@BlockCoder1392 I have a challenge idea based on this: check if a number is representable by one digit and nothing else, eg. 872496299507712 = 2^2 * 22^2^2 * 2^22 * 222 where ^'s and *'s can be omitted

so only multiplication and exponentiation are allowed?

@MartinBüttner yes, but eg. 2*2 is not okay as that is just 22, my example would be $2^{2}22^{2^{2}}2^{22}222$ in mathjax

I couldn't find a quick matjax to image converter so I could past my example in here

codecogs.com/latex/eqneditor.php

ninja'd

So, apparently for almost any Pyth solution past 40 bytes (without packed strings) using .v."…" (evaluate packed string as Pyth) is shorter

See Pyth room for details

What's a "packed string"?

A string which is packed

Unicode base encoding, I assume

@Adnan ...

:)

A packed string is basically the string converted from the smallest possible base to base 256, with two extra bytes to mark the min & max characters of the string

I've said it before and I'll say it again: going outside of ASCII to make code shorter is boring. -_-

^

But packed strings are meant for data

@Doorknob冰 it doesn't become a lot more interesting if you do the same with base 128

s/ASCII/printable ASCII/

s/128/95/

If you manage to compress a string while staying inside printable ASCII, I'm okay with that

@Dennis: got your time capsule thing

@MartinBüttner as a mathematica person.. did you know mathematica had an Entropy function??

@dorothy I vaguely remember not being allowed to use it in a challenge, so yes.

@MartinBüttner ah ok :) It seems... excessive :)

Using it increases the entropy of the universe

@dorothy there are weirder things

MandelbrotSetPlot, IntegerReverse, Sunset

@MartinBüttner sunset is somewhat excessive too :)

@MartinBüttner it slightly made fun of my challenge however.. codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/68279/21585

@Pietu1998 @GamrCorps thanks, that's great

I just found this:

Where is that from?

xorting

@Doorknob冰 (insert thumbs-up emoji)

@mbomb007, @NinjaBearMonkey, @randomra, @Sp3000, @TheNumberOne, @Dennis, @DigitalTrauma: Retina needs a way to group stages without creating a loop (specifically, because I want to add the by-line option, Sp suggested a while ago, but I think it would be useful in general). I think the best syntax for that would actually be (), in analogy with regex. Loops could then be {} instead. Of course that breaks backwards-compatibility. So I wanted to ask if anyone would object to that change?

also, with a general grouping syntax, it will be easier to add different kinds of control flow structures like other loop types without running out of characters. {} would then probably just be shorthand for a group with the + option set.

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM THE WEST COAST

@MartinBüttner Sounds good to me.

@MartinBüttner this is +1 char for loops, right? grouping would be also auto completed at the first & last stages?

well if I add {} as shorthand then it's the same amount of characters for loops

and yes, grouping would also be auto-completed.

right, I can't read

looks good to me

@MartinBüttner That looks good to me :)

So I decided to try out smaz as a string compressor for pl

'Hello, World!' compressed by 0%

...

ok

@Pietu1998 Is that generally better than just a straight up base 96 to base 256 conversion? I'd imagine the two extra bytes would make it bigger for small strings, but I don't know what it's like for medium/large strings

It's actually three bytes overhead since you need a . before the string. The output base is not strictly set, you just set a minimum & maximum character and then it figures out the base itself. (There's a converter in the docs.)

I thought the . was just to tell the interpreter that it is a packed string, right?

Am I safe here?

Of course!

@Zizouz212 Nope.

Umm...

There's nowhere to hide from Doorknob.

@Doorknob冰 Look who's here!!

It's our best blue friend, @Zizouz212!

@Doorknob冰 Thanks (sorry for the delay)!

@Zgarb Apparently my brain doesn't quite work right now. What's x and y for a = 4, b = 6, d = 2?

ohhh

x and y can be negative

nevermind...

Hello

how are you?

