The Nineteenth Byte

1:00 PM

You said that not all turing complete languages would support quines, and I asked if all turing complete languages would support input and output.

Nathan Merrill

I can conceive of a quine in Life

Eric Tressler

@githubphagocyte yes, and @NathanMerrill I really doubt it

Unless you allow yourself to conveniently ignore a large portion of the board

Martin Büttner

@EricTressler it depends all on how you interpret the output

Eric Tressler

typically, the output of Life is every active square on the grid

Martin Büttner

define an encoding for the board on the Turing tape, and it should be possible

githubphagocyte

1:02 PM

@NathanMerrill the fact that a turing machine can be built in Life means that any quine in any language can be implemented in Life. Might take a while to design though...

PhiNotPi

All Turing-complete languages support input and output in some form, although "interactivity" is not required. In many cases, input is the initial state of the memory, while output is the final state of the memory at a determined time.

Martin Büttner

this looks like "reading the source" to me: codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/5752/8478

Eric Tressler

@PhiNotPi that's not really accurate; the definition of a universal turing machine doesn't even define output

githubphagocyte

@MartinBüttner where length of quine varies with version number, I would include an entry for the language under each version number, unless the shorter one is valid in both versions

Martin Büttner

ummmm codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/9033/8478

githubphagocyte

1:07 PM

@EricTressler would that be equivalent to regarding the output of a turing machine as being the final state of the input tape (which is amended during running)

overactor

@NathanMerrill it shows we had been going wrong about the way to create good bots

blockingwas teh way to go apparently

Eric Tressler

@githubphagocyte sure, I guess

Rainbolt

@MartinBüttner Does anyone celebrate Labor Day in the UK, or is that just a US holiday?

Nathan Merrill

I totally love how bots have evolved

PhiNotPi

Output, I guess, can be boiled down to "information extracted from the machine." The information can come in many forms.

Eric Tressler

1:08 PM

Was Labor day the one that was originally Armistice day, or was that Veteran's day?

githubphagocyte

@MartinBüttner I agree the TSQL one looks like indirectly reading the source. Perhaps just exclude it with a comment and the poster can come back with an explanation if it qualifies for a reason we didn't recognise?

overactor

@NathanMerrill I must say, I'm not particularly fond of the top bots

Martin Büttner

@Rainbolt if they do, it's likely a different day

overactor

That includes TheCommonCold

@Rainbolt It's the 5th of may in Belgium

Eric Tressler

I wonder how it might change if you make the bots have a dual purpose

I.e. they need to do what they originally did, but also forage for food

githubphagocyte

1:10 PM

@MartinBüttner I have no idea...

Rainbolt

@MartinBüttner Looks like Labor Day is just something that some lower class worker proposed, and then a couple of guys died and it was rushed into law as a federal holiday. It has no special significance whatsoever.

githubphagocyte

@Rainbolt when you say "celebrate" do you mean in the US there are parties, or people just have a day off work?

Eric Tressler

@MartinBüttner I had some other ideas that I wanted to post for questions; was something really wrong with my search party problem that I should take into account in the future?

@MartinBüttner was it just too much work?

@MartinBüttner @MartinBüttner @MartinBüttner :|

Martin Büttner

@EricTressler I don't think so... probably just too involved for people... as was Domino Circuits ^^

Eric Tressler

your problem was genuinely hard

I was intimidated

Rainbolt

1:13 PM

@githubphagocyte Celebrating a holiday includes taking off work in the US. But since you made me think about that phrase.... it's not very celebratory lol

It's a crappy holiday anyway. Everyone starts school after Labor Day, all the pools shut down because it's too cold, and the dress code at my work reverts to Business Casual.

Eric Tressler

@MartinBüttner I might try again, but it would be nice to get multiple submissions on a question. I spent hours on the search party question

Nathan Merrill

why not @overactor?

Eric Tressler

@Rainbolt are you in London?

Martin Büttner

@EricTressler yeah, so did I on mine ^^

Rainbolt

@EricTressler No, but Martin is. I ask him whenever I have a culture question.

Martin Büttner

1:15 PM

I hope to attract more people with the tetris one.

Rainbolt

I live in Texas, in a slightly less reputable city.

