The Nineteenth Byte

12:20 AM

0

In the esoteric programming language Curly, programs consist solely of curly braces {} and semicolons ;. Despite this humble toolset, Curly has literals that can represent any nonnegative integer. The format is a little hard for the uninitiated to read, though, so let's write some code to do the ...

Alex A.

2:17 AM

Wow, such silence. Very quiet. Amaze.

Doorknob

Alex A.

The quietest place I've ever been was in the desert well outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. The only sounds I heard were ones I made. It was neat but also a little unnerving.

Oh, @Doorknob, C++ question for you.

What, if anything, am I supposed to put in a struct or class destructor?

Doorknob

2:33 AM

@AlexA. Anything you have to run whenever an object goes out of scope. Usually it's delete'ing pointers.

Alex A.

So for a simple struct like this:

struct Token {
    std::string type, value;
    Token(std::string t = "", std::string v = "") : type(t), value(v) {};
    ~Token() {};
};

there wouldn't be anything to destroy, right?

Doorknob

Yeah, you can just leave out the destructor there.

Alex A.

Omit that line entirely?

Doorknob

Yep.

Alex A.

Awesome, thanks. :)

feersum

2:36 AM

The generated code would be identical whether you include or exclude that line

Alex A.

Good to know

Is there a better way to clear the current values than adding this? :

void clear() {
    type = value = "";
}

inside the struct definition

Doorknob

What's wrong with that?

Alex A.

Nothing that I know of, that's what I'm asking :P

feersum

std::string's also have a clear function themselves, iirc

Alex A.

Oh! So it may be better to do something like type.clear(); value.clear();?

(assuming that's how you clear strings)

feersum

2:41 AM

perhaps, by some infinitesimal amount

Alex A.

Would it be stylistically prefered?

(as you can tell, I know very little about C++)

Alex A.

3:06 AM

@Doorknob @feersum : Storing variables and their values in a map. Good idea, bad idea? (cc anyone else)

feersum

what's the context?

Alex A.

Parsing a language.

When a variable is assigned it would make a new entry in the map with the variable name and value

And referencing a variable would do a lookup from the map

feersum

map is a binary tree. The variables are presumably unordered, so you should use a hash table instead

Alex A.

I don't know what a binary tree is >.>

How does make hash

feersum

unordered_map

Alex A.

3:09 AM

gimmeh teh codez pl0x

Oh

ok

What if they do have an order? Say only A through Z are possible, so the map has a known size.

And order

feersum

then why would you need a map? you have a 26-element array

DLosc

^

Alex A.

So it could just be a std::vector or similar?

feersum

like whatever[26];

Alex A.

Assuming only integer values can be held, can I do std::vector<int64_t> dude[26];?

feersum

3:12 AM

each variable is an array of integers?

Alex A.

No, the array holds the variable values

feersum

each variable is 1 integer?

Alex A.

Yeah

feersum

int64_t dude[26] is all you need

Alex A.

How's that different than using a vector?

I guess I wouldn't need any of the push/pop/erase/etc. functionality

feersum

3:14 AM

the thing you did before is an array of arrays

Alex A.

oh

DLosc

A vector is adjustable size, an array is fixed size.

Alex A.

Ah, okay. And if I know the size ahead of time, there's no need adjustability

DLosc

IIRC, vector uses an array under the hood and dynamically resizes it as necessary, but that adds some overhead.

Right.

Alex A.

Firefox has encountered a bug

PhiNotPi

3:19 AM

@AlexA. Did you get that from Reddit?

Alex A.

My girlfriend showed it to me, idk where she found it

She says yes, Reddit

It's cute as hell.

I never got into Reddit

Sp3000

@Dennis Might need a bit of help with this prime answer if that's okay

(just some rule clarifications)

Alex A.

Seems to be misunderstanding

> So, ..., is the local protocol to withdraw the whole solution, or keep the documentation that the solution you cite (and many others here) do not provably test for primality?

I don't get what he means ^

Dennis

Well, I have actually not even the slightest idea how Mathematica works. But Martin's answer uses Input[], which I assume asks for user input.

