The Nineteenth Byte

Rainbolt

10:00 PM

And then it would make sense to buy a KVM switch

ETHproductions

Man, finding good esolangs is hard o.O

TheNumberOne

@ETHproductions Foo is good... depending on who you are talking to :P

Beta Decay

Have I changed yet? :D

ETHproductions

@TheNumberOne Not when you're trying to find something to put in the Hello World catalog :P

@BetaDecay Yep :)

TheNumberOne

@BetaDecay You kind of look like Pooh Bear :P

Beta Decay

10:09 PM

D:

New Main Posts

2

Q: Splitting up ASCII

Given the 95 printable characters in ASCII plus newline, break it apart into two equal, 48 character groups (hereafter called group A and group B). Create a one-to-one mapping between the two groups, which may be anything you want. In other words, A might map to a, and vice versa. Once you've br...

code-golf

Rainbolt

Is it bad that I am secretly rooting for our project owner to declare that this bug actually is a bug?

My team is spitting out reasons like "It's this third party product's fault." and "It's not fixable." as reasons for why it isn't a bug

Beta Decay

The number of times you've had to ask that question means that you shouldn't really worry about it ;)

New Main Posts

0

Q: Creative "Hello, World"

The current "Hello World" challenge really needs a follow-up, so I thought I would start one. The goal of this challenge is to create the most creative "Hello, World" program. The output can be creative, the source code can be creative, anything (as long as it follows the guidelines) is encourage...

popularity-contest hello-world

Alex A.

@Doorknob Snowman question for you

ETHproductions

10:24 PM

Why is everyone blasting that new challenge as "primarily opinion-based"? Aren't all popularity contests?

Rainbolt

Don't you see the magical line between primarily opinion based popcons and acceptable popcons?

Alex A.

(It's a very fine line.)

Doorknob

@ETHproductions No. But "do <x>, and... be creative!" definitely is.

Rainbolt

I think his/her point is that every pop contest is "Do <x> and be creative."

It's just that <x> is sometimes more well defined than this

ETHproductions

"The output can be creative" Didn't see that before. It definitely could be better-defined.

Doorknob

10:29 PM

Uh. Opinions on historical-locking this?

386

Q: Most creative way to display 42

Douglas Adams was born on March 11, 1952, and died when he was just 49. In honor of this wonderful writer, I challenge you to display 42 in the most creative way possible. You could print it in the log, via some convoluted method, or display it as ASCII art, or anything! Just come up with a crea...

popularity-contest

Because if it were asked today, it would be instaclosed and probably deleted

Alex A.

Locking sounds like a good idea to me.

Calvin's Hobbies

Some pop-cons are about doing things as best as possible but scoring them with an algorithm/equation would be too tricky

trichoplax

@Doorknob That one definitely isn't in the grey area. Locking sounds good.

durron597

@Doorknob It's hard to go wrong with taking it to Meta and letting the community vote on it.

3

Rainbolt

Agree, but only because it has 300 votes

trichoplax

10:31 PM

Using a popularity contest on meta to decide if we should have popularity contests on main seems like a conflict of interest

Calvin's Hobbies

Is meta ever not a pop-con?

Alex A.

Announcements aren't, I guess

Rainbolt

Aww, he deleted his question already

Alex A.

But everything else kind of is

Rainbolt

I was about to comment with "Your question isn't hurting anyone by existing in a closed state, but you can delete it preemptively if you choose to do so."

I like it watching the system do its thing

Doorknob

10:34 PM

@durron597 Eh, seems like a waste of time. But if anyone disagrees, then sure, it couldn't hurt.

durron597

@Doorknob The question's been open a year and a half, an extra week or whatever couldn't hurt

Rainbolt

It's kind of a big deal right? I mean, if this question gets historical locked, that's one more pop question that was valid that isn't now

It raises the bar for popcons

trichoplax

Raising the bar sounds good

Alex A.

^

Calvin's Hobbies

Blue Turtle

Alex A.

10:35 PM

Boy Tiger

Doorknob

@Rainbolt Isn't the bar already raised?

