The Nineteenth Byte

Thomas Kwa

3:00 AM

I'd be ahead of @PhiNotPi, and pretty close to @Doᴡɴɢᴏᴀᴛ, if I hadn't offered 1.5k in bounties.

trichoplax

@PhiNotPi Is it required to round 0.6 recurring to 0.6667 rather than just truncating?

(no preference, just making sure it's clear whether that's a requirement)

Thomas Kwa

Wait, why are empty and singleton strings 100% smooth?

angle of what?

trichoplax

@ThomasKwa Author's bias

Maltysen

I misread, srry

RikerW

@ThomasKwa Definitely. :P

PhiNotPi

3:02 AM

There's no basis.

I could choose to leave them out if I wanted to.

RikerW

8 mins ago, by trichoplax

@RikerW I was more thinking that you were like the cat ;)

Thomas Kwa

I'd leave them out; there doesn't seem to be a good reason.

trichoplax

6 mins ago, by El'endia Starman

@Dennis So....RikerW will commit a murder-suicide?

RikerW

@trichoplax Yes.

trichoplax

lol I'm lost now

PhiNotPi

3:04 AM

@ThomasKwa Changed

trichoplax

@PhiNotPi Just realised you edited to mention truncation before I even mentioned it...

PhiNotPi

See? This is how the sandbox is supposed to work. In and out in under an hour.

El'endia Starman

Crap. I think my scoring for the Spacewar! KotH is non-transitive.

PhiNotPi

That's the best kind of scoring.

Thomas Kwa

That reminds me, I have an idea for a KotH

quintopia

3:16 AM

@El'endiaStarman this is why i prefer fixed-point scoring methods for KoTHs :)

Thomas Kwa

One-millisecond chess.

El'endia Starman

@quintopia Like...?

Thomas Kwa

Or one-millisecond [some other classic game]

quintopia

@El'endiaStarman It was my idea to use fixed-point Markov scoring for bfjoust: zem.fi/bfjoust

this explains the scoring: zem.fi/bfjoust/internals

quartata

@AlexA. If there was a golfy version of Julia (like Pyth), would you use it?

El'endia Starman

3:18 AM

@quintopia Huh, I guess I could try that for a later KotH.

quartata

@El'endiaStarman I forgot the Spacewar Koth was still going. Is Helios still winning?

El'endia Starman

@quartata By far.

PhiNotPi

40 minutes: possibly my sandbox record

El'endia Starman

No new bots have been submitted for over a week though.

#   Name                       Mean      StdDev
1.  Helios                     13.625    6.852
2.  EdgeCase                    8.335    8.155
3.  OpponentDodger              8.415    8.186

I think @TheNumberOne had been working on a neural-network-tweaked bot that is optimized against the others.

PhiNotPi

NumberOne always does neural/evo bots.

quartata

3:21 AM

@PhiNotPi Alex style addition was in and out in about 10 minutes

not that that's something to brag about

New Main Posts

2

Q: Smooth vs. Chunky vs. Broken Squiggles

Heavily based on Chunky vs. Smooth Strings. Squiggles /\_/\/\__/\/\/\/\_/\_/\ are fun to make on a keyboard when you are really bored. But not all squiggles are created equal. Some squiggles are smooth, like \___/, and some are chunky, like /\/\/\/\. Others are just downright broken, like ///...

El'endia Starman

This is the part that's giving me problems (ignore the numbers on the left):

6.  Engineer                    3.903    6.315
12. DangitBobby                 3.320    4.423
13. SprayAndPray                3.118    4.642
9.  PanicAttack                 2.622    3.102
11. UhhIDKWhatToCallThisBot     2.555    3.406
8.  AttackAndComeBack           2.521    2.921

My scoring is to rank by mean, unless means are within one unit, then rank by standard deviation.

DangitBobby is better than Engineer, which is better than PanicAttack, which is better than DangitBobby.

Doggone non-transitivity!

This maybe could be remedied by running more games, but that'll take time and lots of retyping.

Retyping of the scoring, that is.