The first input rule is badly phrased, I'll rewrite it.

Alex A.

3:35 AM

I have Mathematica, just tested. Input[] brings up a dialog box to enter input (at least in the interactive notebook)

Dennis

@AlexA. Apparently, PrimeQ uses a probabilistic primality test, while ProvablePrimeQ is provable.

Alex A.

Mmm, okay.

DLosc

@MartinBüttner I downloaded Retina.exe from Github, but when I tried to run it, it gave me an error saying it was incompatible with 64-bit Windows. Is this a known issue, or am I doing something wrong? (I have 64-bit Windows 7.)

Alex A.

Did you build from source?

DLosc

No, I wanted not to have to do that if I could help it. :/

The Github repository has an EXE.

Shebang

3:48 AM

I think I had it running fine on Win10 x64 with the repository EXE.

You might wanna try building from source though :)

DLosc

I do have access to C#, so it's not the end of the world if I have to, but it would be much more convenient not to have to.

Alex A.

Or, you know, use Mac OS X with Mono. Just sayin'.

Dennis

@Sp3000 I left a comment.

Thanks for pointing that out. It's easy to overlook an answer when you get 40 per day...

Reto Koradi

@AlexA. Should avatar pictures be a certain size? Or do you just upload anything, and it will be resized to the "right" size?

Alex A.

@Dennis はい、分かった。

@RetoKoradi They can be any square size, they'll be resized for display

DLosc

4:02 AM

Okay, I was doing something wrong. Lesson learned: do clone the Git repository; don't right-click the file in Github and try to download it. I must have been downloading an HTML page and trying to run it as an EXE or something. @MartinBüttner et al

Dennis

translate: はい、分かった。

(from Japanese) Yes, understood.

Useful after all.

Alex A.

For the first and probably last time

Dennis

(Sorry for the second ping.)

Alex A.

(No need to be sorry, I like the noise)

Dennis

Well, that depends on you.

:P

Reto Koradi

4:03 AM

Apologizing to Alex for a ping seems kind of... backwards.

Alex A.

@AlexA. Yolo

@RetoKoradi Are you saying I should apologize for my needless pinging? ಠ_ಠ

C++ question for anyone: Do classes need constructors?

Optimizer

Classes need student reps and homeroom teachers

Alex A.

For a brief second I thought you were actually sharing C++ knowledge. (Which shows how little I know about C++.)

Dennis

Haha.

Optimizer

I wasn't?

Alex A.

4:08 AM

ಠ_ಠ

Optimizer

Aren't you talking about C++ classes?

Alex A.

I said constructors, not instructors.

feersum

there are some autogenerated constructors if you don't define any

Optimizer

without a teacher and a student rep, how would you learn in the class properly?

feersum

why does it matter how much reputation the students have?

Optimizer

4:09 AM

not reputation, but representative

Alex A.

Why is a representative required for learning?

feersum

but reputation is the one true rep!

Dennis

@AlexA. What does ಠ_ಠ have to do with this?

Optimizer

@AlexA. class is bound to make lot of noise.

Alex A.

@Dennis I was giving Optimizer the face of disapproval for his trickery.

@Optimizer So what does the student rep do that the instructor couldn't in terms of quieting down the class?

Dennis

4:11 AM

It's not nice to use somebody's username as an expression of disapproval. :P

Optimizer

we are literally abusing his name

Alex A.

ರ_ರ

Optimizer

Its the same person with eyes closed!

Dennis

OK, that one is just creepy.

Alex A.

It's what happens when @ಠ_ಠ gets suspended and comes back as a zombie.

Because suspension from chat is a punishment on par with death.

Dennis

4:15 AM

An angry zombie. That can't be good.

Alex A.

ತ.ತ

Reto Koradi

4:27 AM

@AlexA. Classes don't need constructors. If you don't have one, it will use what is called default memberwise construction. Which means that the constructors of all member variables are invoked. So if all member variables have sufficient constructors, you don't need one.