Martin Büttner

@Rainbolt phagocyte and Peter are the Englishmen here, though ;)

Eric Tressler

@MartinBüttner I figured. Sorry that I didn't submit an answer. I really should have, but it was really intimidating

Rainbolt

You aren't English?

githubphagocyte

@Rainbolt we both live here but I don't think either of us are English :)

Eric Tressler

1:16 PM

Houston?

Martin Büttner

@Rainbolt have you seen my last name? :D

@githubphagocyte wait, you're not? :D

Rainbolt

@MartinBüttner Have you seen mine? I'm not Native American...

Eric Tressler

Martin lives in a cave in the fjords beneath Norway

never tell me otherwise

Rainbolt

People called me Chief Rainbolt in high school

githubphagocyte

@MartinBüttner from a distant country I guess anyone born in the UK is easily categorised as English, but I didn't grow up in England

Martin Büttner

1:17 PM

@Rainbolt well, I think an English family would at least have dropped the umlaut

Rainbolt

@EricTressler Everyone knows Houston lol. They always have a problem

overactor

@NathanMerrill I feel like they don't use pareticularly exciting tactics

the first one i really like would be RovingVirus

Eric Tressler

@Rainbolt I've been through Texas, and all I remember is that Austin is Okay and the rest is HUGE CROSSES around the interstate

You win for biggest concrete cross

Rainbolt

@EricTressler Austin has huge crosses too...

Eric Tressler

:(

Rainbolt

1:20 PM

Texas is part of what we call the Bible Belt. Tons of churches and tons of Christians.

Most of the Southern US is included

Martin Büttner

omit? codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/15840/8478

githubphagocyte

@Rainbolt you measure churches and christians in metric tons? Or are old style tonnes spelt tons in the US?

Eric Tressler

yeah; there's always news about what legislators in the south of the US are trying to do to promote creationism

Martin Büttner

keep? codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/18221/8478

PhiNotPi

I'm working on a bot called The Fourth Crusade to destroy Byzantine.

overactor

1:21 PM

@MartinBüttner agreed

githubphagocyte

@MartinBüttner yes omit

Eric Tressler

which is effectively a time bomb set for 40 years out

overactor

@MartinBüttner how does it work?

githubphagocyte

@MartinBüttner what?? I'll glance at the link and see if it makes any sense to me...

Martin Büttner

@githubphagocyte it's basically a working version of the GolfScript one

Nathan Merrill

1:23 PM

RovingVirus is really slow @overactor

githubphagocyte

The Hello World program is a page full of chickens

Rainbolt

@githubphagocyte "In normal conversation, when you talk about "tons of" something, it's usually an exaggeration that really means "a lot of"." - PhraseMix.com

overactor

I have difficulties disallowing GS if chicken is allowed

githubphagocyte

@Rainbolt I know :) I was being silly

Rainbolt

You got me. Seemed like a serious question lol

overactor

1:24 PM

at least the '1\n' version of goldscript

githubphagocyte

@Rainbolt out of curiosity, when you are measuring actual tons of something, does that spelling indicate metric there?

@Rainbolt I get into trouble for phrasing my jokes as serious questions. Even in speech my voice doesn't often give the impression of being joking...

Rainbolt

Americans equate a "ton" to 2000 lbs.

Martin Büttner

omitting codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/11216/8478

githubphagocyte

@MartinBüttner did we exclude the GS one? The chicken one looks like it might just scrape in since it does depend on that specific symbol

overactor

@MartinBüttner yup

Martin Büttner

1:27 PM

@githubphagocyte I'd include the GS one if it was valid. I'm not including comments in the summary.

overactor

@Rainbolt That's incorrect though.

@MartinBüttner Fair enough

Martin Büttner

@overactor close enough

anyone know befunge? codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/15841/8478 why would g be disallowed? is that one reading the source?

Rainbolt

@overactor What is your definition of a ton?

Eric Tressler

@Rainbolt Scientists in the US adopted the international system decades ago

githubphagocyte

@Rainbolt I'll bear that in mind. I got it wrong - tonne is the new metric ton (megagram - 1000 kg). In the UK ton is the old style ton, although it's a different weight from the old style US ton. The UK one is 2240 lbs...

overactor

1:28 PM

@Rainbolt 1000kg

Eric Tressler

it's just fucking idjits in trailer parks who use the old imperial system

overactor

@githubphagocyte they changed the name?

