The Nineteenth Byte

12:21 AM

@TheDoctor I don't quite understand. Is the challenge to compress a file? Or is compression only used for scoring? In which case, is it the source or the output that's compressed? And where is the difficulty?

The challenge is to compress a file

Then where is the difficulty in testing?

Downloading all the compilers/interpreters

Oh so you're just saying you don't trust the compression sizes the participants are claiming? Or do you not want to give out the actual benchmark file, but just some example input?

In any case, I'm sure you can ask for help here to test the obscurer languages.

I will give out a benchmark file generator (the files it makes are ~45 MB)

12:30 AM

Oh but because they are random you want to test the submissions yourself against x generated files for scoring? (so that people can't keep regenerating until they find a lucky input for their algorithm)

(btw, we recently had this with the monopoly challenge: even if the decompressor is irrelevant for your scoring system, require one anyway, as proof that the compression isn't lossy)

That's what i was planning. I will also disallow solutions that would never really work (like hashing)

Re testing, I guess you can ask for compiled binaries if you don't want to install a particular compiler/interpreter. Otherwise ask for help here.

k

alternatively, let your generator take a seed. and then the scoring will be determined from the total compressed size of the files generated from x fixed seeds. this way everyone could do the testing themselves. (of course, that would still require trusting people that the score they claim to have is actually based on on those compressed files)

of course that would add a deadline to the challenge (the day on which you publish those fixed seeds)

That's why i would have to it myself...

12:45 AM

I see, fair enough. Well I suppose that's just the same dilemma as for everyone posting a KotH challenge.

You kinda have to test those yourself...

1:56 AM

Hi :D

Working on an event-driven expression-based Lispish language w/ lambda calculus

might be useful for golfing, might not

hi. new here?

New to the chat, not the site though

augh, Python 2 beats my language at determining whether a number is odd or even by 3 characters

probably because of how stupid operator calls are atm

your language is?

@TheDoctor Maybe gonna call it Ena, it's quite lisp-like

wanna see some code? :3

sure...

how about lithp?

2:07 AM

@TheDoctor :P one sec, pasting somewhere

@TheDoctor pastie.org/private/gjqo64gzttyaq6ptpxxcq

4:10 am is probably not THE best time to design languages...

4

I see. I prefer Python 2! :)

Doorknob

Heh. I've always wanted to design my own language meant to do something useful, and then abuse the heck out of it by golfing it down to ugliness :D

A: Bring out the inner llama of a sentence

@Doorknob xD Heeeeyy

@Doorknob The weird part is, I haven't even gotten to that second part yet

Doorknob

:P

-3

First of all, what the heck is the inner llama of a sentence??? This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Is it like you're trying to persuade the sentence to come out of the closet or something??? It sure sounds like it. That made no sense, but neither did the question, so who cares... Billy Jo...

^ lol, flaggy plz

(6 offensive/abusive flags = insta-delete)

I used to like Billy Joel :P

2:14 AM

flagged :)

woops. i did non-answer

@TheDoctor ...me too D:

hehe

yo

hey

[beatboxing]

just wrote code for the golf doorknob linked to :P

Trying to write some documentation so I can remember Ena (???) tomorrow :P

always been bad at writing docs

Q: Survival Game - Create Your Wolf

2:54 AM

I haven't seen @mniip in a while

Quincunx

4:05 AM

@Doorknob Delete voted. I already flagged as not-an-answer.

Quincunx

4:20 AM

Is there a reason why the map size for this question:

154

The Board The Board is a two dimensional array of cells. Cells are populated by Animals. Every day, all Animals on the Board simultaneously make one move. If two or more Animals move to the same cell, they fight until one remains. The possible moves and attacks are as follows: Moves - { Move.U...

is sqrt(n+3)*20 and not sqrt((n+3)*20)?

The second would add 20 squares per entry.

The first adds 400. Oh.

Duh, it is easy to move the *20 in by multiplying by 20, so the map size given is sqrt((n+3)*400)

Quincunx

7:45 AM

I'm working on a Revenge of the 5th KotH which will probably only be ready be the 6th. :-(.

Just because the testing program is really hard to write. I have 350+ lines of code.

9:04 AM

@Quincunx Sounds cool :D

Synthetica

9:55 AM

I've started on project Euler using J, and I've gotta say: I'm really starting to like it.

undergroundmonorail

Project Euler or J?

Synthetica

J

I already started on Euler with Python, but J is just more fun to program in

undergroundmonorail

I use python for Euler, but I'm a terrible programmer so I do a lot of silly things

There's one problem where you have to find all equations of the form "x * y = n" where the digits of x, y, and n together have every number from 1 to 9 exactly once.

I generated every possible sequence of digits from 1 - 9, stuck a '*' and '==' in every possible spot, and used eval to see if the resulting equation was true.

Synthetica

Sounds familiar.

There was a (now deleted) question here, that asked "how can you use the digits 1 to 9, in order, with operators between them be used to make 100?", and that was my exact sollution

Even though I did use eval("blah")==100, because that's more efficient ;)

Also: while I don't think that the bible was handed down by God to man, itertools most certainly was.

10:23 AM

it'd be a simple itertools.permutations loop o:

Moogie

11:37 AM

I was thinking of posing a series of themed KoTH challenges however I am not sure how an idea would be received.

The overarching theme was to be be Fighter Jet Fight, with the individual challenges to be something similar to:

1. AI to engage/avoid fighter jets (The AI with the most kills over 10 rounds wins)

2. target acquisition for a Infra Red missile (the code that successfully acquires the target over progressivily more cluttered scenes wins)

3. missile tracking and ai for missile movement to target. (code that scores the most points where points are given to damage to target)

11:59 AM

@Moogie Everybody loves a good KoTH :D You might want to integrate your individual challenges into a single entry, it's more satisfying if you can set up an entire fighter jet

Moogie

@Trimsty I was thinking the same thing, but it would be pretty overwhelming to have a single challenge involving all the individual challenges.

Perhaps doing it incrementally, with the current "best" solution for a individual challenge being used to power the game engine for the next challenge component.

i.e. the best target acquisition solution is used as input to the missile tracking competition

hmm... I am thinking I am starting to like the idea of the component based challenge... I am envisioning that the challenge starts with some very rudimentary solutions for the individual components that the competitors are able to then propose replacement solutions. The scoring would have to be done slightly different though.

Perhaps scoring based on a exponential of the the improvement to the component performance combined with the improvement with the scenario outcome (aka target hit score)