Alex A.

When you say member variables do you mean variables defined within the class or instances of the class?

Reto Koradi

Not sure what you mean by that. Member variables are... variables that are class members. For example, if you have your class definition, and you define a variable in there, that's a member variable. If it's not declared static, that would be an instance variable.

Alex A.

許してください、先輩。I don't know the terminology.

So what constitutes a sufficient constructor for a member variable?

Reto Koradi

A constructor that initializes it properly, and with the value you want. This is probably all a bit much to explain in chat.

Alex A.

I think I know what you mean.

Thanks so much for your help and patience, I really appreciate it.

Dennis

4:39 AM

translate: 許してください、先輩。

(from Japanese) Forgive me, seniors.

Alex A.

Hm, "seniors" isn't quite right.

DLosc

"Sirs"? "Gentlemen"? (Just guessing, I don't know Japanese.)

Alex A.

It's just a respectful way to refer to someone more experienced, like how you would refer to someone a class ahead of you in school or something.

許してください == Please forgive me

DLosc

Okay, so someone who is your senior at something. Someone who has seniority. Makes sense.

Alex A.

Yep

I don't know why Bing made it plural though.

Google Translate doesn't (and indeed it shouldn't)

Odd

デニスは私の一番友達。

Reto Koradi

4:48 AM

Hmm, I changed my avatar, but it's not showing up in chat. Caching?

Dennis

I'll refresh.

There it is.

Alex A.

Haha aw

You and @trichoplax are turtle buddies.

Reto Koradi

Darn, somebody already had a turtle?

Alex A.

trichoplax is like the outline of a turtle.

Reto Koradi

Do I at least have the better looking turtle?

Alex A.

4:51 AM

Yes

It is adorable

Reto Koradi

I was considering an elephant as well.

Alex A.

Nobody has an elephant so far AFAIK.

Reto Koradi

Ah, that turtle doesn't look much like mine.

Alex A.

Nope, not at all.

New Main Posts

0

Q: Where did you COME FROM?

INTERCAL is a wonderful language, but it is not always easy to understand other people's code. This is particularly the case if they use the COME FROM statement. Challenge definition Write a program or function which take the source code of an INTERCAL program as a text/data stream. If you wri...

code-golf parsing

Reto Koradi

5:00 AM

@Dennis How do you come up with this stuff? I couldn't think of a good way to convert these numbers without recursion.

Dennis

@RetoKoradi This time? Pure luck. I tried several different approaches, until I arrived that one that was manually implemented base conversion.

Alex A.

:O

Dennis

Great, now I found a new golf and have to re-do the explanation. :/

Reto Koradi

First Martin creates ASCII patterns by rotating the whole thing 8 times. And now this. ;)

Alex A.

5:15 AM

Goodnight, all

Reto Koradi

Goodnight.

Dennis

Good night!

DLosc

5:33 AM

When using unary numbers in a Retina answer, does the number have to consist of 1's or can it use any symbol?

Dennis

I think the meta discussion doesn't say, but 1 is the usual symbol.

Is this for a specific challenge?

DLosc

0

A: Evaluating Dotty Strings

Retina, 105 bytes First Retina program! Each line should go in a separate file; or, you can put them all in one file and use the -s flag. The <empty> notation represents an empty file/line. (`^(a+;)?\.(.*) $1a;$2 ^(a+;)?:(.*) $1aa;$2 ;(a+;)\.(.*) $1$2 (a+);aa;:(.*) $1$1;$2 )`;a;:(.*) ;$1 ; <empty

Not that it's hugely important: A) it saves a whopping 4 bytes; B) my answer's still 3 times the size of the winning answer; C) it's not technically valid anyway b/c Retina is newer than the question :P

FWIW, meta doesn't specify, but Wikipedia says "an arbitrarily chosen symbol representing 1."

Dennis

Sure, "arbitrarily chosen symbol" applies to decimal as well, but we usually insist on 0-9.

DLosc

Touché.

Well, I'll leave the conversion to 1's in, then.

