The Nineteenth Byte

7:02 PM

1

This is the 2-dimensional generalisation of this challenge. For our purposes, one matrix (or 2D array) A is considered a submatrix of another matrix B, if A can be obtained by completely removing a number of rows and columns from B. (Note: some sources have different/more restrictive definitions...

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

289

Q: Why is 1 - 1/(1 - 1/(1 - ...)) not real?

So we all know that the continued fraction containing all $1$s... $$ x = 1 + \frac{1}{1 + \frac{1}{1 + \ldots}} $$ yields the golden ratio $x = \phi$, which can easily be proven by rewriting it as $x = 1 + 1/x$, solving the resulting quadratic equation and assuming that a continued fraction tha...

complex-numbers recursion continued-fractions

Holy crow, nice question! :D

19th highest question on Math.SE

Nathan Merrill

the only reason that became popular is because of the url: /why-is-1-1-1-1-1-not-real

LegionMammal978

How to quickly get rep: Ask a question on Meta.SE about how @MartinBüttner creates such high-quality questions

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

He's a high-quality person?

flawr

img-9gag-fun.9cache.com/photo/arKXWO5_460sv.mp4

@CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ Why the heck did this get so many upvotes?

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

7:10 PM

@flawr I don't know...

flawr

This is a cutie-bee:

Rainbolt

From Google public alerts for Tyler, TX: "If you encounter flooded roads, turn around, Don`t drown! Most flood deaths occur in vehicles."

El'endia Starman

Google's DeepMind beat a Go champion in the first game of five. Said champ expected that he might lose one game out of five.

flawr

Said champ was right so far.

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

I don't see why anyone should lose to an AI. Just bring a cup of water with you and you win, right?

El'endia Starman

7:13 PM

Indeed, indeed...next game is tonight (in my time zone anyway).

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

American east coast, no?

El'endia Starman

Correct.

Rainbolt

@CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ I've washed my seven year old phone three times now, and dried it twice. You need better tactics these days.

2

When I worked in IT Support for a college, we had a pickaxe with DBAN written on the handle. It worked pretty well for wiping hard drives.

3

flawr

@Rainbolt I'm not sure whether this would work with these days' phones.

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

@Rainbolt Really? My bro dropped his 0.5 year old phone in a hardly-full glass of water and it was borked for weeks.

El'endia Starman

7:15 PM

It's almost as if there are different kinds of phones and different quality standards... :P

Aqua Tart

I presume you have to turn it off first.

:P

Rainbolt

@CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ Maybe stick it in the dryer? I honestly think that works because the second two times I washed my phone, I didn't realize it until I got it out of the dryer

Some people suggest rice but a dryer is faster

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

@Rainbolt He did rice, and I read somewhere on the net that drying a phone with a dryer is is a bad thing (nowadays)

Sherlock9

7:29 PM

Hey guys, is Don Muesli one of the chat regulars with a different name?

Aqua Tart

Luis Mendo.

El'endia Starman

Yes - Luis Mendo.

dangit pint

Sherlock9

Ah, thanks. I'm not up to date on username changes

Besides Lynn, Helka Homba, and now, Don Muesli

El'endia Starman

No problem - they're confusing everyone. :P

somebody also. They're Mars Ultor now.

Sherlock9

Took me a moment to realize that Mars Ultor's former username is somebody :P

El'endia Starman

7:32 PM

Such a punny username, isn't it? :P

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

My first retina answer! :D

1

A: Print all the numbers! (At least, as many as possible.)

Answer 1, Retina, 0 characters The empty program outputs the number of matches. Try it online!

New Main Posts

1

Q: Print all the numbers! (At least, as many as possible.)

Your task is to print a number. Simple, right? It is simple, but not as simple as this. The first answer is to print the number 1, the second answer is to print the number 2, etc. Rules The first answer must print 1, and the nth answer must print n. The first answer may be of any length. White...

code-challenge string number answer-chaining

Ninja'd! Sorta

Bahahaha!

>_>

7:39 PM

@El'endiaStarman I simply followed trend :-P

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

imgur.com/gallery/Cd0qUc7

El'endia Starman

@CoolestVeto They're arranged so neatly... o.O

Today I learned that the Krakatoa eruption was awful AND awe-ful.

