This isn't a technical question... I've been a programmer for years but I've never figured out a sure-fire way of remembering or "explaining to people over the phone" what the difference is between a forward slash and a backwards slash (/ or ).
I always end up saying "the one with the top bit going to the left/right" or vice versa.
I know it can't just be me that struggles with this pretty simple thing on a day to day basis, so has anyone got any methods or ways of remembering/explaining which you mean (I'm looking for a "stalactites hang on tightly to the ceiling" type analogy)
Also, this question is based purely on curiosity, I can live without the answer and if this is an inappropriate type of question please accept my apologies in advance if so.
Some ideas:
Forward
"It is what you see when you use your web-browser."
"It's the same one most people make when writing."
"Hold down shift and hit the question mark."
"It points towards your left elbow."
Back:
"You probably don't see this one much. Look between your "Enter" key and the "Backspace" key."
If the guy is running left to right (ie in the same direction you read text, so this is intuitive) then the forward slash is leaning forward, and the backslash is leaning back.
Related
I have a file with the usual sumifs and vlookups. Nothing complicated computationally!
It has a lot of conditional formatting
As I remove the formulas the wait cursor remains there for shorter and shorter.
When I remove all the formulas and the formatting the file is fine as in I do not get the wait cursor. What is left is a file with no calculations and flat data.
Even with calculations that are just summing I am getting the wait cursor
I have tried excel open and repair. This does not work.
My sumifs have been changed to refer to a finite array as opposed to whole columns (which are also finite for the pedantic! but say these are infinite)
I think what I want to know, is what is known to cause a wait cursor to appear in excel? What can I do to minimize the time that the wait cursor appears?
I have looked on google and am not finding anything useful or relevant to my problem
I am starting to realise that wait cursor seems to always appear for a split second when I insert a column! however with my few sumifs formulas the wait cursor is getting longer and longer. Is it possible for sumifs formulas to calculate quickly but add to the wait cursor time the more sumifs you add?
Old question :
I have an excel file that keeps freezing
It calculates and saves very quickly. it is only 3090kb
Every time I insert a column or add a sheet for example I get the egg timer and if I click it starts to say 'not responding'
It only happens with this file so I don't believe it is my computer or excel version
the file was working fine before. I extended the formulas in about ten tabs (although not that many calcs added) and then it started to freeze
even if I delete every tab so there is just a blank sheet in the file it still freezes
Please help. Thanks
Please do not answer yet, I am still investigating and will get back to this. thank you
EDIT: The WAIT cursor not egg timer
Check if there are any hidden sheets with the data that is slowing it down.
Right click on sheet tab and unhide.
Make this practice to use this Macro or set Row Height to 15 so they don't Wrap. Wraptext in large excel files causes it to slow down to the point of freezing:
activesheet.cells.wraptext = false
#Jasmine - I wasn't suggesting that you are making anything up, nor was I my comment intended to be facetious. My point was that your question sounds self-contradictory to me.
When learning a new coding language, learning which questions to ask and how to phrase and share your problem is a skill in itself.
The fact that your file functions (a.k.a. calculates) 'properly'
until more identical formulas are added, sounds to me like it's no longer calculating properly, so I was unsure what you meant.
As for the `size doesn't matter' comment, it's another valid point about how some people ask questions when mistakenly thinking that file size has any significance. I've encountered and solved thousands of [seemingly unique] issues over the years but the last time I looked at the size of my file would have been back when it would've had to fit on a diskette.
Similarly, I often see questions here where the "asker" includes irrelevant statistics like the number of records in their database, as if you need to code differently for 10 records versus 10,000,000 (which isn't generally true, btw). I can't help but chuckle at some questions where the O.P. spends more time describing the formatting of a cell than the formula it contains (that's causing the issue). But from their point of view, it's significant.
Think of the people reading your question as sitting in your office blindfolded while you explain your problem. If you're asking for (free) help from others who cannot see what you can, with zero previous knowledge, does it not make sense to make a question absolutely as clear as possible -- even if that involves Googling a word to update your terminology that you know is incorrect? (or is the onus on the reader to figure out what you mean?
**Did you click the links I posted for you (above) to learn how to better communicate your problem and edit your question to add more specific examples and more information as requested and described in those links? (or was that a "waste of time" as well?) There were specific questions for you as well.
This site was frustrating for me when I first joined too but the rules and posting etiquette were not made immediately known to me by a stranger with a few seconds to spare. I had a major learning curve and some pretty nasty comments from people since I was breaking rules I wasn't even aware of. I am actually breaking a major rule right now, can you identify it perhaps by familiarizing yourself with the site in the Help Center?