Dennis

Are you sure Retina is newer than the challenge?

@DLosc According to this, Retina was created in February, making it two months older than the question.

DLosc

5:49 AM

Hm. I was looking at the date of the most recent commit, I think. I don't really know whether my submission would have worked on an older version or not.

I suppose it would. I don't think I used any really fancy features.

Dennis

@DLosc I tried. It works just fine with the version from April 7.

DLosc

Cool ^__^

BTW, nice work on Curly numbers. I was expecting somebody would use a base-conversion builtin in one of the golfing languages.

Dennis

Thanks! I just hope it's not a lot shorter in Pyth. :P

DLosc

Yep, that happens frequently, doesn't it :P

Dennis

Too frequently, if you ask me. :D

DLosc

6:01 AM

Well, on that note... good night.

Dennis

Good night!

Reto Koradi

6:39 AM

That's the main thing I missed on that one, recognizing that the Curly numbers are really just base 4 numbers in a funky notation. At least I applied the CJam "switch statement" trick that I saw @Dennis use in a challenge a few days ago. Sometimes I'm paying attention. :)

Dennis

6:55 AM

@RetoKoradi By the way, if you're going to use recursion, j is oftentimes shorter. For your else statement, this should work: La{4md\j_{'{\+'}+}&\';*+}j

minxomat

hi there

Dennis

Hi!

New Sandboxed Posts

7:11 AM

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

This and this gave me an idea, but I'm not quite sure if this can be done at all, or if it is trivial. If it is, maybe point out how it could be changed to be interesting. Anti golfing - Write the longest program not repeating any character Well, it's just what the title says. Conditions the...

Martin Büttner

7:48 AM

@Dennis so should I change the mathematica answer to use a provable prime test?

minxomat

8:21 AM

Off-Topic: Plays the tetris theme in 343 bytes: pastebin.com/jMU8hy7b

New Main Posts

9:02 AM

0

Q: Big big numbers

Whilst trying to golf several of my answers, I've needed to write large integers in as few characters as possible. Now I know the best way to do that: I'll be getting you to be writing this program. The challenge Write a program that when given a positive integer, outputs a program that print...

code-challenge number

orlp

9:53 AM

@MartinBüttner I thought I had dodged all the issues by starting at ASCII 35 to leave out "

@MartinBüttner I forgot about \, but I'm too bored to fix it

only annoyed I haven't implemented i/j in Pyth5 yet, otherwise Pyth5 would bomb this challenge

(Pyth5 has .", which is true embedded binary)

trichoplax

10:35 AM

@AlexA. I can live with second place... :)

Drazick

Hello Guys...

How many here into the Image Processing world?

orlp

@Drazick not much, I've done some stuff

Martin Büttner

there's always dsp.stackexchange.com

Drazick

Just wanted some assistance with a Proposal for Community I saw.

More supporters are needed:

41

Image Processing and Computer Vision

Proposed Q&A site for scholars, researchers and professionals in image processing and computer vision, machine vision, and image analysis; potentially working in related disciplines including machine learning, optimization, neuroscience, robotics, signal/image processing.

Currently in definition.

It's not my proposal, but I think it would be great.
Anyone into it?

orlp

@Drazick isn't that perfectly covered by what @MartinBüttner linked?

Martin Büttner

10:44 AM

3

Q: Why do we need a separate image processing site?

Proposal: ** Image Processing and Computer Vision** Signal processing already caterers for image processing and computer vision and it doesn't get much traffic.

science

Drazick

Well, while DSP is where I hang a lot, Signal Processing covers so much it is very cluttered.

It is just like in Universities you Signal Processing and Image Processing.

orlp

@Drazick If I'm not mistaken all signal theory applies to image processing as well, just with an extra dimension, no?

fourier transform, etc

Drazick

Signal Processing does cover Image Processing, yet Image Processing and Computer Vision are so large, they should have their own place.

I think it would be great addition.