@Zizouz212 you have made a terrible mistake

now you're pingable again >:D

!

Well at least this time he won't get stealth pinged into oblivion.

Who knows.

@AlexA. 111 bytes... IT IS ON!

(as soon as TIO stops hanging...)

hahaha

@AlexA. Did you see my 'research' bout that song you posted?=)

I suspect you know Dream Theater?=)

Yes I did but I forgot to respond! I didn't hear the melody in question in the Journey song but it was a good song nonetheless. And of course I know Dream Theater. :P

Did you also know that song "the big medley"?

I think I've heard it before but I've never been a huge fan of Dream Theater so I don't know it well.

@AlexA. could you save bytes by multiplying i%a and i%b?

Dammit, 109! >:O

@MartinBüttner Let's find out...

@GamrCorps Hello

Nope

@SuperJedi224 You don't want to say hello to me? Do you not love me anymore? D:

@Zgarb is it possible for the first common divisor difference in the string not to be the gcd? if so, that should be a test case (and I need to fix my code)

@AlexA. You were already here when I got here,

@Doorknob冰 Is there any Ruby equivalent to Perl's -n?

@Zgarb also, can it happen that the two Os are not adjacent?

@MartinBüttner Hmm, I'm not sure. Let me think.

@AlexA. I'll say hello to you because I still love you.

Hello @AlexA.

Hello! <3

@quartata What does -n do?

@MartinBüttner That can't happen, because the gcd is the minimum distance between two os before replacement.

@AlexA. Wraps your code in a while(<>) { ... }

@RikerW define "from PPCG"

@quartata o.c

Very useful in golfing

And I'm asking because I want to try a challenge in Ruby but don't know if I should make it a function or not

@Zgarb oh, right.

well if that is the minimum distance, then you can't have a smaller common divisor as a distance either

in fact it means I can just go looking for the smallest separation instead of looking for a common divisor

Guess I'll just do a lambda

@MartinBüttner Oh, you're right of course.

@quartata I dunno, man ruby

@FlagAsSpam, @SuperJedi224: got your time capsule entires

ok

@Doorknob冰 I dunno, man. Ruby.

hahaha

Dammit, 99 bytes!! >:O

y u do dis, @martin

:)

I thought of ways to shorten my code but it made the code longer.

...so they weren't ways to shorten my code

clearly

^

@Doorknob冰 Is there a deadline for the time capsule submissions?

If we get enough submissions we should be able to use every printable character=P

@flawr Probably either after a week, 2 weeks, or a month. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

and we should be able to use some twice

> This is tested only on my laptop (OS X) and isn't guaranteed to work anywhere else (or at all, for that matter).

Always something you want to see in a repo

by making an esolang out of these characters, do you mean that these are the characters to be used in the esolang, or in the implementation?

In the esolang itself (I think)

that would be a lot easier

I should avoid answering questions I don't know the answer to that were directed at someone else.

I believe it said the task is going to be "Write a program (in some esolang invented before then) that uses all of those characters."

^

kk

@AlexA. but spreading misinformation is half the fun of being on the internet ;P

Oh so true

I think I heard some quote along the lines of "if you want to know something you should not ask, but you should post a wrong answer".

Hahaha

Sounds accurate

This is maddening. I'm at 4999 rep.

quick everyone downvote @CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ

@Doorknob冰 ಠ_ಠ

there

really

uncool

O-o

I'm so confused

haha

disclaimer: I did not vote on anything

I just upvoted your levenshtein distance answer

wait, now you're at 5007

???

I would undownvote your zodiac answer, but its too late

I just undid my voting.

I was trying -2 -2 +5 but looks like somebody did a +10

XD

@Maltysen is it?

yeah its like 17 hrs since I voted

?

*unupvote

oh

XD

and ಠ_ಠ

ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

@MartinBüttner Only 4 bytes behind you now! I'm coming for you!!!