CoolestVeto

Easiest 20 rep ever made.

zyabin101 the Hated

I'm thinking on moving "Evolution of "Hello, World!"" into a GitHub repo.

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

@CoolestVeto I upvoted yours, and probably OP upvoted too

:P

zyabin101 the Hated

7:44 PM

The repo doesn't follow the rules of the challenge.

Instead, the submissions have to be approved.

CoolestVeto

Yusss.

stackoverflow.com/tags/fish-esolang/topusers

I'm so good.

Sherlock9

@El'endiaStarman Three of my favorite Indonesia volcanic eruptions, from smallest to largest impact: Krakatoa, Tambora, Toba

Aqua Tart

@NewMainPosts Isn't this a dupe of the counting together challenge

...which is deleted apparently

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

@CoolestVeto 2pro4me

zyabin101 the Hated

You have to fork, push and pull request as in an official GitHub repo. However, the post must then be +1'd by three users before being merged. One +1 from certain users is the final.

When enough +1's are received, the submission is approved and merged in the repo.

Aqua Tart

7:49 PM

This would be a duplicate except the dupe target is deleted :/

Martin Büttner

@flawr I guess it's just simple enough for most people with basic university maths to understand, who also don't have enough maths background to say immediately "because your original problem doesn't make sense".

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

What was with the flags?

CoolestVeto

@CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ I missed that bit. >.>

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

XD

Aqua Tart

@CoolestVeto You don't have enough rep to see flags I believe

CoolestVeto

7:53 PM

@AquaTart What about flags?

zyabin101 the Hated

The trick is that you can branch out, unlike the real challenge, and use an answer older than the newest.

One thing is how that is handled. Someone can help?

CoolestVeto

ahem 8^ outputs 8 in Carrot.

flawr

@MartinBüttner Haha, true. so-jealous-of-that-rep

Aqua Tart

@CoolestVeto Chat flags

CoolestVeto

@AquaTart What about?

O.o was I flagged?

(don't leave me here with my nerves I don't like this)

cri

Aqua Tart

7:58 PM

I have no idea, I can't see them either.

CoolestVeto

@AquaTart Ohhh, no that comment was unrelated.

I was talking about the counting challenge.

Aqua Tart

Oh.

Hmmm I'm designing pl's new code page and I want to make it so that the commands aren't all symbols

I have a few options for letters: Cyrillic, bold letters and small caps are the ones that are most appealing

(the latter is mostly because I know Conor will like it and upvote me into oblivion)

CoolestVeto

@EasterlyIrk kritixilithos.github.io/Carrot

El'endia Starman

Imgur: ACTUALLY Learn to Code. It's a fun read. Languages mentioned: C/C++, Perl, Python, JavaScript, Clojure, PHP.

CoolestVeto

> This is the repository of all knowledge regarding programming fuckups. I make them, you'll make them, the entirety of your computer experience is essentially a sea of fuckups from the 80's under a sea of shitty patches from the 90's, with code snippets from Stack Overflow running on top and advice from Stack Overflow keeping the broke-ass snippets working together.

4

+1

El'endia Starman

8:03 PM

Yep, pretty accurate.

RenderSettings

Reminds me of the "coding is terrible" rant

zyabin101 the Hated

Used up the vote allowance today >:U

RenderSettings

...'cept i never actually remember the title, and it's actually just "Programming Sucks" stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks

El'endia Starman

My fiancée actually suggested to me a couple months ago that I should write a blog post on what people marrying programmers should expect. I know much of it would be about debugging.

CoolestVeto

> To hell with JavaScript. It's the only kid on the block that runs in the browser, and it's not the WORST language in the world (especially with ES6, the newer version that most browsers don't support fully), but you can't do fucking ANYTHING with it without layering modules on frameworks on other frameworks, and it's changing by the day. I'm trying to pick up Ember, and it's great, but I thought it was great yesterday and apparently it was shit yesterday. I guess it will be great tomorrow and what I think is great is shit today? Basically, fuck JavaScript. If you're doing web dev, you're …

3

Geeez...