So I would thank anyone if you could just follow and give point to questions with less than 10 Points.

orlp

@Drazick personally I'm not convinced it's necessary

according to area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/1691/signal-processing, dsp.SE is only sitting at 8 q / day

Drazick

Yea, Because usually, people in the Image Processing world won't post there. Not to talk about Computer Vision.

You know, getting into beta will teach us best.

orlp

10:49 AM

@Drazick <citation needed>

in fact, the top tag on dsp.SE is image-processing

Drazick

You know, I can try convonce you for hours.

Convince...

But really needed is a place dedicated for that. Too many good people go to StackOverflow because it doesn't have a dedicated place.

DSP is considered place with many beginners questions in the field.

If we want a place to bring better "Canons" we need a dedicated place.

Not to mention the Computer Vision world.

Would you please just add support, please...

aditsu

11:05 AM

@Drazick I'm for it

Drazick

@aditsu, This is great. Just follow, give ponts to question less than 10 and add questions of your own.

It would be great.
Thank You.

aditsu

hmm, apparently I mised the Day of the Programmer

@Drazick what does "follow" do?

Drazick

Any proposal need 60 followers in order to materialize.

It doesn't do anything to you. Just once we have enough followers and questions with points the Forum itself will be opened.

aditsu

"for scholars, researchers and professionals" - hmm, doesn't sound very attractive

seems like a very high bar for entry

Doorknob

@Drazick Stack Exchange sites are not forums.

3

Drazick

11:13 AM

Yea, I know. I don't have a better term. Be happy to learn.

I usually call it community.

Yet how would you call the questions page on itself?

Doorknob

"Q&A site" is a good term to describe them.

Drazick

Noted...

trichoplax

@aditsu Computer Graphics recently made it to public beta, and that's "for programmers and researchers"

Drazick

@aditsu, Don't worry about it. The questions are for any level.

aditsu

@Drazick I thought you were talking about some kind of discussion forum related to setting up the site, kind of like a chat room :p

@trichoplax does that include Image Processing and Computer Vision?

trichoplax

11:17 AM

@aditsu Potentially some overlap with Image Processing

The scope is still congealing though

Computer Vision includes a lot of machine learning that would be off topic on Computer Graphics

Has anyone ever been unable to access a chat room that is working for others?

I can use the Nineteenth Byte fine, but I can't enter the Computer Graphics chat room

I've tried restarting the browser and wiping the cache

Doorknob

@trichoplax What happens if you do? Does the page just not load?

trichoplax

Yes

"Loading... Just a second"

Doorknob

Huh. That's weird O_o

trichoplax

It's been like this since yesterday

I checked with Martin that it's just me

I have no idea what to try next

aditsu

@trichoplax link?

Doorknob

11:26 AM

Perhaps post a bug on Meta Stack Exchange (with information like browser, OS, etc.)

aditsu

11:43 AM

@Drazick I posted 5 questions :p

trichoplax

12:27 PM

The Cornell Box

General discussion for computergraphics.stackexchange.com

@Doorknob Good thinking - I tried another browser and that worked so I tried the same browser with private browsing and that worked, so it does seem like it's something to do with my browser.

trichoplax

1:17 PM

It turned out to be site preferences that needed to be cleared, rather than cache. No idea why.

orlp

1:28 PM

SpaceChem Brainfuck Interpreter - Sandbox Contest Entry

►

someone made a BF interpreter in spacechem

New Meta Posts

1:41 PM

2

Q: Why I am leaving Code Golf

The contents of this post are solicited opinion that I have been asked by a Code Golf moderator to share with you. I understand "If you don't like it, then GEETTT OOUUTT" applies here, so I have already submitted my account for deletion. I joined Code Golf because the challenge of fulfilling ...

discussion

2

aditsu

1:53 PM

@trichoplax works for me

Dennis

@MartinBüttner That was indeed what I intended. Deterministic seems to have been a bad choice of words though.

Geobits

Trying to put the meta post in context... does anyone know if user1717828 has asked/answered anything? Nothing on the profile, but they might have deleted posts in prep for their account deletion. Just curious if it's a pure outsider's view or someone that has at least tried to participate and felt it was lacking.

