The Garbage Collector

mousetail

17:00

@user16217248 I expect it to slow down a lot too

Unsung hero is one of hardest badges on the network to get, especially on smaller sites where most everything is likely to get votes

user16217248

I don't even know how to start trying to get that badge. Post answers that are not low quality enough to get downvoted, but are too low quality to get upvoted, and solve OP problem. And specifically target niche questions from 1 rep users who will not be able to upvote your answer themselves.

Ginger

alright, it is time

user16217248

Time? Time for what?

Ginger

Time for me to rename this room

mousetail

@user16217248 The idea on SO is to find tags that don't really have many experts and answer posts from new users there, since new people can't upvote but can accept

Ginger

17:06

If anyone has a reason why this room should not be renamed, speak now or hold your peace until the end of private beta

ok then

room topic changed to The Garbage Collector: General discussion for languagedesign.stackexchange.com (no tags)

mousetail

I don't have any objection but why did you choose this time specifically?

Ginger

it is done

@mousetail 48 hours since the initial asking

@HenryWHHackv3.0 would you mind accepting the top answer?

New Posts

0

Q: Top stack by rep profile problem

PLDI doesnt appear on my list top stacks by rep. I see this on other people accounts too. Why is this happening to people? Is it because we are a beta site? But community building appears, and it is in beta too...

bug

0

Q: What are common options for closure syntax?

A lot of languages have "closures" (also known as "lambdas"), anonymous first-class functions commonly used for things like filters. What are common syntax options for closures, and what are their pros and cons?

pros-cons syntax

Bbrk24

I have more rep here than SO

Ginger

17:25

I have a bit over a tenth of the rep I have on CGCC

and like 3 times more than I have on SO

because I never use my SO account

also send help they're realizing I have no idea what I'm talking about

mousetail

I'm not overtaking SO anytime soon

@Ginger I totally rewrote your post, feel free to revert

Ginger

nah, you improved it

~~although I would get a nice badge were I to revert it...~~

mousetail

I can vandalize it in 5 minutes then you can revert that if you like

Ginger

certainly, pleasure doing business with you

also AAAAAA WE NEED MORE VOTING

New Posts

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Q: Should functions like filter and map be members of a class or top-level functions?

In python, the filter and map functions (among others) are top-level (i.e. global) functions which take an iterable as an argument. However, in Kotlin they are extension functions defined upon iterable and collection classes. What are the advantages and disadvantages of these approaches?

pros-cons data-structures iterators

DLosc

17:39

@Bbrk24 Same

Mostly because PLDI still has low-hanging fruit to answer :P

Ginger

yeah, in a year all questions will be "How should I best implement quantum topologic dynamic entropy vector Klien manifold isotropic field alignment rotation approximate Euler Sondheim Calculus micro-hyperdimathematics in my new language?" and the site'll be dominated by Intel scientists with names like "/~mhfwalters"

4

DLosc

in The Nineteenth Byte, Aug 13, 2022 at 21:56, by Wheat Wizard

Coming back I am a little bewildered. The documentation is thorough but it uses phrases like "Cokleisli category". I must have been significantly smarter a couple months back.

Ginger

exactly

status-completed

Seggan

@Bbrk24 I have more rep here than anywhere except code golf

DLosc

Surprising that there aren't any golfing-language questions yet. I started to write one, but then I saw this meta post and got to thinking it might fit better on Code Golf...

mousetail

17:48

Those questions wouldn't really be allowed on code golf either though so I'm not sure what the intention is

DLosc

A couple of them are, though, under tips language-design golfing-language.

New Posts

0

Q: How to help this site?

I want to help develop this site. How I can do it? I want to help develop this site. How I can do it? I want to help develop this site. How I can do it? I want to help develop this site. How I can do it?

discussion

Peter Kolosov

18:08

Am I bad person?

mousetail

I have no reason to think you are

It's just the question was posted before, people where just helping you find it

@PeterKolosov Downvotes don't mean much, don't pay them much attention

Peter Kolosov

manage your site yourself, without me

the ru.SO I think is better

mousetail

I can't really compare them but it's possible

Is english your second language? If you are confused by something you can always ask in chat first

Seggan

Yeah in sandbox he stated Russian is his first

mousetail

Seggan you know Russian right?