RenderSettings

8:05 PM

"it's not the WORST language in the world" [citation needed]

El'endia Starman

Haha, and OP has said in the comments that he programs in it often.

Aqua Tart

@CoolestVeto truth

> "Bro, you don't work hard. I just worked a 4700-hour week digging a tunnel under Mordor with a screwdriver."

Easterly Irk

@CoolestVeto what was that about?

CoolestVeto

@EasterlyIrk On my browser, it looked like it output two spaces, but then it didn't. :P

Easterly Irk

I fixed it, it now complies with the ^ syntax. 8^ .

CoolestVeto

8:10 PM

Yeah, that's what I thought you meant. I think it trims space. idrk though.

Whoops. Sorry.

TimmyD

:D

El'endia Starman

@RenderSettings That was entertaining.

flawr

@RenderSettings There is always PHP as a lower bound.

TimmyD

:28136263 I'm sad, though, because the + is superfluous.

Aqua Tart

@flawr ಠ_ಠ

flawr

8:14 PM

PHP++ Make PHP object oriented, AGAIN

TimmyD

PHPPP?

RenderSettings

PHP Hypertext Processor PHP PHP

flawr

s/PHP/PHP Hypertext Processor PHP PHP

(Am i doing this right?)

El'endia Starman

Yup.

Aqua Tart

PHP will always be Personal Home Page in my heart <3

El'endia Starman

8:24 PM

Well, might need a /g on the end to replace all occurrences, not just the first.

TimmyD

(PHP)^(PHP)

(PHP)!

Nathan Merrill

how do screens show black?

mbomb007

@MartinBüttner I successfully completed the simpler challenge in Retina. Doing the 2D generalization is bound to be more challenging...

Nathan Merrill

I know they don't just turn off all of the pixels, because there's a difference between a black screen that is on, and a black screen that is of

TimmyD

@NathanMerrill In theory, it's absence of light. In practice, differences exist between OLED, LCD (and even flavors therein), Plasma, CRT, eInk, etc.

mbomb007

8:30 PM

@AquaTart smh

Nathan Merrill

most computers use LCD right?

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

The bad ones use LSD.

mbomb007

@NathanMerrill Only until they go to prison.

Oh wait, that's LSD.

@NathanMerrill And yes.

TimmyD

LCD is the current major display technology, yes.

CoolestVeto

Should this challenge be closed as too broad?

Nathan Merrill

8:32 PM

hmmm, it looks like LCD has a backlight

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

No, I don't think it's broad.

mbomb007

Random thought: maybe Egyptian hieroglyphics are computer programs written in a language similar to Dyalog APL...

Nathan Merrill

which is why black "turned on" screen appears differently

CoolestVeto

> There are either too many possible answers, or good answers would be too long for this format.

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

Oh, hm.

Dennis

8:33 PM

@CoolestVeto Probably.

TimmyD

@NathanMerrill Yes. With an LCD, the crystals themselves don't emit light, they just flip orientation to allow light through or not. Since, however, they can't completely block all light, you get a dark grey screen.

Dennis

The length restriction is just too easy. This will only terminate when people get bored or run out of languages.

mbomb007

@CoolestVeto Needs more JQuery.

CoolestVeto

I'm voting to close this as too broad, as, quote: "There are either too many possible answers..." — CoolestVeto 1 min ago

Nathan Merrill

another color question: lets say I have a red stream of light entering my eyes (I see something red)

can I add additional light into that same stream of light?

Morgan Thrapp

8:35 PM

Yeah, if the length restriction were a little different, it could be a lot of fun. Maybe your answer has to be the same number of bytes as the answer not counting comments?

Nathan Merrill

without changing the color?

mbomb007

@NathanMerrill Infrared light, if by changing color you mean that it doesn't visibly change.

TimmyD

@NathanMerrill Technically, no. In practice, sure. Light is a lot broader than just the visible spectrum.

Pseudo-ninja'd

Nathan Merrill

I'm talking the visible spectrum

mbomb007

@TimmyD :D

CoolestVeto

8:36 PM

@MorganThrapp Too late to alter the challenge.