Eric Tressler

and the US would have adopted it as policy, except those same people vote :(

overactor

@MartinBüttner g A "get" call (a way to retrieve data in storage). Pop y and x, then push ASCII value of the character at that position in the program

githubphagocyte

@overactor according to wikipedia tonne is shorthand for metric ton

overactor

1:30 PM

g gets the char at a certain x-y position in the source code

githubphagocyte

personally I prefer megagram :)

Martin Büttner

ah okay

Rainbolt

Short ton (US) is 2000 lbs. Long ton (UK) is 2240 lbs. Metric ton (tonne, international) is 1000 kg. The only one that doesn't come out to an even thousand is the long ton, so it must be the most incorrect IMO.

overactor

I'd say that's reading your own source, even if you have to iterate through it yourself

Martin Büttner

so I'll use the 11 byte version

overactor

1:31 PM

yeah

Martin Büttner

lol, I shouldn't vote while compiling the list, it messes up the sorting between page switches

overactor

@Rainbolt a nice number of lbs. is no better than a strange number of lbs.

Rainbolt

Then why introduce the metric system?

githubphagocyte

@Rainbolt sounds like tonne is metric, long ton is an old-style awkward number, and short ton is the missing link which is a little bit metric but not too much...

Martin Büttner

omitting those on the last page

Eric Tressler

1:32 PM

the US would be a lot more progressive if nobody over 55 or 60 could vote

Rainbolt

I think you could say that for every country lol

VisualMelon

metric is better defined by the physical phenomena it describes, except for mass, which is a joke

githubphagocyte

@Rainbolt you beat me to it...

Rainbolt

But it's backwards. You can't run for President until you are old in the US.

overactor

@EricTressler It would also be a serious violation of human rights

Not that the us is adverse to that though.

Eric Tressler

1:33 PM

@overactor I didn't advocate anything.

Rainbolt

You would have to vote with your eyes on the future. Think to yourself "I won't be able to vote when I am old. Have I voted in a way that I will be comfortable when I am 70?"

githubphagocyte

@EricTressler you might expect countries with a lower life expectancy to be more progressive by that logic, but it doesn't seem to be the case

Eric Tressler

@githubphagocyte there are a lot of confounding factors there

overactor

@VisualMelon The weight of roughly a liter of water at some at roughly atmospheric pressure, what's not to love?

githubphagocyte

@EricTressler true :)

@overactor basing measurements on a planet in flux is genius.

VisualMelon

1:36 PM

@overactor who said anything about weight? :P

githubphagocyte

Also the metric system spoils old riddles like "Which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of gold?"

Martin Büttner

okay guys have a look codegolf.stackexchange.com/q/69/8478

overactor

@VisualMelon mass is based on teh weight of the object on earth though

Eric Tressler

@githubphagocyte hah. Where are you? roughly

Martin Büttner

@VisualMelon they're on it though

VisualMelon

1:37 PM

rather, somewhere in France

PhiNotPi

@NathanMerrill Does Code bots do that rotating-code thing? Or was that removed?

overactor

@MartinBüttner looks good

Nathan Merrill

that was removed

githubphagocyte

@MartinBüttner wow you've done a lot of work in the time I've spent arguing about things I don't really understand...

Martin Büttner

:D

githubphagocyte

1:38 PM

@EricTressler UK

Martin Büttner

now to add a CoffeeScript submission :D

PhiNotPi

@NathanMerrill Okay, I think that's the reason Byzantine performed well: it targeted a specific place to plant the flag.

Martin Büttner

oh damn, that's harder than I thought

overactor

@PhiNotPi It also put 11 blocks on every line eventually

Eric Tressler

@githubphagocyte do you live in one of the many available castles in the UK?

Peter Taylor

1:41 PM

@EricTressler Kleene's second recursion theorem. (Which, @MartinBüttner, might be a basis for a criterion for deciding whether something's a true quine or not, although I'm not sure whether it can be made simple).

githubphagocyte

@EricTressler relatively few of the castles are fit for living in nowadays. I don't happen to live in one, but I think there are schemes that allow for people to volunteer to live in old buildings that need protecting, in exchange for low rent.