Peter Kolosov

18:16

@Seggan if you're didn't asked, why answer

I'm just upset, you scared off a newbie!

Seggan not you

mousetail

I'm sorry we upset you

You have to understand it's important to close these questions as fast as possible to prevent them being answered and having information distributed over different places. It's not about you, just about organizing the information in the best way possible

Peter Kolosov

I was got downvoted more than -1 (-2/-3) for no reason

Why not get away with just one downvote.

I think I'm disturbing you, don't I?

Rydwolf Programs

Ooh room renamed

Ginger

indeed

mousetail

I can't speak for the people that downvoted you, and I don't think you should have been downvoted. Just closing the quesiton would have done the job just fine

People are free to use their votes however they like however

Rydwolf Programs

18:26

@PeterKolosov Nobody decides how many people will downvote your question, every downvote is a different person. Two downvotes isn't twice as bad as one, it just means two people saw it instead of one.

Peter Kolosov

Simply say: am I disturbing you all, or not?

mousetail

As long as you are genuinely trying to understand how this site and the community works better you are not disturbing

Rydwolf Programs

If you have questions, it might be better to ask here than in meta though

That way we can more easily ask for clarification, and if it's a question that has already been asked, you won't get downvotes or anything like that

Ginger

^^ ^

mousetail

Yea this is the safest space for questions

New Posts

18:43

0

Q: What vertical whitespace should be supported?

As a followup to PLDI's first question, about horizontal whitespace, what vertical whitespace (newlines) should be supported? I know of at least the following: Line feed (\n) CRLF (\r\n) Carriage return only (\r) Form feed (\f, U+000C) Next line (U+0085) Vertical tab (\v, U+000B) For many langu...

language-comparison unicode whitespace lexing lines

Rydwolf Programs

Typically my langs support \n, \r\n, \r, and \f

Line counting is the main reason I ask

Peter Kolosov

My problem is what I don't know what to ask and at least how to great answer........

mousetail

@PeterKolosov You can propose questions here in chat if you are unsure, we can help you check if it would fit or not. We have been doing that a lot already

@PeterKolosov Also voting a lot is very important, just as important as asking and answering questions

Seggan

19:15

@mousetail yep. It’s my first language (though not the one I speak best)

@PeterKolosov because mousetail can get their answer faster

@PeterKolosov because they are all different people

Spevacus

@PeterKolosov Even if you're not a subject matter expert in this topic (And I completely sympathize, I'm not too knowledgeable about it either, but I'm using what I do know about it to pitch in) there are plenty of ways to contribute. Editing, voting, and helping to solve certain problems through Meta/this chatroom are all great ways to pitch in.

user

Perhaps we could have a Sandbox here like on CGCC?

Bbrk24

Are people upvoting my Swift closure style answer because they like that style, because my answer is thorough, or because they find that URL funny?

Rydwolf Programs

Porbably #2

Seggan

@user Eh I don’t think that’s necessary

I didn’t mean to press the star

Ginger

19:18

> Porbably

Seggan

Mobile be like

Ginger

gotta get those porbles

Rydwolf Programs

Yesss repcapped

user

@Bbrk24 Whereanswer with funny url?

Bbrk24

@Ginger Now you’re thinking with porbles

Ginger

19:18

we're gonna get a porbillion rep outta this

Rydwolf Programs

@user fuckingclosuresyntax.com

Bbrk24

2

A: What are common options for lambda function syntax?

Swift-style If you haven’t seen it yet, let me introduce you to https://fuckingclosuresyntax.com. More seriously, the full syntax is this: { [byValueCapture] (argName: ArgType) -> ReturnType in body } …but most of that is optional. A few things to note: Only by-value captures are specified; by-...

Ginger

combo meme reference!

user

Oh yeah I've seen you link to that site in chat before

fwiw I just upvoted your answer because I saw that it was long and probably detailed

Ginger

relatable

I do that a lot lol

mousetail

19:32

I'm thinking of asking "How can I compile a 2d language esoteric-language" would that be on topic do y'all think?