Hint: I'm probably going to get "scolded" for the method I am using to give you this advice as opposed to the short comments and links I would normally post on a question that needs more information so I or others can give an informed answer. Some people don't like posting a question and not getting a custom written set of code promptly written just for them. Some people are grateful for every bit of advice they can get from a stranger, others never come back and find a site more suited to their needs.
Remember, there is a ton of existing information on this site and others because it's very unlikely that whatever problem you're having has been experienced - and solved - by many, many people before you. By researching as much as possible, you learn both about your problem and about which questions get "better" answers than others.
Anyhow I hope you read fast, this answer might not be here long (I wanted to be clear but without a whole whack of comments back and forth...)
Jasmine, if you're still angry with me, you can "get me back" if you can find the correct Flag button. The answer to my question for you in is there too... (It's not option #2, as lest not intentionally!)
Good luck & happy holidays to all!
I'd like to be able to drag and drop from a DataGrid in a Flash application into an Excel spreadsheet. Is this possible? If so, how do I implement this?
Edit: Nine days without so much as a comment is pushing me to believe one of the following things:
This question is so easy to answer that everyone who reads it thinks, "Ah, the next guy will get it. This taco isn't gonna eat itself."
No one knows what Microsoft Excel is.
I'm so inept at coding for Flash that everyone who reads this question promptly dies from a stroke brought on by uncontrollable, hysterical laughter. Kind of like what happens when a person is exposed to the Joker's laughing gas.
The entire internet has been suddenly and completely vacated creating a vast, digital wasteland (except for me, obviously).
Adobe's PR person in charge of their Twitter account recently posted something highly offensive and everyone has finally gotten organized and successfully boycotted something without inviting me to the party.
Anyone want to clue me in to which one is, in fact, the truth?
Or maybe just tell me that what I want is stupid/impossible/not worth the effort?
The simple answer is no, it is not possible. Have you ever coded AS4? I spent 6 months coding stupid loops that randomly draw colored lines. It was terrible. Get out while you still can. I was coding some tangents outside by my school when a couple of engineering grads started making trouble. I coded one bad batch and my professor said "You're moving with the retards to coding 101" I hopped on my segway and rode home. I then hung myself.
How do you get yourself in the "zone" for programming? As a CS undergrad I've been finding it difficult to get focused in. I think part of my problem is I do not have "proper" workspace living in the dorms. Any ideas or tips? (Perhaps good thinking music, whiteboards? etc)
The best way I found yet is to turn off the Internet. Since opening my browser and browsing to some random site has become almost a reflex, I deactivate my network card for the time I need to work. This way I have the time to realise what I am doing before it is too late. The Internet must be the number one "Zone Killer" I know...
Truthfully, nobody can tell you about you, they can only tell you about them. That may help, or it may not.
I've seen people able to get "in the zone" on a commuter train car. I've seen people who have it broken when the air conditioner kicks in.
Here's what works for me:
Need no people talking to me. I can't keep the ideas juggling while explaining them or having other ideas tossed in to the mix. I know, pair programming can be great - but I've never been "in the zone" while pair programming.
Music is okay, but no playlists with wildly different styles, or songs I absolutely love.
It almost always kicks off when I'm frustrated by something but then have an idea how to solve one aspect of the problem... then things flow from there.
I need a desk clean enough that nothing on it distracts my attention and makes me think - no dev magazines with interesting tech on the cover, no dishes with mold on them, etc.
I need about 20 square feet to get up, pace for 2-3 steps, then sit back down. Too much room gets me too far away from the computer. Too little room and I feel confined.
As soon as I solve the problem, I'm normally out of the zone. A phone call or person at my desk will break it. Stopping to answer email "toast" will kill it too.
But again, this is me. All of this may actually be the reverse for you - You'll find it eventually, I'm sure. Just don't give up, and don't take personal anecdotes and advise or internet blog posts as absolute truth - "the zone" is very much a personal thing.
One small thing which helped me a lot was to get noise cancelling headphones. These are a bit pricey, but being able to switch on silence is great!
Now that Wolfram Alpha is released, I am interested in finding out if it can be used as a time-saver in daily programming.
What would you use Wolfram Alpha to do, that earlier took you more time to do manually?
I guess the "Web and Computer systems"-examples is a good start, but there must be more hidden gems that will be really practical for us programmers.