Peter Taylor

@githubphagocyte But it's a golf question, so if one character can be omitted to get a quine then it should be in the answer.

Eric Tressler

and do you know of/have feelings about Bill Bryson

VisualMelon

@MartinBüttner sorry my browser got angry, is there someone else working on the Domino Circuits now? I might put a bounty on myself if it helps

githubphagocyte

@PeterTaylor good point :) Perhaps the argument would have to be in terms of mutating or adding a character - but I was against the argument anyway.

Eric Tressler

1:42 PM

I applied for a job as a lighthouse keeper in the US, but heard nothing back

Martin Büttner

@VisualMelon not that I'm aware of

don't waste your rep on it

VisualMelon

OK, I must have misunderstood your previous message then

githubphagocyte

@EricTressler I'm aware of Bill Bryson but I don't know much about him and haven't read his work

Peter Taylor

@githubphagocyte The SI unit is the kilogram, so it should really be kilokilogram ;)

overactor

@PeterTaylor What's up with that anyway?

Eric Tressler

1:43 PM

he's fun; I've heard that he's much maligned in academic circles, so I guess serious people don't take him seriously

COTO

@PeterTaylor: Megagram. But nobody uses it.

githubphagocyte

@PeterTaylor it always amused me that the SI units weren't all units in name.

Eric Tressler

@PeterTaylor but what is your policy about fish in the dishwasher?

githubphagocyte

@EricTressler you mispelt fishwasher

COTO

I'm in Canada. We're stuck in a no man's land between metric and US imperial.

Martin Büttner

1:45 PM

@COTO His point is that "gram" is not the base unit

Peter Taylor

Since I wash my own dishes, I have no objection to fish in the dishwasher. Although I'm not that keen on mackerel.

COTO

@MartinBüttner: Ah.

Eric Tressler

@PeterTaylor I'm kidding, of course, but it was funny; I was reading seasoned advice and you showed up

githubphagocyte

@PeterTaylor I like your precise interpretation of the SI "unit" kilogram. I think we should rename the gram as the millikilogram.

overactor

Are imperial units defined exactly?

Eric Tressler

1:46 PM

I mostly just read that forum to kill time. I have no intention to cook most of that

The KG is the only SI unit that isn't precisely defined

Martin Büttner

(yet)

githubphagocyte

@overactor imperial units are defined multitudinously - hence the confusion with "which weighs more - a pound of feathers or pound of gold?"

Peter Taylor

I do some molecular stuff. Lecithin, xanthan, that kind of thing.

Eric Tressler

the rest are based on what we consider to be universal constants, but we don't know if they're local to our part of the universe

overactor

They're working on counting molecules in a perfect sphere that weighs 1kg, right?

Peter Taylor

1:47 PM

@overactor, I think they're working on an electrical approach.

Martin Büttner

@overactor yes

(afaik)

Eric Tressler

we reasonably assume that they are, but who fucking knows

githubphagocyte

@overactor @PeterTaylor they are working on both in parallel, both hoping to be the official definition

Martin Büttner

I remember this video from veritasium: youtube.com/watch?v=ZMByI4s-D-Y

overactor

why can't they just define it as a certain amount of atoms

Martin Büttner

1:49 PM

Kilogram

The kilogram or kilogramme (SI unit symbol: kg; SI dimension symbol: M), is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI) (the Metric system) and is defined as being equal to the mass of the International Prototype of the Kilogram (IPK). The avoirdupois (or international) pound, used in both the Imperial system and U.S. customary units, is defined as exactly 0.45359237 kg, making one kilogram approximately equal to 2.2046 avoirdupois pounds. The gram was originally defined in 1795 as the mass of one cubic centimeter of water at 4 °C, making the kilogram equal to the mass of one...

overactor

and then figure out how much exactly that weighs later?

Eric Tressler

weight and mass are different

the whole problem we face is that mass is tied up with that ^^^

overactor

@EricTressler I know and yet I keep using them interchangably, sorry about that

Eric Tressler

You can, mostly, on Earth

overactor

@EricTressler sort of

Eric Tressler

1:51 PM

but we don't have a good definition of "gram" yet

Peter Taylor

@overactor There's no point having a definition if it doesn't provide a way to measure. theregister.co.uk/2012/11/20/quantum_kilogram

overactor

How are we proposing to measure mass anyway?