I mean, you definitely couldn't ask that today and get the same results.

trichoplax

If there isn't debate on whether it would be closed today, then there doesn't seem a reason to discuss it at all

Rainbolt

I guess. I'm unclear as to where the bar actually is for popcons.

My magical line comment from earlier was obviously a joke

durron597

@Doorknob why is "creative 42" bad and "2+2=5" good?

Actually asking, not rhetorical.

feersum

good? according to who?

durron597

10:38 PM

@feersum I dunno, maybe 2+2=5 isn't good.

ETHproductions

@feersum Exactly.

trichoplax

I don't necessarily think the second one is good, but I think it's better in that it shows something unexpected about a programming language

durron597

I have a top 5 answer in that question and it's simply an abuse of imprecise floating points, not exactly unexpected.

above me is let 2+2=5 in 2+2 in haskell

trichoplax

It's a programming lesson even if a simple one

durron597

#3 is a standard loophole that isn't funny.

Rainbolt

10:40 PM

@durron597 That's one of those things you learn about in class and then never have to actually worry about for the majority of your programming career. People probably upvoted it because they thought "Hey, I remember that from class!"

Doorknob

@durron597 Who says 2+2=5 is good?

trichoplax

My point isn't that it is a good question, I just think it's nearer to the grey area than the 42 one

Calvin's Hobbies

How does one search for locked posts?

durron597

@Doorknob Okay, so what's the "best" popcon then?

@Calvin'sHobbies locked:yes

Doorknob

@trichoplax Yeah, but nobody disagrees that 42 wouldn't be closed instantly today?

trichoplax

10:41 PM

Can we put all the pop con questions in objective order of subjectivity?

durron597

is there a popcon that most people in this chatroom thinks "yup, this is a great question, never lock it ever?"

Doorknob

@durron597 Why don't we have a popcon to find out ;)

durron597

even one example? forget "best"

Doorknob

Probably not. Some people are against popcon entirely.

durron597

i'm suggesting that the problem is not with certain bad popcons but really with all popcons generally.

feersum

10:42 PM

many image-processing ones are well-liked

durron597

@Doorknob i did say "most"

Alex A.

What makes a good, on-topic popcon is very difficult to define but you kind of know it when you see it. Like pretty much all CH popcons.

Rainbolt

@feersum Well liked because they produce cool output, not because they are fundamentally different types of challenges

trichoplax

I think Tweetable Mathematical Art is a good example. It's more open ended than it was intended to be, but it's still very demanding due to the byte limit. It's easy to write a simple answer, but hard to write something impressive

Calvin's Hobbies

I'm ok with locking 42 and 2+2 (mainly because then my questions will move closer to the top ;D)

feersum

10:44 PM

Tweetable art is not really what I'm thinking of

Martin Büttner

CH's palette challenge is probably a good example

durron597

As long as I keep my rep from 2+2=5 I don't really care ;)

trichoplax

It's definitely a pop con, but seems a different style, and is an example of what I wouldn't want to lose from the site

Calvin's Hobbies

@MartinBüttner Woopwoopwoop

Doorknob

@durron597 We definitely won't outright delete any of these. :)

durron597

10:45 PM

@Doorknob actually I think 60 day rule applies

feersum

codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/26554/… is an example

Rainbolt

Haha "Guidelines: You must come up with your own new algorithm."

Martin Büttner

@trichoplax I don't see something like that ever working again though. Whereas image processing challenges could still work well, and pop con is a good scoring criteria for them, because "image quality" is a hard to nail down property.

Doorknob

@durron597 Oh. Well then, we definitely won't create a ring of sockpuppets to serially downvote you into oblivion. :P

durron597

> You cannot use pre-existing algorithms (ex. Floyd-Steinburg) but you can use the general technique.

what does that even mean

feersum

10:46 PM

why are you guys reading that text

trichoplax

@MartinBüttner I wonder if an estimate of how similarly different people would vote would be a measure of how suitable a pop con is?