Nathan Merrill

aka, I have 1 particle of light that is "red"

RenderSettings

You can change the intensity, but not wavelength

TimmyD

Sure, even within the visible spectrum you can manipulate it.

Nathan Merrill

and then I add more particles that are also "red"

Aqua Tart

@mbomb007 ಠ_ಠ

Morgan Thrapp

8:36 PM

@CoolestVeto Oh I know, just a thought.

TimmyD

@NathanMerrill Mmm, but light isn't a particle. It's a wavicle.

Nathan Merrill

asked another way, if I point a "red" flashlight vs a "red" laser into somebody's eye

one is more intense, but they are the same shade, no?

mbomb007

@NathanMerrill Yes.

TimmyD

That's like RenderSettings said - the difference between intensity and wavelength.

Nathan Merrill

ok. so, screens all show light at the same intensity?

or is there technology out there for showing different intensities of light?

mbomb007

8:38 PM

Some screens have more than RGB. Some add Yellow

Nathan Merrill

aka, a pixel is RGBI

@mbomb007 why?

TimmyD

Well, kinda. There's a lot of behind-the-scenes color theory going on here, too.

CoolestVeto

How do I add a page to esolangs.org?

Nope. I'm stupid.

Found it.

Nathan Merrill

@TimmyD I know I'm totally over my head :)

El'endia Starman

I think that the intensity of pixels is uniform across a screen, though this intensity may be adjusted by monitor settings.

mbomb007

8:40 PM

@NathanMerrill Here's a sort of relevant question/answer.

Some add yellow because it allows a broader spectrum of light to be displayed from the computer screen.

Though I think it's mostly TV screens I've seen advertising it...

Nathan Merrill

hm, so it has nothing to do with intensity

TimmyD

(I'm handwaving a lot of stuff here) There are essentially three different receptors in the eye that can detect color. They each have individual ranges of wavelengths that they can detect, and the ranges overlap, but each receptor is more specialized in a particular range. Modern displays use only RGB colors combined with these receptor ranges to trick the eye into thinking it's seeing a color that's not really there.

Nathan Merrill

which is basically what mbomb's question link said :P

but it looks like "pixel intensity" isn't a thing yet

mbomb007

Another related point, a computer can only display 16,777,216 (256^3) colors. There are more colors than that in nature, potentially an infinite amount.

RenderSettings

i think most computer screens do CMYK

mbomb007

8:44 PM

@RenderSettings No, that's what printers do.

Computer monitors use RGB. That's what CSS uses. Also, if you put your face really close to a monitor you can see the R, G, and B.

TimmyD

@NathanMerrill There are some monitors that have a grid of LEDs behind the display, rather than a single backlight. The monitor then tries to turn off darkk areas and fully-power bright areas.

RenderSettings

Yeah, you're right

Nathan Merrill

@mbomb007 that's only kindof true. we make the assumption that two "red" pixels on a screen are going to print out the same red.

TimmyD

Relevant:

There is no pink light

►

mbomb007

@TimmyD I'm guessing the answer is that white light is all of the colors, and pink is red + white.

New Sandboxed Posts

8:46 PM

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Random Text Generation I've come to appreciate challenges that are judged by the quality of output rather than the brevity of code, and thus throw down the following gauntlet -- In the language of your choice, write code that accepts a source text and generates a random imitation. Reviewers sho...

Nathan Merrill

and all of those "missing"colors are a gradient from one shade to another shade, meaning that a computer somewhere, due to variations in displays, might be able to show that shade

TimmyD

@mbomb007 Our best guess (at least as of latest research that I've read) is that our brains don't know how to process what we're seeing, and so come up with pink.

mbomb007

@NathanMerrill Yes, but if every computer was perfect in engineering to be exactly the same as the specifications, that wouldn't be true.

El'endia Starman

@mbomb007 It's actually essentially "pink = red + blue and that can't happen in nature, but it tricks our eyes".

Martin Büttner

@TimmyD this is probably my favourite fun fact of fun facts and makes tetrachromacy even more mindbending than it is anyway.

Zach Gates

8:47 PM

Is it possible to create a function that can't be seen from outside a class (Python)? i.e. dir(MyInstance) won't show the function

El'endia Starman

@ZachGates Not really, but there's a hacky way to do it.