Eric Tressler

Based on the definition of mass

overactor

@EricTressler So if the silicon sphere wins, by counting atoms?

Eric Tressler

Yeah. It's a very... problematic... problem

we don't want our physical constants to drift

and physics gave us a lot of the tools to pin them down

but gravity is a bitch

githubphagocyte

1:54 PM

Gravity does spoil the neatness...

overactor

Are the fundamental forces constant?

Eric Tressler

nobody knows

githubphagocyte

Under different gravity the mass changes, and the weight changes.

Eric Tressler

we assume they are, locally

or else we can't do science

githubphagocyte

Or did I get that backwards?

overactor

1:56 PM

@EricTressler and no one wants that

Eric Tressler

@overactor modern physics is built on the assumption that distant places experience the same forces we do

Martin Büttner

@githubphagocyte The rest mass doesn't change.

overactor

@EricTressler distant both in space and time?

githubphagocyte

@MartinBüttner can we measure the rest mass independently without adjusting for gravity? I get confused with this kind of thing...

Eric Tressler

@overactor yes; we assume, for instance, that the relationship between the strong and weak nuclear forces is constant

Martin Büttner

1:59 PM

@githubphagocyte yes, e.g. with mass spectrometry

Eric Tressler

@overactor We don't know if this is valid, but all other things being equal, it's egalitarian

overactor

What's this whole thing about the fundamental forces ahving been one force at the very beginning of the universe anyway?

I never got that

githubphagocyte

@overactor before my time

Martin Büttner

@githubphagocyte EM forces are much much stronger than gravity, so you can figure out the mass by looking at the response to those forces and completely neglect gravity basically

Rainbolt

@overactor There is only one force in the universe. The Pixel Force.

2

githubphagocyte

2:00 PM

@MartinBüttner makes sense - thank you

overactor

@MartinBüttner clever

Geobits

@Rainbolt Obvious Star Wars joke not included?

overactor

experimentally, how well would measuring acceleration due to elctromagnic forces in free fall do?

Martin Büttner

@overactor it's called electroweak unification (and it's extensions to even higher energies and more forces), but I don't claim to really understand it myself: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroweak_interaction

Rainbolt

@Geobits The probability of a chat message being starred decreases as more jokes are crammed in. I theorize that the moment any user decides that a single joke was bad, the whole message it deemed bad.

Martin Büttner

2:01 PM

@overactor that's not what you do. you apply a transversal electric and magnetic field to an ion beam, and by the curvature of the trajectory you can figure out the mass.

githubphagocyte

@Rainbolt but now that it's already starred, you are free to add in as many bad jokes as you like...

overactor

@MartinBüttner Oh yeah, I remember that from school

githubphagocyte

too late...

overactor

@MartinBüttner But I still stand by my question

Geobits

@Rainbolt I wasn't saying you should have crammed both jokes in. I'm saying you're missing one of the fundamental forces, so are wrong :)

overactor

2:02 PM

how well would that do?

Martin Büttner

you'd have to ask an experimental physicist to answer that :D

overactor

@MartinBüttner I know a place to do that

Martin Büttner

physics.SE? :P

Geobits

It might be quicker to ask a random person online who claims to be an experimental physicist.

overactor

@MartinBüttner yup, I'm going to bother the physics department

Rainbolt

2:05 PM

On Stack Exchange, we are all programmers pretending to be good at other stuff

Geobits

Who says I'm a programmer? :D

overactor

@Rainbolt Including the people at parenting stackexchange?

Martin Büttner

@Rainbolt Sometimes I feel like there are people here pretending to be programmers.

Eric Tressler

instead of a farce

overactor

@MartinBüttner I know I am

Eric Tressler

2:05 PM

Down with @geobits

who's with me?

githubphagocyte

I'm pretending to know about programming as well as other stuff

Rainbolt

I've been able to answer Magic: The Gathering questions in terms of Stacks and Queues and nobody had a problem with it. If the community on Board and Card Games can understand programming, anyone can.