Rainbolt

Because it is funny

Zgarb

In my opinion, a good popcon has a clear objective that's very difficult to quantify programmatically, but can be judged my humans. All of the "approximate an input image with these constraints" are good examples, Tweetable Math Art not so much.

7

durron597

@Zgarb Print 42 is a clear objective.

Zgarb

But not very hard to quantify. ;)

Doorknob

10:48 PM

@durron597 But that's not the objective, is it?

durron597

How do you quantify who printed 42 "better"?

Doorknob

The real objective is "print 42 creatively"

And that's far from clear.

durron597

@Doorknob or dither a grayscale image creatively.

Calvin's Hobbies

Where does Showcase your language fall in these pop-con categories?

Doorknob

> so whoever produces the best (closest to original) and most creative (determined by votes) wins.

At least there's some voting criterion.

feersum

10:49 PM

@Calvin'sHobbies Seems off-topic to me

Calvin's Hobbies

D:

Alex A.

@Calvin'sHobbies I thought it was interesting and well specified.

durron597

@Doorknob "most creative" is no different than 2+2=5 or print 42

Doorknob

@Calvin'sHobbies I think it's vaguely similar to HW and related "catalogs" because the goal is to create a repository of answers in as many languages as possible

feersum

The goal of that challenge is literally "do something cool"

Doorknob

10:50 PM

@durron597 But it's not "most creative"

it's "the best (closest to original) and most creative"

which is... slightly better

trichoplax

@feersum Ideally you show the range of abilities of your language, rather than just looking pretty

Alex A.

@feersum Do you mean language showcase? If so, I disagree.

Doorknob

(As in, not insta-close-worthy)

ugh I can't type

durron597

@Doorknob but no one was doing image diffs to decide what to vote on.

or, almost no one, blanket statements are often wrong.

Doorknob

@durron597 No, it was just a visual comparison. Which is subjective. Which is why it's a popcon and not a purely objective criterion.

If the OP could make something like that work, it definitely would have been better off as not-a-popcon, but of course that would be incredibly difficult.

trichoplax

10:52 PM

@durron597 The reason it suited pop con was that an image diff wouldn't necessarily identify the most representative image

Doorknob

(In general, when it's possible to not be a popcon, it's a good idea to not be a popcon)

Calvin's Hobbies

@Doorknob I definitely agree

trichoplax

Yes, a last resort, but still important to have available

What about Calvin's wall?

I can't see an objective way to judge that but it was an interesting challenge

Rainbolt

codegolf.stackexchange.com/search?q=calvin%27s+wall

Doorknob

40

Q: Computer Generated Textured Wall Paint

The paint on the walls in my room has a random, almost fractal-like, 3-dimensional texture: In this challenge you will write a program that generates random images that look like they could be part of my walls. Below I've collected 10 images of different spots on my walls. All have roughly th...

Rainbolt

10:55 PM

I tried user:121917 wall and that failed too

Calvin's Hobbies

I'm user 26697

Alex A.

@Rainbolt That's his chat user ID

trichoplax

@Rainbolt Sorry I should have searched first. @Doorknob beat me to it afterwards

Doorknob

@trichoplax Yeah, that's generally why popcon is still even a thing. It's for when the challenge is interesting but there's no practical way to score it objectively.

Rainbolt

You made me hungry @Doorknob

Alex A.

10:56 PM

?

Calvin's Hobbies

Anyway, I don't see how that could have been scored practically otherwise (unless I took hundreds of images and compared the differences or w/e)

Doorknob

I am extremely bad at typing today :/

Rainbolt

@AlexA. chat.stackexchange.com/messages/23896521/history

trichoplax

@Doorknob So even though we'd like to keep pop con as a thing, we could still write the tag wiki more strictly and exclude some things?

Doorknob

@trichoplax Maybe.

Alex A.

10:57 PM

@Rainbolt Haha popcorn can be rather challenging.