Zach Gates

Yeah, that's what I figured. What's the hacky way?

TimmyD

@MartinBüttner Yeah. I can't even imagine what seeing with four color receptors would be like.

El'endia Starman

306

Q: Why are Python's 'private' methods not actually private?

Python gives us the ability to create 'private' methods and variables within a class by prepending double underscores to the name, like this: __myPrivateMethod(). How, then, can one explain this >>> class MyClass: ... def myPublicMethod(self): ... print 'public method' ... de...

python python-2.7 encapsulation information-hiding

RenderSettings

tl;dr: color is complicated

mbomb007

8:48 PM

@TimmyD How would you even know if you had it or not?

Maybe you are, and just don't know.

El'endia Starman

@mbomb007 I'd guess you'd find out in a way similar to finding out that you're colorblind.

RenderSettings

What are the chances of someone being tetrachromatic?

Martin Büttner

@TimmyD Also, peacock mantis shrimps have 15 different receptors, but apparently their vision works a bit differently so you can't quite say they can distinguish 2^15 genuinely different colours. However, they can see the polarisation of light. o.O

@RenderSettings slim.

@mbomb007 You wouldn't understand why some people kept referring to vastly different colours by the same name.

RenderSettings

There was a couple of biohacking guys that managed to make themselves see infared light. Only at the very edges of the spectrum, but still in the "this should be impossible" range.

El'endia Starman

Tetrachromacy

Tetrachromacy is the condition of possessing four independent channels for conveying color information, or possessing four types of cone cells in the eye. Organisms with tetrachromacy are called tetrachromats. In tetrachromatic organisms, the sensory color space is four-dimensional, meaning that to match the sensory effect of arbitrarily chosen spectra of light within their visible spectrum requires mixtures of at least four primary colors. Tetrachromacy is demonstrated among several species of birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles and insects. It was also the normal condition of most mammals in the...

(It's a link to a section of that page.)

Martin Büttner

8:51 PM

@RenderSettings I was just going to reply something to that, but it's basically the second-to-last paragraph in El'endia's link

mbomb007

Are you a tetrachromat? blogadilla.com/2008/06/08/are-you-a-tetrachromat

RenderSettings

Hm, 2-3% of women but it's lame tetrachromatic that doesn't count :p

It's fun that the chances of being colorblind is like 20x higher in men

mbomb007

Even more interesting, imho, is Synesthesia

RenderSettings

@mbomb007 Is there any guarentee that your screen's gamut actually renders that correctly :p

mbomb007

@RenderSettings Yes. Read the comments.

TimmyD

8:53 PM

I don't think I'm a tetrachromat. But I do have a really really good sense of color. Like, online or in-person color tests where you need to line up the shades and I'll score 100% every time.

mbomb007

@TimmyD Same.

Though maybe only one really for me.

:P

TimmyD

My wife is, she thinks, about a far from trichromat as you can be without being color blind. Very hard time distinguishing shades, especially greens.

El'endia Starman

> Only two women in history have ever been empirically confirmed as functional tetrachromats.

TimmyD

@mbomb007 It has side effects, though, like with The Dress debate. I just couldn't see anything other than blue/black, and got into some emphatic discussions with friends.

Martin Büttner

> Nothing says legitimate scientific knowledge like a winky face with its tongue out.

RenderSettings

8:57 PM

Oh man, the dress

Morgan Thrapp

Well, yeah, because that's what color it is.

RenderSettings

that was actually great

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

XD

El'endia Starman

@TimmyD It took me a while to see that dress as anything other than white and gold. Some time after managing to see it as blue and black, I was able to switch my perception between the two.

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

Ugh playing MvM with a BS team >_>

RenderSettings

8:59 PM

I saw it at white/gold at first, but was able to switch it after a while. Looking at it out of the corner of your eye helps.

mbomb007

@El'endiaStarman So now you correctly see it as blue and black? :D

El'endia Starman

Gut instinct is still more white/gold than blue/black, but it's really more like light blue/light brown.

