facilitates such looping. It’s the difference between: Set Variable [$Suffix, GetAsNumber($Suffix + 1)] Set Field [Table::Whatever, GetField[“CostParameter”&$Suffix&“:EstCost”] and Set Variable [$NextRelationship, Case($NextRelationship=“This”, “That”, $NextRelationship="That, “Something Else”, $NextRelationship=“Something Else”, “Other Silly Name”, $NextRelationship=“Other Silly Name”, “More Silliness”, $NextRelationship="More Silliness, “Etcetera”, $NextRelationship=“Etcetera”, “CouldGoOnForQuite\_a\_LongTime”)] Set Field [Table::Whatever, GetField[$NextRelationship&"::EstCost] ---
**Author:** ![Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a88e4f/32.png) [@Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/70 "2006-08-17T17:52:16Z")
**Kythereia** : What bothers me more is wondering if everyone would have been spared a lot of misery if Katherine of Aragon had just gone off to the nunnery when Henry asked her to? **Rysto** : I hate tabs. And in your example, I hate that the opening brackets aren’t on their own line. 🙂 Latest big debate around here is whether we should stick with C for our next embedded firmware project, or should we switch to C++? ---
**Author:** ![Jayn\_Newell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/71 "2006-08-17T17:55:32Z")
Vegas vs. Premiere. Actually, the geekdom doesn’t really have much of a raging debate, but which video editor to use can be a touchy subject. Expecially when it comes to Windows Movie Maker. A common challenge is ‘show me a good video made with WMM.’ Unfortunately, since it’s the editor a lot of people start with, there’s a lot of bad videos in .wmv format, to the point where some people won’t even download a .wmv video at all (you can get .avi files out of it, but a lot of people don’t bother). It’s also not as advanced as other editors–many people will eventually upgrade to something else, and as someone else recently put it (paraphrased), if you’re at the point where you’re ready to do the advanced stuff with WMM you’re at the point to get a better program. Some people assert that good videos can’t be made with WMM, some say its the editor not the program. I’m in the latter camp, probably mainly because until recently it was what I used. While you can’t do fancy effects with it, I can tell a story just as well with that as I can with any other program. But I do see why it has such a bad rap (and honestly it’s a pain to work with). Oh, and for your own safety don’t mention YouTube. It’s disliked for a number of reasons, and usually the resulting threads aren’t pretty. It’s bad enough that the forum filters the name out. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/72 "2006-08-17T18:15:35Z")
[QUOTE=Sublight] I was going to post the same thing. Personally, I’m an anti-serialist by upbringing. However, I do recognize that serial commas can make complex lists (particularly listing groups of groups) much more readable, and have come to accept that not everyone who uses them is a prepubescent proto-hominid who, when not writing, is primarily occupied with the task of smearing feces over the walls of his cage. I have even, on rare occasion… used them myself… But it makes me feel dirty and ashamed afterwards. [/QUOTE] I was taught serial commas and didn’t get the memo when it was changed. It always makes me mad when people fix my writing because they think I made a “mistake”. On a related topic: two spaces at the start of a new sentence? Yes or no. ---
**Author:** ![ArrMatey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/arrmatey/32/3522_2.png) [@ArrMatey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ArrMatey)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/73 "2006-08-17T18:33:32Z")
[QUOTE=Pochacco] **Narratology vs. Ludology** There’s a debate going on between videogame theorists about the best way to analyze videogames. The Narratologists want to treat games as “texts” so they can bring the full force of postmodern critical theory to bear. The Ludologists argue that narrative elements in games are mere window dressing and that games are essentially systems of interacting rule sets; while narratological insights may be tangentially interesting, they fundamentally miss the point of how games operate. Me? I’m in the Ludologist camp … . [/QUOTE] Oooh, Oooh, I’m totally on the opposite side of the fence on this one! But I didn’t know there was even a debate! Is there some sort of forum for this? I’d love to see what people think of this… Assuming it’s a discussion, not a poo-flinging-fest. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/74 "2006-08-17T18:35:29Z")
I frequent a poker messageboard and here are a few of the many (MANY) issues that have been stemming out of the latest World Series of Poker (which was just recently completed). 1. What percentage of money has been set for the entry fees has been set aside for dealer tips and what percentage goes to the House? a) Has that amount been specifically confirmed? b) Are players still obligated to tip upon winning given that they’ve already done so through the entry fees? c) Is the House taking too large a cut and, if not, how much is too much? 2. Is Harrah’s short changing the players when it comes to prize money? a) They take 6-10% off the top for many tournaments and some rumors are that that % will increase next year b) Given the ESPN television contracts, the numerous endorsement deals and other ways Harrah’s can make money off from the WSOP (now a month and a half long!), it seems unfair that prize money is solely based on what the players themselves contribute. c) The prize distribution scale is terrible. First prize was a whopping $12,000,000. That’s lottery prize money and it’s only that large because the sponsors wanted an even bigger number than last year’s 8 million. Meanwhile. the person who went out in 80th place got around $50,000. Only 5 times the buy in for literally beating out more than 99% of the field is insane. There are many other things as well. Many many other things. But there are tons of debates on this. Can players form unions? Would we even want to? What would we consider to be fair and equitable compromises to the above issues and more? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/75 "2006-08-17T18:38:46Z")
Oh, and Milipitas, CA, is where the SCA organisation is based ---
**Author:** ![borschevsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/97f17d/32.png) [@borschevsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/borschevsky)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/76 "2006-08-17T18:50:42Z")
[QUOTE=ENugent] Hey, do you know [my](http://db.chessmetrics.com/) [brother](http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2345)? [/QUOTE] Sure, I’ve read his stuff. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/77 "2006-08-17T19:06:25Z")