PhiNotPi

maybe try mean - some constant * standard deviation

El'endia Starman

But how do I pick a good constant?

What I would really love to do is see these normal distributions so I can intuit the best way to rank them.

PhiNotPi

Well, what that represents is "the score that I am x% confident that the true score is above" or something like that

Ooh... slightly more complicated than that.

El'endia Starman

3:30 AM

Yeah, I was thinking "why not pick c = 3?". That would be 99.85% of the area, if I recall correctly.

What I really want is "how likely is bot A to beat bot B given their overall performance?".

This way, I penalize bots that are optimized against the best ones without caring for the worst.

But given the bots we have now, the ones that are good against the best are also good against the worst, so...

Sherlock9

Does anyone have a link to a good leaderboard Stack Snippet? I think I should put one up on my Levenshtein question

trichoplax

How would it look if you scored each bot by the number of bots it can beat, then tie break based on something else?

El'endia Starman

@trichoplax Dunno. I'd have to modify TheNumberOne's modification of my controller to find out.

trichoplax

(maybe tie break the initial score based on the sum of the initial scores of the bots it can beat)

So you get more points for beating a bot that can beat those that can beat you

El'endia Starman

That would be pretty interesting.

trichoplax

3:38 AM

No idea if it would help in the end - just thinking aloud

PhiNotPi

@El'endiaStarman Maybe this? mam.hostei.com

El'endia Starman

I think I've got a potential solution to my non-transitivity: bots with means more than 1 unit apart are strictly ordered by mean.

trichoplax

I'd be tempted to perform enough games to determine an unambiguous winner, then anyone else too close just get joint places

El'endia Starman

@PhiNotPi Hmm. Maybe that could work if there were a way to allow not voting for candidates.

@trichoplax Oh, there's already an unambiguous winner.

trichoplax

I'd still expect that to encourage competition to move from joint 2nd to sole 2nd

PhiNotPi

3:42 AM

There is.. just leave them out.

El'endia Starman

22 mins ago, by El'endia Starman

#   Name                       Mean      StdDev
1.  Helios                     13.625    6.852
2.  EdgeCase                    8.335    8.155
3.  OpponentDodger              8.415    8.186

PhiNotPi

You can also do A = B for a tie.

Doorknob

Happy 30k @DigitalTrauma!

7

(I totally missed that and him surpassing me again)

GamrCorps

lol congrats!

TanMath

3:57 AM

Congrats @DigitalTrauma

Doorknob

sees (1) on PPCG tab "Oooh, a new question! ... wait, that's the one I just posted."

16

Every time. >_<

quartata

Is there a gold badge version of Deputy? My search-fu is weak

Doorknob

@quartata Marshal

El'endia Starman

Could've gone to the badges page and Ctrl+F'd Deputy...

quartata

I could not find it for some reason

El'endia Starman

4:07 AM

Strange.

quartata

like I said search-fu is weak

New Main Posts

0

Q: Build ASCII ladders

Given an input of two integers n and m, output an ASCII ladder of length n and size m. This is an ASCII ladder of length 3 and size 3: o---o | | | | | | +---+ | | | | | | +---+ | | | | | | o---o This is an ASCII ladder of length 5 and size 1: o-o | | +-+ | | +-+ | | +-+ | |...

code-golf ascii-art

quartata

wow lots of challenges today

Doorknob

@NewMainPosts ASCII art always looks great when oneboxed....

Sherlock9

@MartinBüttner Incidentally, who was this, since the Best Overall Newcomer award didn't make the cut?

RikerW

4:19 AM

Thank you @NewMainPosts.

Anonymous

So what's our stance on self-nomination for the best of stuff?

TanMath

@Mego I will nominate you!

Anonymous

@TanMath That's not quite what I meant

Anonymous

Just in general, is it acceptable for a user to nominate themselves?

TanMath

I guess...

Dennis

4:24 AM

@Mego Yes, that is perfectly acceptable.

Anonymous

@Dennis Ok, neat. It wasn't explicitly stated, and sometimes people dislike it when people self-nominate :P

Thomas Kwa

@TanMath Don't nominate people because they ask you, nominate them if their content is worthy.