And I know that because I Googled it to see how I see it now. :P

TimmyD

@RenderSettings Computers (and light bulbs, and TV, and whatnot) perform additive coloration, while ink (and paint, and stains, and whatnot) perform subtractive coloration. That's the main difference between RGB and CMYK.

mbomb007

^

Nathan Merrill

@TimmyD how do the screens on kindles work?

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

9:07 PM

^

New Main Posts

0

Q: Black Jack Card Combinations

My challenge to you: Given the input of any card, output all of the possible cards that could get you to a total of 21. Rules: The input can be any number from 2 to 10 as well as the letters a(ace), j(jack), q(queen) and k(king). Jacks, queens and kings are all worth ten. Aces however can be w...

code-golf

TimmyD

@NathanMerrill Modern eInk displays have tiny magnetically-charged crystals (essentially) that flip orientation based on a passing current. Once flipped, however, they don't need continual current to maintain position, hence why they get long battery life. Basically you have tiny little squares flipping back and forth between black and white.

Nathan Merrill

...are they subtractive?

TimmyD

This, however, means that they need an external light source (the sun, a lamp, etc.).

Yes - they're subtractive in the same way that regular ink is.

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

TimmyD

9:11 PM

The quirk to remember with subtractive coloration is that the pigment is absorbing all colors except the one that it is called. So, green paint is absorbing the reds and blues and yellows and ..., and only reflecting green.

Nathan Merrill

what happens if you have two pigments, say yellow and blue next to each other (like pixels)?

does it make green?

TimmyD

Maybe, maybe not. Depends upon how close your eyes are to the pigments, how good of eyesight you have, how large the pigments are.

That's essentially where "photo printing" comes into play - high DPI allows for smaller individual drops of ink, which allows for easier/better seamless blending of colors.

El'endia Starman

Nathan Merrill

@TimmyD that's also true for pixels

El'endia Starman

The "green" on the bottom is actually a checkerboard of cyan and yellow.

TimmyD

9:19 PM

@NathanMerrill That's true. And why some people swear by the RGBY televisions, whereas others think they're a waste.

RenderSettings

/me zooms in on the green, goes cross-eyed

But like actually. I can't focus on the checkerboard.

El'endia Starman

Also, cross your eyes so that the cyan and yellow rectangles overlap.

Nathan Merrill

actually, that's interesting, because rgby is easy to layout (you can place the 4 different colors in a square), but rgb you don't.

TimmyD

@NathanMerrill Hah. Subpixel rendering and layout is a whole 'nother topic on top of this.

El'endia Starman

TIL some Jewish leaders are considering ordaining Google as a Rabbi.

New Main Posts

9:38 PM

0

Q: Printing out names of polygons

So in 1st grade math, you learn the names of polygons. Three sides is a triangle, 4 is a square, and 5 is a pentagon. However, in 1st grade honors, you go a bit further. Your challenge There is a naming system for polygons above a few sides, so arbitrarily large polygons have a name. Your task...

code-golf string number conversion

TimmyD

> enneacontakaienneagon

lirtosiast

I think ^^ is kolmogorov and not conversion. Anyone agree?

Aqua Tart

@lirtosiast Yes.

Daniel M.

Kolmogorov is only one possible output. Conversion is 97 possible outputs

lirtosiast

Done.

Aqua Tart

9:41 PM

Already done :PP

lirtosiast

Look in the tag wiki for kolmogorov

Daniel M.

So should it have classification also?

Aqua Tart

No. (at least I don't think)

Daniel M.

Nevermind I actually read the wiki now

lirtosiast

Wait

It's case 2, output a string that varies based on a parameter

Daniel M.

9:43 PM

Yeah

Aqua Tart

Wait, would this be restricted-source or source-layout

lirtosiast

Neither?

Aqua Tart

It's asking for two programs.

lirtosiast

It's just a weird scoring mechanism, where the length of the shorter program doesn't matter as much as the longer.

Daniel M.

That's the point mainly ^

lirtosiast

9:44 PM

By the way, I'd like other people to review that kolmogorov tag wiki, because I just edited it on Monday and I'm not too sure about the changes.

Daniel M.

@AquaTart "The source-layout tag should be used when the physical arrangement of the characters in the source-code is a component of the challenge."