Geobits

@overactor As a parent, that site shocks me. Some of the advice on there seems downright wrong.

overactor

@Geobits I haven't read much of it

do those answers get votes?

Eric Tressler

nobody is with me. Sorry, Geobits

Rainbolt

2:07 PM

I feel like Parenting.SE is going to cause a lawsuit soon

Eric Tressler

why?

Geobits

Yea. From what I've seen the whole site is just a bunch of opinionated questions. Answers are accepted based on how well they align with what the asker wanted to hear, votes seem arbitrary.

Rainbolt

The comments are full of "How is this an answer? You could be arrested for this..."

Eric Tressler

some kid fed on whole-grain honey is going to die of scurvy?

COTO

@PhiNotPi: The only effective way to get past code blocks is to write multiple times to the same instruction address, which is why both of my bots include a mixture of write-to-fixed and write-to-IP-plus-constant attacks. I'm very surprised Byzantine outperformed Cadmyllion, since the latter is far more sophisticated. It seems that spamming with flags is just an altogether better approach than attempting to cripple opponents, which is what Cadmyllion does.

The way Byzantine is written, it will have a full 12 instruction blocks on each instruction after a few hundred timesteps. The only rea…

githubphagocyte

2:08 PM

A lot of people seem to regard parents as inherently more knowledgeable, rather than just people with a range of levels of knowledge just like anyone else.

Geobits

But I can't see what else a parenting.se site could be but opinions, honestly. Many parents seem to think they're doing it "better" than others, and can't wait to tell people that.

overactor

@Geobits It's also full of people insisting their child is a prodigy of some sort.

Peter Taylor

@Geobits There is peer-reviewed research performed on how children respond to various things. Whether any of it is statistically valid (in the culture in which it's performed, let alone universally) is another question, but in principle there could be objective questions and answers about it.

Geobits

@overactor Obviously they haven't met my child.

3

Rainbolt

First-borns are statistically more successful (in terms of money), so obviously parents that know more are bad.

2

Geobits

2:12 PM

@PeterTaylor That's true. Unfortunately they handle questions like this instead.

githubphagocyte

@Geobits Wow. The typing and spelling are worse than you'd expect from programmers...

Martin Büttner

@githubphagocyte Have you seen some "give me teh codez" questions recently? ;)

COTO

Behavioural science (if it can even be called a "science") is a mess of lousy experiments, apocryphal conclusions, and failed generalizations.

There *are* some precious exceptions, but in general you're no more and no less likely to obtain good, peer-reviewed "objective" parenting advice than you are asking random strangers on the Internet.

Apologies to any behavioural scientists in the crowd, but your legacy speaks for you.

githubphagocyte

Accepted answer has -1 votes...

overactor

@githubphagocyte just wanted to say that

i think that's a good way of telling a quetsion was opinionated.

Martin Büttner

2:15 PM

@COTO sorry, no markdown in multiline messages ;)

COTO

I'm verbose. What can I say.

Probably a bad quality on a golf scripting site.

Geobits

@Rainbolt It probably has more to do with social rank, much like IQ does, rather than strict birth order.

Martin Büttner

this discussion makes me wonder if people in the parenting.SE chat room rant over PPCG :D

overactor

@MartinBüttner They would if we made an offensive challenge about violence against toddlers maybe

githubphagocyte

@MartinBüttner I'm guessing their ranting is somewhat more inward-pointing. The top voted answer in @Geobits example seems to be basically saying "if your adult offspring has mental health problems have you considered that perhaps you didn't bring them up correctly?"

As in so many places, balanced, rational parents seem to be drowned out by the shouts of those who say "I'm right because I'm a parent. Other parents are wrong."

Geobits

2:21 PM

Well, obviously. If something I was doing was bad for my child I wouldn't be doing it. So I must be doing everything right. Therefore, if you do something different, you are wrong.

I can't see how that could be considered faulty.

githubphagocyte

lol

COTO

@MartinBüttner: *lol* The accepted solution is ostensibly "buy him off".