Dennis

s/because they ask you/for any other reason/

TanMath

@ThomasKwa he didn't ask me

PhiNotPi

I'll appreciate it if someone nominated me for rookie of the year! :)

RikerW

4:32 AM

I don't think you count...

Well, maybe.

Doorknob

> Member for 4 years, 3 months

Anonymous

@PhiNotPi Sure, lemme just go back in time 4 years first

RikerW

^^

12

Q: Code Golf: What is the spaceship's fate? [ASCII art version]

Background In a galaxy (and possibly a universe) far, far away... there was a spaceship and a bunch of planets. A malfunction on board caused the spaceship to run out of fuel. It is now moving at a dangerously slow speed near a cluster of planets, from which it must escape! What will be the crew...

code-golf ascii-art path-finding printable-ascii

From 2012...

Dennis

I'm a total rookie though.

6

Anonymous

Yeah, he hasn't even started using Seriously yet

Thomas Kwa

4:33 AM

/me nominates @Phi for "Rookie of the Decade"

Doorknob

So what is it with these random unexplained downvotes within a few minutes after I post a challenge now? -_-

TanMath

I wish I was nominated though I would lose...

Anonymous

@Doorknob My bot auto-downvotes mod posts to balance the reputation, giving us peasants a chance #OccupyPPCG /s

Dennis

@Doorknob -1 not enough doorhandles

quintopia

I wish there was a best new esolang category. Even if that isn't really what the site is about. It's just I'm sad I never got to vote in the Essies back when they were a thing.

RikerW

4:37 AM

@Doorknob It was Geobits, I know it!!!

Dennis

@quintopia There kinda is.

Ah, esolang. Nevermind.

Justin

Guys, what is this pic supposed to mean?

quintopia

@Dennis well, golfing languages are a subset of esolangs, but it does rule out a lot of cool things. IIRC, Martin made like 3 or 4 new langs last year...

Justin

3

Thomas Kwa

I still think I'll give 500 or 600 rep on my own for best answers in popular languages

Doorknob

4:39 AM

accepts an old answer to restore rep-ending-in-0-or-5-ness

Justin

@Justin math-fail.com/2014/11/how-math-looks-to-me.html

quintopia

@Justin It means that math is not an orderly practical pursuit. It is a raucous, chaotic, creative pursuit

Justin

Okay

I shared it to my facebook, and my friends seem to be misinterpreting.

I saw it and thought, "This perfectly represents my view of math. Most people view it as boring abacus work, but to me, it's like playing with one of those toys!"

4

My friends are thinking, "Math is complicated."...

Anonymous

@Justin It means "it's simple to most people, but complete chaos to me"

RikerW

^ lol

Justin

4:41 AM

Lol

Anonymous

@Justin That's how most sane people would interpret it, I expect

Thomas Kwa

^

Dennis

Who's calling me insane?

Anonymous

Hi

Justin

@Mego Apparently I'm insane

Anonymous

4:42 AM

I'm a voice in your head

quintopia

@Dennis You called yourself insane just a little while ago. Don't you remember?

Anonymous

@Justin Welcome to PPCG, you'll fit in well here

RikerW

This is stupid:

If you say I can review, let me!!!

Justin

@Mego I'm a regular here, but I just haven't been here in a while.

Doorknob

> welcomes user who's been around for years

5

Justin

4:43 AM

^

Anonymous

@Justin 'twas a joke

Anonymous

@RikerW Is that main or meta?

RikerW

Meta.

OH YAY!!! brb reviewing. :P

Aww, no reviews needed. :( :P

Sherlock9

@Justin I interpreted as "It's chaos!" at first. But I like the "It's fun!" interpretation better

Anonymous

I kinda want to do a challenge that involves a crowdsourced component like the time capsule, but I don't have any ideas

Anonymous

4:45 AM

Also I had an idea for a challenge earlier and it fell out of my head :(

Doorknob

You should just pick it up from the floor

Anonymous

This is what I get for not walking around with a notepad

quintopia

What makes a golfing language "promising"? That it could eventually regularly dominate Pyth in conciseness? Or can it promise other things? Like "being really cool for non-golf-related reasons"?