Did not know that half was already posted- didn't turn up in search at all

Aqua Tart

I already removed it, but I swear there was a similar tag for this kind of thing

flawr

@AquaTart black-mesa-source

Flint Eastwood - Glitches

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lirtosiast

@AquaTart multiple-holes?

Aqua Tart

No.

Well, maybe.

It's not quite the spirit of this one though

Daniel M.

9:50 PM

Editing half the challenge out

Nathan Merrill

hmmm. An interesting source-layout might be to make the layout of the source match the layout of the output. A weaker quine that might do well combined with a harder challenge

maybe make it radiation hardened?

(layout means that all whitespace is in the same spot)

Aqua Tart

@lirtosiast Why was this starred?

lirtosiast

@AquaTart I don't know.

flawr

@lirtosiast sieve

lirtosiast

I was about to ask, and didn't for fear that that post would be starred.

TimmyD

9:52 PM

⚝

Aqua Tart

:P

Daniel M.

Multiple holes is for with 9+ challenges though I think

Aqua Tart

The Nineteenth Byte: the only chat room where people are afraid of stars

3

El'endia Starman

Nah, 2+ is enough to qualify.

flawr

2+ or 2++?

Who didn't ever wanna know about theremins?

Here you go:

Carolina talks Theremin - An overview for composers and music lovers

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CoolestVeto

9:54 PM

@TimmyD

Daniel M.

Either way, it's changed

RenderSettings

code minigolf

Aqua Tart

@Dennis Something I've been pondering for a while is a "lookup table mode" for Bubblegum. Basically I'm thinking a flag that takes the decompressed output and splits the output by some type of delimiter (ideally one for each entry and then one for key/value) and turns it into a hash, then takes the input and returns the associated value.

Also, more compression methods :P

Martin Büttner

@DanielM. have an upvote ;)

Daniel M.

@MartinBüttner Thanks!

(On reddit, that^ would probably get me banned)

Anonymous

10:02 PM

And have an edit :)

Daniel M.

This makes me sad

Though it's understandable

Anonymous

Challenge specifications should be succint

Aqua Tart

I'm amazed that answer has downvotes.

Anonymous

A short code rationale adds clutter, removing succintness

Anonymous

@AquaTart Some people don't have training in technical writing and don't understand why less is more

Daniel M.

10:04 PM

I guess, though it's still a bit fun

Aqua Tart

It actually just got a downvote.

Daniel M.

Whatever, that's the consensus

That downvote was not me

Aqua Tart

@Mego Some of the rationales were just absolutely ridiculous. I still don't understand "Because you can only stack about 5 goats before they start to fall, your code will need to be as short as possible"

Anonymous

@AquaTart Most people aren't as funny as they think they are

GamrCorps

I think we need to change or make clearer the tag snippet (short description) for kolmogorov-complexity. Many of the recent challenges lean towards the "Classification of a finite number of inputs that requires storing a significant amount of data" type of kolmogorov-complexity. To someone who wants to know what that tag means, the short snippet does not include any information about this type of challenge.

Aqua Tart

10:05 PM

@Mego Me included

CoolestVeto

I think that a nonsensical rationale can sometimes draw in more answers; it makes the question less formal and therefore less intimidating for newer users. I would agree that sometimes they're useless, unfunny, and add nothing, but they also are sometimes nice.

Daniel M.

@Mego and that's the reason why the answer needs to be as few bytes as possible :)

Anonymous

@CoolestVeto The value added from the humor that draws in more answers is miniscule in comparison to the unnecessary clutter it adds to the spec

Anonymous

General rule for challenge specifications: you shouldn't be able to remove anything (not even a single byte) from the specification without making it unclear.

CoolestVeto

@Mego ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I would disagree, but there's no real way to determine that.

Daniel M.

10:08 PM

I'm sure they could find some way to golf that byte off

Anonymous

@CoolestVeto There are plenty of examples where challenges that didn't include length rationales got a lot of attention. Just look at the goat challenge.

Anonymous

It got attention because it was interesting (and humorous) in its own right, without needing tacky humor tacked on.

CoolestVeto

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'd agree with that. Tacky humor is fun for me, though.

And, while it may not be fun for other users, it is my decision as a writer to put that in.