A short list of examples:
MD5-hashing / SHA-hashing
Quick lockup of unicode and HTML-codes for symbols
Color-codes
Please only include one search query per answer, then we can rate them to get the best ones to the top.
(I made this one a community-wiki, since we will be using the voting for ranking)
Note: If some of the links in the answers don't work (eg: wolfram doesn't find any results, then replace all + with spaces..
I might 'save time' by not playing around with it and doing real work instead. :)
Calculating lift coefficients of NACA profiles (example).
(I made a program for this, but it's nice to have the option to do it quick)
I probably won't use it for anything. I don't know about you, but I deal with enough black boxes on a daily basis, and I'd rather use the ones that have been tried and tested thoroughly.
This might come back to haunt me later, but it strikes me that although there might be a point to WA used in a mechanical manner, from my perspective I'm thinking it's not the hard calculable information questions which are the problem which needs to be solved, it's the soft human data which defies classification or rigid modelling. Google seem to understand this, not sure Stephen Wolfram does.
OTOH it could be that anyone can be Colin Laney now.
Someone double check me here:
The MD5 hash of "Wolfram Alpha" (no quotes) is:
882b 0be2 79eb 7e88 86cd 3dae 19c1 d267
And not:
a615 9984 9aee b7be 3091 68bc 0ab7 ?
EDIT: The hash changes every time given the same query...what kind of hash is this?
http://www14.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=MD5%22Wolfram+Alpha%22
This question already has answers here:
Closed 13 years ago.
Duplicate
How do I improve my Typing Skills?.**
I tried the test on http://speedtest.10-fast-fingers.com/. I reach only:
You type 337 characters per minute You
have 58 correct words and you have 1
wrong words
How can I improve my typing speed? What free resources do you know of?
Should I learn the Dvorak Keyboard?
Practice is the best way to get faster. I've found TypeRacer to be a fun and easily accessible game. Using it I quickly got from around 55 words per minute to over 70.
I removed all of the key caps from my IBM Model-M. Since I can't see the letters, I was forced to learn their positions and type without looking at the keys other than to initially orient my hands. When you're not able to take shortcuts, you tend to learn very quickly.
Mario taught me.
I also took the test and reached 371 characters with one mistake. However, for programming, I would not see this as a bad result. I'm more worried about how to use tools like Intellisense and code templates better to speed up my coding. The jedi coding demo shows that you can get much higher gains that way than by doubling your typing speed.
No need to learn Dvorak according to XKCD (and more here).
I also remember reading in The Design of Everyday Things that QWERTY actually does quite a good job or spreading the commonly used letters across your fingers and whilst the Dvorak keyboard is a little better than QWERTY the benefits aren't significant enough to justify making the change. (If I can find my copy I'll try and put up an exact quote.)
As with all things: practice makes perfect. Making posts on StackOverflow is a start :)
Unless if you want to win typing contests, a Qwerty or Azerty keyboard will work just fine.
You don't need to learn Dvorak. I can type 600+ Chars/minute on a querty pad, no problem.
The key is: Repetition, repetition, repetition.
What you're doing while you learn typing is creating new 'highways' straight form your brain's spelling center through your spine to your fingers.
Hence, a good typist will spell a word in his mind, and his fingers 'automatically' type those characters because there's a 10 lane highway from his brain to his fingers. In your case, it's a modest 3 lane highway.
Practice, practice, practice.
Good training for if you already know how to type : www.play4traffic.com
There's also loads of typing tutor programs available online, but the key is repetition and persistance.
My native language is Dutch, so in english it's not as good. I tried the test you gave:
317 points, so you achieved position 194065 of 2927935 on the ranking list
You type 476 characters per minute
You have 80 correct words and you have 4 wrong words
Why?
Why do you want to type more quickly? I seldom find that my fingers or typing speed are the issue when it comes to software development. Sure I have a fair speed, but programming is about SO much more than typing speed. I've been using a QUERTY keyboard since about 1983 so I guess repetition helps.
But learning to hold back on typing and thinking about what it is you're about to do is far more valuable IMHO.
Having said that, I would expect any developer to be able to type reasonably quickly using most fingers, or at least more than their two index fingers ;)
This game taught me a few years back.
The Typing Of The Dead
I can now type fairly quickly without looking at the keyboard. You need to learn to use the correct hand position. Then you must have good discipline and only use the correct finger to type the correct letters. I even went so far as to delete correct chars typed with the wrong finger.
It takes time, and you will almost definitely go slower before you go faster, but it is worth it.