Sherlock9

I have an idea. Input a number from -14 to 12, output, what timezone that is in military time (UTC+0 is Zulu, UTC+7 is Golf) and from a list of cities I will provide in the description, an example city in that timezone kolmogorov-complexity

Anonymous

@quintopia Yes

Sherlock9

4:47 AM

I believe the range of timezones is -14 to 12. Could have it backwards and it's -12 to 14

Anonymous

The categories are intended to be subjective

Dennis

@quintopia I take that category as most likely to kick Pyth's butt.

Doorknob

@Sherlock9 we should definitely all move to the Golf time zone

4

Thomas Kwa

@Doorknob Who's that user who lives in Jakarta?

quintopia

@Dennis So limited and yet still so subjective. There are many ways to kick Pyth's butt, not just at concision :D

Sherlock9

4:49 AM

@Doorknob I would welcome you all to Jakarta, the food is good, the weather is humid, locals are friendly, and most everything is cheap. Traffic is horrendous, but since we'll all be sitting in air-conditioned rooms golfing, that won't me much of a problem

@ThomasKwa Hi

Calvin's Hobbies

Am I crazy or does this site not let you use up/down arrow keys to scroll ._.

Doorknob

You're not crazy

Thomas Kwa

@Sherlock9 You'll be massively advantaged due to lack of jetlag

quintopia

@Calvin'sHobbies works fine for me

Dennis

@quintopia It's a category for golfing languages. It should be about golfing.

Sherlock9

4:50 AM

@ThomasKwa If you're all moving here, the jetlag will pass in a week.

Thomas Kwa

True

quintopia

@Calvin'sHobbies oh wait, after it finished loading, it stopped allowing them to work. oh well. thank goodness for vimium

Thomas Kwa

I interpreted "moving" as "use that sleep schedule" though

Anonymous

@Calvin'sHobbies You're crazy, but also correct

Thomas Kwa

@Calvin'sHobbies Space/shift+space still work

quintopia

4:52 AM

@Dennis golfing language is ... such a subjective term :D

Sherlock9

@Calvin'sHobbies I can scroll with the arrow keys

Thomas Kwa

@quintopia "designed for golfing"?

Calvin's Hobbies

@Doorknob Why would anyone do this F_F

Doorknob

@Calvin'sHobbies I do not have an answer to that question

quintopia

@ThomasKwa "designed for golfing in addition to ..."

@ThomasKwa or even "designed for X and also golfing"

Thomas Kwa

4:54 AM

I think any languages whose design golfing concerns have influenced are golfing languages.

quintopia

@ThomasKwa I guess I can get behind that definition

Does anyone disagree with Thomas?

Does anyone agree?

El'endia Starman

@ThomasKwa Would Minkolang count, then?

Dennis

I think that would make APL a golfing language.

Calvin's Hobbies

Well there's golfing and there's conciseness

El'endia Starman

Well...making it semi-golfing happened anyway because of the one-char-per-command restriction due to the 2Dness...

Thomas Kwa

4:56 AM

@El'endiaStarman Have you ever implemented something because it's shorter (even though it doesn't increase any other desirable trait)?

El'endia Starman

@ThomasKwa I think so...maybe? I did implement functions to make programs using that functionality be shorter...

Like what I did for the Calculate Phi (Not Pi) challenge...

Anonymous

A golfing language is an esoteric language designed to be good at code golf

Anonymous

APL is good at code golf, but it's not exactly an esoteric language

New Sandboxed Posts

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Is it abbreviation. An abbreviation has multiple kinds. You take first initial letter from every word. The each letter is uppercased. For this challenge, word like "and" is included. World's biggest dosas => WBD Programming Puzzles Code Golf => PPCG Programming Puzzles and Code Golf => PPACG ...

quintopia

@El'endiaStarman Minkolang is actually the reason I started this discussion. I think it's really cool, but I also think it stands no chance of kicking Pyth's ass.

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