Rydwolf Programs

I think it'd be too broad

You'd need to add some details about what sort of 2d language, how it works, what parts of the compilation you're asking about, etc.

mousetail

Well there is just one or two techniques really, normally they compile each row and column seperatly then insert gotos

It's just the part needed to make it behave like a normal language

I'll add assuming no self-modification

Bbrk24

Trilangle just loads it into a buffer and interprets each character on the fly, no AOT compilation

mousetail

Yea of course interpreting is way easier

Bbrk24

There is a (somewhat broken) disassembler that could be made into a compiler with a little work

mousetail

19:37

The question is specifically about how to compile it into normal machine code efficiently

Bbrk24

but I need to rewrite most of it

mousetail

Befunge was originally designed specifically to make it as hard as possible to compile so the techniques invented to compile it are very interesting

New Posts

19:55

0

Q: What are the pros and cons of goto?

Goto is often "considered harmful". But are there good reasons to have goto?

pros-cons language-design control-flow

Rydwolf Programs

20:23

CMM: Should I make a sandbox account and post a sandbox on Meta?

I don't see a sandbox doing any harm, worst case is it stays dead

Wait I just realized New Posts's PFP says "CGCC" in it...I should prolly change that if it'll stay here long-term

At some point I plan to refactor NPSP such that it takes a config file which can route arbitrary feeds to arbitrary accounts in arbitrary chatrooms

So if someone was like "hey can we have NPSP for SuperUser" or "hey can NPSP also post PLDI's new meta questions in this room" I could just edit that config file

Ginger

~~I'll post it!~~

Rydwolf Programs

Fun fact: The CGCC Sandbox account has 3320 unread inbox items

mousetail

I don't see much use for a sandbox, questions here can easily be edited unlike on CGSE

Only puzzling has one but it's barely used

Rydwolf Programs

(That's shockinly low given that Snowpaw has over 4k already)

Snowpaw

@RydwolfPrograms Pathetic.

Rydwolf Programs

20:28

Oh no what is Snowy doing here

ah :p

get dammiy noinja;d

Ginger

dammit, you noticed too quickly

sometimes I really wish the meme post wasn't dead

Rydwolf Programs

@mousetail Not really sure how that's relevant, and also it's not really true

If a post is at -4 and closed, it's in a worse spot once it's edited back into shape

mousetail

Invalidating existing answers is possible but not nearly as likely

Rydwolf Programs

And any answers on it may still end up answering the wrong question once it's made more focused

mousetail

So you can always edit

Rydwolf Programs

20:30

I don't think a sandbox would do any harm tho, and it could be a good place for discussing borderline cases where we haven't decided if it's in our scope yet

Up to y'all tho, I do agree the usefulness would be limited

mousetail

It sets a bad precedent that questions need to be perfect before posting

Which isn't true, we have good mechanisms to deal with posts that need improvment after posting

DLosc

20:50

I say hold off on a sandbox until we've been doing this for several months at least. If people think it would be helpful at that point, ask about it on meta first.

Ginger

^

Seggan

21:05

@mousetail yes

puzzling and CGCC have sandboxes bc they’re less q/a

Bbrk24

If I wanted to post another language's syntax to languagedesign.stackexchange.com/questions/570/… , I could do that in a second answer, right?

New Posts

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Q: What are the pros and cons of static typing?

Static typing means the type of a variable is known at compile time. This means that either you have to specify the type, or the compiler has to infer it (usually both). Many languages, such as Java, C, C#, Go, and Swift use this. Many others, such as Python, Ruby, and JavaScript, use dynamic typ...

pros-cons static-typing

DLosc

21:23

@Bbrk24 I think so, although other people have been including multiple languages per answer... maybe those should be split up?

Bbrk24

It's just that my Swift answer is already long and the other answer I'm going to post is unrelated

New Posts

0

Q: No Objective-C?