ಠ̨̨͚̞̿́̋̔̋ͩͣ͟͢ͅ_͕̝̙͎̑̃̑ͤ͠ಠ̸͚͙͖͉̗̳̲̉ͨ̒̇̑́ͪ͋̈́̄̍ͪ̊̚͝

Huh, that was taller than I thought it would be.

Zalgo disapproves

ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ

so, my mom happened to give me this weird combination microphone/speaker thingy for Christmas/birthday (and didn't give it to me until now for some reason)

I shall try to use it the next time we make face noises at each other maybe

(._.) ( l: ) ( .-. ) ( :l ) (._.)

><((((‘>

Maybe later this year

(ง︡’-‘︠)ง

like tonight sometime

... that is indeed later this year

( ಠ ͜ʖರೃ)

\ō͡≡o˞̶ can't handle my car

It ain't a golf cart

It's a golf car

@PhiNotPi Do a barrel roll?

I'll give you this @Doorknob冰, Ruby has some redeeming features.

@quartata redeeming? As if it needs to be redeemed?

ε(´סּ︵סּ`)з

@Doorknob冰 So you're planning to actually say something next time? :P

Well it isn't Perl. So yes it needs to be redeemed.

@AlexA. maaaaybe :P

(yes duh)

@quartata ಠ_ಠ

It also has some not so redeeming features.

Having to use === and append those .0s to that giant eval string was very annoying.

If you say the fact that it isn't Perl, I'll delete your account

All hail Julia

@Zgarb I would be opposed to allowing any char for unary input, it's a bit like allowing any type of list input and ending up with the actual code as separator

@quartata why did you have to use ===?

@Doorknob冰 For comparing the results I thought

It seems to be the same but with only 1 byte extra info

== just tells you if they are the same object right?

@randomra I was kind of thinking the same thing.

@quartata no

Oh oops

=== tells you whether they're the same object, right?

irb(main):001:0> 'hi' == 'hi'
=> true

=== does a whole bunch of magic

OK fixed

And == is equality?

for example, using foo === Class checks if foo is a Class

@Doorknob冰 Although in this case 'hi' would actually be the same immutable string literal (at least in Java, dunno how Ruby handles that)

using string === regex checks if regex matches string

it's basically the black magic operator

o_O

I thought <=> was the black magic operator

@quartata Java doesn't let you single quote strings. Only characters.

irb(main):008:0> 'hi'.__id__ == 'hi'.__id__
=> false

@SuperJedi224 I know

@quartata ^^

I was pretending for a moment Ruby was Java but better

@SuperJedi224 Like any sensible language.

(I hate interchangeable ' and ")

@AlexA. Doesn't Julia let you interchange them?

@randomra Hmm, you may be right. I'll restrict it to printable ASCII just in case.

@quartata No

Ah

" is for strings and ' is for chars

this silica gel says "do not eat" in quotes

it's like it's being sarcastic

Haha

Maybe you should eat it and see what happens

Could be candy

brb eating it

brb calling poison control

In other news, drawception is continuing to go rather slowly.

@AlexA. "Yeah... uhh... I may or may not have told him to eat the package that says do not eat."

Poison control: ಠ_ಠ

"There's a reason we put it in quotes: It's a quote from poison control!"

"do not eat" — Abraham Lincoln

@Doorknob冰 This is the response I give for when I'm asked when I'll accept answers on my questions.

Lol

So I just got back from the rose parade, and there was an unplanned suprise.

Somebody took 5 jets and spelled out derogatory messages about Donald Trump in the sky.

It was hilarious.

... what? O_o

is there a video?

^

@RikerW ...why.

For instance, the first message was "America is great and Trump is disgusting."

@Maltysen IDK, googling now. I took a video but it is on my phone.

@SuperJedi224 Cause trump sucks

@Maltysen cnn.com/2016/01/01/politics/…

@SuperJedi224 Because Donald.