Rainbolt

I need context as well, so I asked for it in a comment just now

I was halfway through an answer before I realized that I was mostly just asking questions

Geobits

I thought the meta question (here) was at least politely put, considering they "... find the questions from this particular community so bad that it actually pollutes my feed enough for me to avoid all of Stack Exchange ..."

orlp

@Geobits yet he/she says nothing about the questions, only the answers

Optimizer

2:07 PM

@Rainbolt thanks. Upvoted!

Rainbolt

@orlp Did you read the main meta post that is linked to?

Geobits

In a way, I can sympathize. I had seen PPCG questions on HNQ for a while, and even after I joined (to suggest an edit on one of them), it was six weeks or so before I posted an answer. Mainly because I knew I wouldn't "win". At some point I said screw it and answered.

orlp

@Rainbolt yes

Rainbolt

I don't know of any other feed except the feed for questions, so I assume he is talking about questions

orlp

@Rainbolt in the main meta post he/she complains about our questions being terrible

grc

2:08 PM

@Geobits "Apparently, I made an account and that's why it has been showing up, but I don't remember doing it" -> doesn't sound like (s)he's ever posted

orlp

in the 'explanation' post he/she rants about the answers only being in esolangs

Optimizer

@Geobits that's completely personal. I answered without even giving a thought of winning.

Rainbolt

@orlp Oh, I see what you are saying now

Geobits

@Optimizer Oh I agree it's personal. I'm just saying I can understand the viewpoint a bit. At some point you either decide to have fun anyway, or you walk away.

Optimizer

walking away is fine, I think his reasons are based on a very short set of questions.

Geobits

2:09 PM

Agreed.

Optimizer

someone who makes a very strong initial impression

Geobits

@grc Didn't notice that in the comment there. Nice.

Rainbolt

I had to downvote the PPCG meta psot because it only offers problems, offers no context for those problems, and doesn't offer solutions

I'm surprised it has so many upvotes, unless they are sympathy votes

Optimizer

I am not sure why it has up votes.

given that its not even putting the facts straight . Moreover, does anyone like someone leaving based on that information?

sympathy votes is a thing?

:D

Rainbolt

My guess is that an upvote here means "I agree that this is a problem." or "I support you as a community member and hate to see you go."

The latter is a sympathy vote

cjfaure

2:13 PM

Mine was "I don't know any esolangs and I'm too lazy to learn one"

orlp

honestly

at least with Pyth

Rainbolt

Now, if only we could get "New Meta Posts" and "New Main Posts" to post in the format [Post name](Post URL) then the transcript would actually contain useful information when I decide to star a post as "interesting or useful for the transcript".

orlp

I'm not sure if I'd call it an esoteric langauge

I mean, would you call J/K an esoteric language?

Rainbolt

My philosophy is that everything is an esoteric language until I decide otherwise.

cjfaure

"Would I write something useful in it?"

orlp

2:19 PM

I won't write production code in it

but I have written short snippets of useful code in it, to quickly process some things

cjfaure

TIL Python is an esolang

orlp

here's my problem with the meta post

Pyth doesn't have MseShpdCttr.

Pyth is pretty much general-purpose, with a bit heavy standard library of maths/combinatorics/filters

Rainbolt

What the heck is MseShpdCttr?

orlp

@Rainbolt look at the meta post

Rainbolt

Maybe that's why I have zero context. I don't have a MseShpdCttr

cjfaure

2:22 PM

an overly specific builtin

Rainbolt

I thought it was an analogy. A fake function that solved a fake problem

orlp

@Rainbolt the analogy is a specific builtin to solve a specific problem

Pyth doesn't really have those

Rainbolt

Okay. You were just continuing the anology. I was questioning whether there was an actual MseShpdCttr function lol

orlp

@Rainbolt knowing this community, give it a couple of days, tops

cjfaure

I can imagine something like that existing in a vector-based desktop environment where the cursor is masked

Rainbolt

2:25 PM

We should make a challenge out of his anology

And have as much fun as we possibly can, and give him all the credit

cjfaure

golfs their post to "i don't like builtins haha bye"

Rainbolt

And add a bonus to the challenge: If you authored this meta post and can prove it, you win automatically.