Quilt guild: can polycotton be used or does it sully the whole quilt? ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/78 "2006-08-17T19:26:49Z")
[QUOTE=look!ninjas] Since you’re obviously talking Harry Potter, did you mean Cassandra Clare (once Cassandra Clair)? Because that is kind of a long story. [/QUOTE] You have _no_ idea. Have you heard the latest wank? [/random moment] [QUOTE=Eleanor of Aquitaine] Kythereia: What bothers me more is wondering if everyone would have been spared a lot of misery if Katherine of Aragon had just gone off to the nunnery when Henry asked her to? [/QUOTE] It’s possible. Katherine could have agreed to testify to Cardinal Wolsey at his inquiry that her marriage with Arthur was consummated; she could have asked Pope Clement VII in Rome to annul the marriage peaceably and grant Henry his dispensation to marry any woman he chose. Henry could’ve given her a handsome settlement like he did with Anne of Cleves and she could’ve lived out the rest of her life in relative comfort. And Henry could’ve been faithful to her in the first place, but it was never in his character–and it was never in her character to back down. Katherine of Aragon was a very determined woman, and a very brave one, and she saw herself as having full rights to the English throne. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/79 "2006-08-17T19:28:40Z")
[QUOTE=DanBlather] I was taught serial commas and didn’t get the memo when it was changed. It always makes me mad when people fix my writing because they think I made a “mistake”. On a related topic: two spaces at the start of a new sentence? Yes or no. [/QUOTE] I like it, especially since this has the added benefit of meaning you don’t have to worry about indenting paragraphs, since they’ll have the two-space indent from teh sentence anyways. Also makes it visually easier to find the breaks between sentences if that’s important for you. That said, this requires a selection of a proper font, some fonts cause the two-space gap to be ginourmous. ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981/80 "2006-08-17T20:10:06Z")
[QUOTE=WordMan] \*\*Rysto \*\* your argument makes sense - why would others argue otherwise? [/QUOTE] Well, there are some situations where tabs don’t work. For example: ```auto struct kobject { const char * k_name; char name[KOBJ_NAME_LEN]; struct kref kref; struct list_head entry; struct kobject * parent; struct kset * kset; struct kobj_type * ktype; struct dentry * dentry; }; ``` If you try to use tabs to align the right column, if someone is using a different tab width from you, it will turn out all wrong. The solution, as **bitwise** has mentioned, is to either not align things like that, or to use spaces in this special situation. > [@bitwise](#): > > Another war of religion that is popular lately is “static vs dynamic typing”. > > [http://mindview.net/WebLog/log-0052](http://mindview.net/WebLog/log-0052) This is an interesting one. I’ll summarize it for those who don’t know much about programming. To understand this debate, you need to understand how a program that’s written by a human is turned into a program that the computer can understand and run. The human produces source code written in a programming language. The source code is input to a special program called a compiler. The compiler takes source code and translates into machine code, which is what the machine can understand. Now hold this thought for a minute, because now we need to understand what “types” are. All data has a type associated with it. For example, there’s the int type, which indicates that the data is an integer. There’s the string type, which is a sequence of characters like “abdc”. Programmer can also define their own types. The code I gave above is an example of a programmer defined type, in fact. Now, different types are usually incompatible. A string is not an integer. It might be possible to interpret a string as an integer – for example, “100” could be interpreted as the number 100 – but in most languages, you have to explicitly convert between strings and integers, or any other incompatible types. If different types are incompatible, it’s an error to try and treat them as the the same type. For example, 100 - “foo” is meaningless – you can’t subtract “foo” from 100. The difference between static and dynamic typing is in _where_ this error is detected. In a statically typed language, the type of everything is known to the compiler, so it can find these types of errors and report them. In a dynamically typed language, the type of a variable is not known to the compiler. We only know what type a variable contains when the program is running, so that’s when the error is detected. For example, take the expression x - y. If x and y contain integers, then this expression is meaningful. It’s an error is y contains a string, though. In a statically typed language, the source code will contain enough information to allow the compiler to decide whether the expression is valid or not. In a dynamically typed language, we must wait until the program is run to see if this was an error. My opinion: dynamically typed languages are a gigantic step backwards. It’s an established fact that errors detected by the compiler are orders of magnitude cheaper to fix than errors detected at run-time. Even worse, in a statically typed language, **all** of your type errors will be found by running the compiler **once** , because the compiler can recover from errors and proceed. When a type error is found a run-time, however, the program cannot proceed; it must crash. This means that for every one of your type errors, you must run your program once to find it. This is much more time consuming. The article **bitwise** linked to makes the argument that programs can contains bugs even if there are no type errors, so you have to write tests for your program anyway. That’s true, but for a statically typed language, some of those tests are done for you. I can’t see how that’s a bad thing. > [@Eleanor of Aquitaine](#): > > Rysto: I hate tabs. And in your example, I hate that the opening brackets aren’t on their own line. I used to hate K&R style as well, but I was forced to use it\* at my last 2 jobs and I’ll admit it’s grown on me. The ease with which I switched styles has convinced me that any debate over the merits of the different styles is pointless. - Actually, I was forced to use the Java style, which is almost the same but not exactly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-raging-debate-in-your-area-of-geekery/368981.md?page=5)