The Nineteenth Byte

@hosch250 I am using linux and I haven't even heard of those companies.

Really?

Symantec is better known for their Norton products.

Well joking obviously. Seen everything but Panda.

Oh, I just learned about Panda recently too.

3:55 PM

@hosch250 Yeah, but what are those "Norton products"?

Norton Antivirus.

Obviously antivirus. I don't use any, nor ever had to use. That's what I'm trying to say.

A: Proposed questions sandbox - Mark VIII - Retired

I hear aout more and more attacks on Linux.

This person wants more feedback:

2

I've searched and can't see that this has been asked before. My apologies if my eyesight is failing me. An Armstrong Number (also known by different names, including Narcissistic Number; see Wikipedia for more information) is a non-negative number (for our purposes represented in base 10) that i...

Seems like that person already knows the question is too long and PeterTaylor has again pointed out the problem with the winning criterion. Not sure what else can be done for it without the OP taking action on both of those items.

Quincunx

6:14 PM

What does everyone use to count their characters? I use charactercountonline.com

luser droog

wc

6:28 PM

wc -c

user80551

The selection counter at the bottom of your IDE when you press ctrl+c to copy.

Sublime Text

6:54 PM

Yeah, :w - 9L, 1337C written works too

luser droog

7:54 PM

old paper referenced in 1962 APL book: ams.org/journals/mcom/1954-08-046

Q: Write a function that returns something different every time it is called

8:42 PM

Is this a duplicate of the the second post?

-4

All these functional languages that return the same value every time a function is called give me a headache. Your task is to write a function that returns something different every time it is called. Here are the rules: Your function must continue to return something different every time it...

Of this, to be specific:

4

Q: Create a flaky test

Create a piece of code and a genuinely-looking test for it. However, the test must be flaky: when run multiple times, it must sometimes fail, sometimes succeed. Be creative and try to hide the flakiness as much as possible. The most popular answer in (at least) 10 days wins.

popularity-contest

The first is not a great question, but it doesn't duplicate the second.

OK, I wasn't sure.

In the second, the function is supposed to be reliable, but the test that exercises it is unreliable

Q: Validate input according to flags and input masks

Oh, I see.

I didn't vote to close, just for the record.

Nobody is interested in my challenges. Maybe they are too hard.

4

Q: Turtle Graphics Version 2

Most of you have probably heard of the famous Turtle Graphics program, initially made popular by Logo. This challenge is to implement a Turtle Graphics program in your language of choice. Rules: The floor must be a diagonal with dimensions input by the user through std-in in the form x/y, rep...

atomic-code-golf

4

This challenge challenges you to write a function that will take as its argument an array that specifies the types of input, an optional prompt, and a verification key; inputs and validates the values; and returns them. Input types: b - Boolean values. c - Characters. i - Integer values,...

code-golf

This one has a few good ones, but nothing spectacular:

3

Q: Eiffel Tower in 3D

This challenge asks you to draw the Eiffel Tower in 3D using different ASCII characters to represent the different sides, similar to this cube: @@@ @@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ x@@@@@@@@@@@@&& xxx@@@@@@@@&&&& xxxxx@@@&&&&&&& xxxxxx&&&&&&&&& xxxxx&&&&&&& xxx&&&& x&& Here is a pic...

code-challenge ascii-art

9:04 PM

@hosch250 This may not be applicable, but I've recently had a lot of success by starting with an algorithm I thought was cool and then tailoring a challenge to it. I have found that challenges which are too easy or too difficult are not very popular.

@hosch250 For example, I made one today based a "Find the Majority" algorithm, and it was too easy. It got answers but few upvotes. I made one yesterday based on the "longest path problem for cyclic graphs" and it has zero answers because it's either too tedious or too hard (I hope the latter).

I have one in the works for Eiffel.

It could also be because you actually use the sandbox and then everyone loses interest after they are done criticizing your questions.

Different questions have different commitment levels

Also, sometimes a high-commitment question steals attention from others

e.g. I think several people are tinkering furiously in the workshop for BattleBots

I am, perhaps ill-advisedly, attempting to deepen my knowledge of Haskell by implementing an algorithm I've never done (negamax) in a language I've never done anything substantial in.

Ship date for my bot may slip to 2015 :)

9:21 PM

omg... you just gave me a brilliant idea

If I were to limit participation to a single language, would that be frowned upon?

I am thinking of designing a game board where things collide and play rock paper scissors. If you lose, you die. There will be AI like rocks (who always throw rock), lions (who always throws scissors), and bears (choose paper or scissors at random). Then letting players submit a Wolf class and seeing which answer has the highest survival rate.

wolves could disguise themselves as rocks to fool other competitors and such

But it would all have to be in a single language for me to judge

@Rusher Yes, people would not go for that.