Optimizer

@cjfaure alternatively: "Mathematica is the worst language"

Rainbolt

Which he will be unable to do after deleting his account

cjfaure

aside from the whole MseShpdCttr thing, I really would like to see more language/logic hacking instead of just really short syntax

orlp

2:28 PM

@Zgarb why is the divisor function in your avatar styled with superscript instead of subscript?

Rainbolt

@cjfaure Think of code golf like this. "Within your syntax, however long it may be, how much language/logic hacking can you accomplish?"

It's all relative then. You are clever if you can hack your 8 characters down to 7.

Or your 500 characters down to 400

Geobits

I feel great when I golf 100 bytes out :D

Optimizer

500 would probably go down to ~250

Rainbolt

@Optimizer Stay out of my hypothetical!

Optimizer

or your 5000 characters down to 500

Zgarb

2:30 PM

@orlp It's not actually a divisor function, it's the left shift function on infinite sequences.

cjfaure

@Optimizer #justjavathings

Optimizer

@Rainbolt sorry that I am a better golfer!

cjfaure

oh damn, tension in the nineteenth byte

New Main Posts

0

Q: Remapping ASCII

Challenge Write a program that reorders the ASCII characters! It should output a single string containing all of the printable ASCII characters exactly once. The first character of this string is assigned the value 1, the second character the value 2, and so on. If two characters are normally ...

code-challenge printable-ascii

Optimizer

@cjfaure 5000 -> 500 has actually happened. Martin did it.

cjfaure

2:31 PM

@Optimizer honestly what hasn't Martin done

Optimizer

true, he has even been a llama.

Zgarb

@orlp The superscript just means iteration.

Rainbolt

I think I remember that excuse. "I'm posting because technically this is competitive if it's the only answer." and then later on "Okay I golfed it."

orlp

@Zgarb yay for ambiguous notation!

@Zgarb In cryptography we often use x <<< n to notate circular shifts

@Zgarb although that's bitshifting :)

Martin Büttner

@cjfaure learned Pyth

Zgarb

2:35 PM

@orlp What if you want to shift k times?

Oh wait

Martin Büttner

(also it was actually 5157 -> 214)

Zgarb

x <<< n shifts n times?

orlp

@Zgarb correct

Rainbolt

Is there still interest in KotH challenges? I'm getting the itch again

Geobits

^ yes

cjfaure

2:37 PM

@Rainbolt i asked why there wasn't a recent one a little while ago when i came back from being dead

Rainbolt

It doesn't look like there have been many lately

cjfaure

Aug 14 '14 at 13:41, by cjfaure

@overactor the amount of fun i have on the site is proportional to KoTH density

Rainbolt

It's a little scary how fast you found that

cjfaure

It's on my starred messages page

Rainbolt

I'm thinking about incentivising dying as fast as possible, or some other meme that is forbidden as a loophole.

Zgarb

2:39 PM

@orlp We use σ as left shift in symbolic dynamics.

cjfaure

I use the left shift on my keyboard

Zgarb

:P

orlp

@Zgarb so if I understand correctly, x is some sort of state machine, and sigma(x) is the pump function to get to the next state?

Zgarb

@orlp x is any infinite sequence of symbols, and sigma(x) is x shifted one step to the left. x may not have any specific structure, for all we know it was produced by flipping a coin infinitely many times.

The word "state" in the Wiki article is a bit misleading.

orlp

@Zgarb does it matter whether you call them states or symbols or dildos?

you can interpret them as one or the other

or am I missing something?

Zgarb

2:49 PM

No, it doesn't matter, except that "states" may make you think that there should be a state machine involved.

orlp

@Zgarb maybe machine wasn't the right word, it implies some sort of physical construct limited by time

@Zgarb is x necessary infinite?

Zgarb