Aqua Tart

¯\_(ಠ_ಠ)_/¯

Anonymous

If you can remove it from the specification without changing the challenge or making it unclear, remove it. Less is more. That's the entire spirit of code golf.

Anonymous

10:11 PM

@CoolestVeto That would be valid if this was creative writing. It's not. It's technical writing.

El'endia Starman

Ehhhh...there's both creative and technical writing in these challenges.

CoolestVeto

@Mego In what manner is this writing limited to technical only?

Sherlock9

Is Level River St another person who has changed their username recently?

Anonymous

@CoolestVeto Trying to describe something exactly so that others may understand perfectly is the essence of technical writing.

Anonymous

Creative writing: drawing a picture with words for readers to understand and internalize, though they may not have the exact same picture in mind.

El'endia Starman

10:13 PM

@Sherlock9 steveverrill

Anonymous

Technical writing: every reader needs the exact same understanding of what you're trying to convey.

El'endia Starman

Pretty cool anagram though.

CoolestVeto

@Mego We can describe it accurately and be creative simultaneously. Code golf is not entirely technical, as it is a programming game. Games are meant for amusement, and that is creative.

Sherlock9

It is. And I Go Best?

CoolestVeto

Geobits

El'endia Starman

10:14 PM

Y'all saw nothing. >_>

Daniel M.

@Mego The Onion definitely isn't technical writing and I understand that perfectly. Though I've seen plenty of technical writings that... were not understandable perfectly.

CoolestVeto

@El'endiaStarman Headshot.

Anonymous

@CoolestVeto You're missing the point. The goal of technical writing is to clearly express something so that all readers understand perfectly. Whether the idea(s) the writing is expressing is creative or not is beside the point.

Anonymous

When you write a challenge spec, you're trying to clearly communicate to everyone exactly what you expect out of submissions.

Anonymous

@DanielM. Whether or not a given source manages to master technical writing is tangential to this discussion.

Zach Gates

10:20 PM

I need a name for my new language

Aqua Tart

Sombrero

(since your previous one was Milky Way)

Anonymous

Betelgeuse

Zach Gates

@AquaTart well why not Large Magellanic Cloud

Sherlock9

So did everyone go off to try anagrams of their usernames? Was this a discussion some time while I was out?

Zach Gates

heh galaxy reference

Anonymous

10:22 PM

17 mins ago, by Mego

@AquaTart Most people aren't as funny as they think they are

Zach Gates

ooh I thought of a good one

Gogh

cause it's a work of art

& as in Gogh use my language

Anonymous

@ZachGates ಠ_ಠ

Zach Gates

@Mego ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Aqua Tart

I was reading the SO blog post on why they were changing their name back to StackOverflow and I noticed this little gem of a comment:

blog.stackoverflow.com/2015/09/…

Anonymous

You do know that it's not pronounced "Go", right?

Zach Gates

10:25 PM

Yes, of course

New Main Posts

0

Q: JavaScript only! Create a sine function

JavaScript only! I'm very much interested in the lowest number of characters required to maka a sine function in JavaScript. The rules: the code must Not make use of the Math object Take input via prompt() alert() the sine of the input (interpreted as radians) contain a number (you may write...

code-golf math javascript sine

Sherlock9

@Mego I have heard to many "Gogh/Go" puns to know better? How it is actually pronounced?

Aqua Tart

@NewMainPosts Hmm, is this a dupe of codegolf.stackexchange.com/q/27028/45151 or codegolf.stackexchange.com/q/23330/45151

Anonymous

@Sherlock9 upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/…

Sherlock9

Thank you

Anonymous

10:28 PM

Bitte

Zach Gates

Isn't it pronounced more like "Gahh"

with a guttural sound

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

I can nein german

El'endia Starman

That much is clear. :P

Zach Gates

10:51 PM

stack programming is up

El'endia Starman

...apparently, the German word for "jewelry" is "Schmuck".

RenderSettings

:( my bf interpreter has a bug, but i can't for the life of me figure out what it is. it just panics on decrement underflow on certain programs after running fine for a while.

Rainbolt

Must be a strained relationship if you need an interpreter for your bf

10

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