You could, however, ask people to help you judge or use ideone.com

The only problem there is that ideone typically does not compile golfed code - too many nasty tricks.

Peter Taylor

I'm finding that the increase in general site activity means that I spend more time on things other than answering and have less time to answer. I'm having to favourite questions which I want to come back to when I have a spare Saturday.

Peter, simply because you said that I am going to start increasing the time limit on my questions to at least a week.

@PeterTaylor I have had the same thing.

My c++ class had a blast developing logic that would defeat other wolves on a 2d game board. I wish I could think of a way to translate that here

Code Golf & Programming Puzzles – codegolf.stackexchange.com

9:37 PM

Well, the good news is that we are at 9 questions a day, with a 9.2 answer ratio still.

1140

Beta Q&A site for code golfers and for those who interested in code golfing (from beginners to experts), and programming puzzles.

Currently in public beta.

@Rusher Are you there?

Never mind, problem gone.

9:52 PM

I'm here. Why?

Well, somebody flagged an answer on one of your questions, and I wanted to know if you had done it, and why.

I just skipped reviewing it though, because I can't read AWK.

I mean, if you had done it, there was probably a valid reason I couldn't see.

I've never flagged an answer on any of my quesitons

quesitons*

The general custom for questions is "7 days after the last valid answer was posted". That allows for the fact that some questions attract more of a trickle than a flood.

QUESTIONS! wow

OK, it looked valid enough to me, but as I said, I can't read AWK.

9:56 PM

But we do sometimes use deadlines. For king of the hill, it's pretty much essential to make sure the contest can take place.

So I skipped.

@JonathanVanMatre provide a source for that knowledge?

"I read it in the meta before"

That's what I figured

The choice of "custom" was the correct word there, though

Deadlines aren't forbidden. But they do make it more difficult for people to participate if their schedule is constrained.

10:00 PM

This brings up a problem.

We say no duplicates, but deadlines mean that the question is said and done.

Well, the standard SE answer to that is that while an answer may be accepted, the question is never done.

Perhaps we should use the term initial answer acception date.

New answers can be submitted and voted.

However, due to the contest nature of the site, I think the "back catalog" may get less eyeballs than it does on most SE sites. People mostly look at the contests they are playing, not the ones from 2 years ago.

No source for that last statement, just a wild hypothesis as yet unsupported by data.

Yes. I found many many questions I would have loved to do, but they are basically dead now.

If you answer them, though, they do bubble onto the active list.

10:03 PM

Yes.

I typically follow the new list instead.

It seems like one of two things should happen

No question should have an accepted answer, or everyone should be expected to update their accepted answers if a new one comes along

Can you imagine how much rep will be lost if everyone unaccepts their answer?

Q: Should I change the accepted answer?

I like the latter at least for Code-Golf, because new winners become sparse as the contests goes on

As in, old questions would require less attention from the OP

Peter Taylor

3

On my question Implement hyperexponentiation/tetration without the use of '^' asked a few months ago I accepted an answer with 18 characters, which, at the time of selection, was the shortest submission. Now, there is a solution in J that was 19 characters at the time, but is now 12. I normall...

discussion support accepted-answer

Excellent post, Peter

10:12 PM

Well two bleeps from PeterTaylor and I'm convinced that time limits are bad for my future questions

Elsewhere on SE, I've seen the same policy: change the accepted answer if it is better. It should always reflect the "best/most helpful" response.

code-golf restricted-source

What do you guys think about the close vote on this:

9

Q: Calculate a tip

You and a friend walk into a bar. The bartender treats you well, so you decide to tip him. So you pull out your trusty pocket computer and write a quick program to calculate a tip for you since it has no built in calculator. But wait! Your operator keys are broken! Your task is to calculate a 20%...

I don't know if it is a dup or not.

The suggestions for good code-golf says "Not be too closely related to others we've done recently."

It says nothing about duplicates that we HAVEN'T done recently

It also fails to define recently

It's hard to determine whether it should be closed for that reason. Unless you veterans have another "custom" as @JonathanVanMatre would say

10:41 PM

In practice "recently" seems to translate to "does it bug any of the currently active reviewers?"

which tends to mean a "print the first 100 primes" question is more likely to be closed as a dupe than say, your directed-graph longest path question which arrived contemporaneously with codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/23769/…

yours is sufficiently obfuscated away from the underlying algorithm to not really be seen as a duplicate

Peter Taylor

11:15 PM

The "don't keep duplicates around" policy is a StackExchange-wide thing. That's why it's got its own close reason text. As I've said elsewhere recently, if you want to attract attention to an old question then posting a new answer is a much better way than posting a duplicate of the question.

@JonathanVanMatre They're not the same at all. One's about finding cycles, and the other requires a DAG.