"On the Effects of Bribery in Mature Child Domestic Exfiltration", N. Ternet, Journal of Reliable Parenting, pp. 90210

Martin Büttner

"Journal of Reliable Parenting" ... I wonder what peer reviews look like for that...

githubphagocyte

@MartinBüttner it's watertight. It's reviewed by people who consider themselves to be reliable parents

Geobits

@COTO That method has worked for rich parents for a long time; why not? ;)

Martin Büttner

2:26 PM

@COTO no scoreboard for Two-Many Outputs yet? :)

(also, while you're here, would you mind explaining the pun in the title?)

COTO

@MartinBüttner: I'll put it in now.

The title is "Two-Many Outputs" as in "Two to Many" Outputs, or between two and many outputs.

The main distinguishing feature of the submissions is that they must produce between 2 and 1000 unique outputs.

Geobits

New question! I wonder what will happen to it. Any other site I imagine it would be closed fairly quickly, so I might watch it for a while to see.

VisualMelon

this confirms that SE is a sport, people now watch it for enjoyment.

2

Martin Büttner

@COTO AHHHH, I read that as a hyphen

@Geobits I struggle because with everything.

COTO

@Geobits: I'd say a good 5% of the "helpful suggestions" on Lifehacks are explicitly illegal, or at the very least grossly immoral. Providing such advice obviously isn't grounds for lawsuits against the host site.

No doubt written up in a lengthy disclaimer on the site somewhere.

Geobits

2:30 PM

@COTO I didn't say anything about a lawsuit?

COTO

@Geobits: I guess it was @Rainbolt who brought it up.

Geobits

Also, to be clear, I don't blame the question askers for the terrible questions. I blame the community for allowing them to persist. That's why I'm watching the new one. I see remarkably few closed questions (not counting dupes). As in ~3%.

Martin Büttner

btw, when I saw "New Question" I totally got my hopes up you were talking about PPCG :(

Geobits

@MartinBüttner I left it vague on purpose :D

overactor

Can marbelous win a code-golf challenge?

Rainbolt

2:36 PM

@Geobits Paragraphs...

Martin Büttner

@overactor technically cheating for using a language newer than the challenge :(

overactor

@MartinBüttner But it's very soft cheating, no

since the language was in no way developed to be good at that question

Martin Büttner

@overactor your second example makes me think that our boundary condition should have been "empty cells"

Geobits

And not the shortest, but that seems beside the point for a golf.

Martin Büttner

that's another one that could use a by-language summary... should I make a meta post concerning a new policy regarding those?

overactor

2:39 PM

@Geobits darn it, how did I miss that one?

Geobits

Oh. Apparently it's official policy that anecdotes are as good as references on Parenting:

> Please note that opinions shared here should be backed up either with a reference, or experiences that happened to you personally. Also, posts that primarily exist to push a specific agenda (propaganda), and soap-boxing, are not welcome.

So I guess I was wrong to criticize those answers ><

Martin Büttner

@Geobits You were right to criticise the community though.

Geobits

Yea... I was being a bit sarcastic there :D

Martin Büttner

yeah I did get that :P

Rainbolt

Didn't Parenting spawn "good subjective", which has become the bane of my existence on Board and Card Games?

Someone asked "Why did Tom Ross (a pro player) include this card in his deck as a one of?" and I tried to close it as opinion based and failed.

Peter Taylor

2:49 PM

@MartinBüttner "If the answer list is long enough that you start to think it needs a per-language summary, protect it"?

Martin Büttner

@PeterTaylor While that would be a good indicator for protecting questions, I don't see how it affects the per-language summary itself at all.

overactor

@MartinBüttner Agreed

COTO

@MartinBüttner: Leaderboard is now updated.

overactor

having many languages participating should be celebrated

githubphagocyte

@MartinBüttner I think language summaries are good for golf questions.

Rainbolt

2:58 PM

It seems unfair that my manager is saying "We lost a day to a holiday on Monday, so we need to stay late this week to get something done."

COTO

While I'm here: Is there any such thing as an accepted way to "normalize" code lengths across different languages? For example, many of the "golfing languages" (which I've previously referred-to as "compact languages") are basically just bytecode hieroglyphics. They'll generally blow away submissions in Python, Javascript, etc. Similarly, languages like Python and Javascript will blow away languages like Java and C# for the simple reason that the latter have a "large" (by golfing standards)...

Transcript for