I'm getting syntax highlighting for c and cpp, but not objc or objective-c. Compare: const char *lang_name = "c"; std::string langName = "cpp"; NSString *kLangName = @"objc"; NSString *kLangName = @"objective-c"; Am I using the wrong language name, or is Objective-C syntax highlighting not av...

support syntax-highlighting

DLosc

21:49

@Bbrk24 With all the answer headers like "Scala style," "Ruby style," etc., now I've got "Gangnam Style" in my head

DLosc

21:59

I'm sure I remember reading that a language with only a single stack cannot be Turing-complete (without extra fancy stuff like an operation to copy values from arbitrarily deep in the stack), but a language with only a single queue can be Turing-complete. I can't find a statement to this effect in a quick search of Wikipedia or Esolangs, however. Anyone know where I can find it?

New Posts

0

Q: What's going on with this question?

This question is downvoted which brought me here. I've observed the following phenomenon: Lots of users are asking questions about 'what should be a syntax for x'. The fact is, as long as the syntax is parseable, whatever can be chosen as a syntax for whatever thing (see this, this, etc.). For e...

discussion

Michael Homer

@DLosc Are you thinking of push-down automata (single-stack finite state machines)? Those are not Turing-complete, but a stack language that can loop or recurse almost certainly is

DLosc

@MichaelHomer Hmm, maybe. Recursion implies a second stack (the call stack), so I wouldn't be surprised if a language with recursion was Turing-complete with only one data stack. Looping, I'm not so sure.

This question (in true Pride and Prejudice style) leads off with the statement, "It is well known that a machine with a single stack as only unlimited storage is not Turing complete, if it can only read from the top of the stack."

Michael Homer

22:17

@DLosc This looks to me like it is taking the "only read from the top of the stack" more seriously than "an operation to copy values from arbitrarily deep in the stack" does

It feels like all you need is a swap operation plus any sort of repetition to simulate a two-counter machine, at least

DLosc

@MichaelHomer Ah, interesting. So that could be Turing-complete, but only if the values are unbounded.

Bbrk24

I made Trilangle 1.0 TC with a “peek down the stack” instruction even before it had multiple stacks. I added swap for convenience but I’m not convinced it’s necessary

Michael Homer

On the queue language side, most straighforwardly you can simulate a Post tag system only reading off the head of the queue, so that is definitely Turing-complete

@DLosc Yes, though I would still expect most stack languages to be Turing-complete on their own terms too. It's hard not to be if you can branch and repeat yourself

Bbrk24

22:35

Today in “bad ideas”: a command-line switch for the same code, same language, etc to treat it as stack-based vs queue-based

lyxal

@DLosc oppa langdev style

DLosc

@lyxal Lambda Haskell style

Michael Homer

@Bbrk24 I have built this before, and it's quite fun to make programs that work both ways, but the core operation set is very ugly

Bbrk24

The thing about a queue-based language is that after operating you can’t reach the value you just created, because it’s on the other end of the data structure

Henry WH Hack v3.0

23:00

This user is trying to avoid PLDI.SE:

1

A: New SE site for Programming Language Design

Honestly, after reading through Qs and comments (e.g. "Why did language 'x' choose to have feature 'y'"), this is a sort of SE that I like to avoid for finding useful information. It seems that anything that addresses "design and implementation" is prone to fights on interpretation, opinions, and...

So I made a bold move and invited them.

New Posts

0

Q: What are good tactics for implementing a language server?

I’ve recently written a compiler and I wouldn’t mind turning it into a language server. I’m also sitting on a couple of interpreters that I would like to turn into language servers. And I’m planning to start a new compiler that could potentially be designed as a language server from the get-go....

language-server-protocol

naffetS

23:21

aa

Bbrk24

welcome to the club

I hit the vote limit three days in a row, and the site's not even been up for 72 hours

blueberry

new site problems

naffetS

lmao

Adám

Are y'all just upvoting everything or actually considitering if a question shows research effort and is useful and clear, or for an answer, if it is useful?

5

New Posts

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Q: How could a language implement generic traits?

Take C#'s IEnumerable<T> interface. It has a singular requirement: public interface IEnumerable<out T> { IEnumerator<T> GetEnumerator(); } IEnumerator<T> simply provides a way to traverse a sequence -- the kind of thing needed for a foreach loop. The implementation of that is unimportant here....

types generics traits

Bbrk24

23:27

I posted an answer saying how Swift does it because that is, in fact, an answer. But I'm curious what other methods exist.

The more I learn about Rust, the more things I see that Swift copied from it

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