Rainbolt

For people with braces maybe. I have zero issues with it

And maybe for people with acne

Calvin's Hobbies

Popcorn-popcon: take a dozen pictures of popped corn kernels and have people simulate the shape (not the colors, just the outline)

Doorknob

This is like overhanded all over again

Alex A.

overhanded > popularity-contest

durron597

gotta run

Calvin's Hobbies

11:01 PM

we need an evenhanded

trichoplax

Is there any way of automatically posting every pop con question as a separate answer to a meta post?

Then we could up and downvote them all to see which are considered beneficial and which should be banned in future

Alex A.

Not that I know of

trichoplax

I was only half serious, although more serious than I expected

Doorknob

Polls are generally a bad format for broad discussions like this.

Calvin's Hobbies

@trichoplax Here's the first 100 pop-con titles and links. Increase the page number to see later ones.

erm

trichoplax

11:06 PM

Don't worry about making the link work. I can probably manage copy and paste. Plus Doorknob has a good point about poll questions...

Doorknob

@Calvin'sHobbies Why use the API?

Calvin's Hobbies

@Doorknob Easier if you want the entire list

Zgarb

On an unrelated note, does anyone remember whether we've had a golf challenge on the coin problem? I didn't find anything by searching, but I have a feeling someone's probably done it at some point.

trichoplax

I don't remember seeing it, but the sandbox makes a great human search engine

Calvin's Hobbies

11:24 PM

Does OEIS guarantee that it has some number of know terms in a sequence?

(More interestingly, are there any OEIS sequences where middle terms are known but not starting ones?)

Zgarb

@Calvin'sHobbies I'm not sure what you mean; the input is a set of numbers, and the output is one number.

Calvin's Hobbies

I mean, can you only submit a new sequence if you know at least 10 terms of it or something?

Zgarb

Oh ok, I thought you replied to my question.

trichoplax

Have you discovered the last 10 terms of an infinite sequence?

Calvin's Hobbies

42, pi, e, 1337

trichoplax

11:38 PM

There are definitely sequences on there that don't have a closed form, just some known members, and some that aren't even well defined (like the numbers from Lost) so it might be worth submitting your subsequence

Calvin's Hobbies

(the last 6 don't matter)

I don't actually have a sequence :P, I'm just considering this challenge idea

Zgarb

In Ramsey theory, you often have well-defined sequences with very few known terms, like oeis.org/A003323

trichoplax

I'm not fond of challenges that are defined differently for different competitors (the exception being preassigning teams based on user id - I liked that).

Calvin's Hobbies

Yeah - mapping language names to number might be better but that's less natural

New Sandboxed Posts

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Output the OEIS Sequence of your PPCG ID Write a program that takes in a positive integer N. Output The Nth term of the OEIS sequence whose id is your PPCG user id. For example, my user id is 26697 so I would need to write a program that enumerates OEIS sequence A026697. This needs to work from ...

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

The Coin Problem code-golf combinatorics number Background TODO, see the Wiki page. Input Your input is a list L = [n1, n2, ..., nk] of positive integers. Two things are guaranteed about it: The GCD of the elements of L is 1. L does not contain the number 1. It may be unsorted and/or con...

trichoplax

11:42 PM

I can see it being hugely popular, but I can also imagine it being rejected if it was posted by anyone else. That's the problem with having a good reputation - your prolific good questions bias people towards accepting your questions that don't fit so well.

It seems very well defined but intrinsically unfair

I don't think we have any rule against unfair though - that's just my own discomfort

I suppose I see a difference between "this person has an advantage because they know a language that is suited to this problem" and "this person has an advantage because fate dealt them a much easier problem"

In a way, I want you to post it to see how it is received. I think a single question that is unfair is more of a problem than a collection of questions that are all unfair but each favours different people.

In case you were wondering, by "your questions that don't fit so well", I mean this sandboxed one. I can't think of any other examples...

@Calvin'sHobbies I think mapping language name to number would just give a large number of unrelated language specific challenges in one page, which would be confusing

Sp3000

@Calvin'sHobbies Somehow I'm pretty sure code-golf is a terrible idea for that challenge

Going to go through the top users to confirm though

trichoplax

Seems I was wrong about people being biased towards your questions... :P

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