The Nineteenth Byte

mbomb007

19:02

0

A boring version of yourself Have you ever dreamed of a boring version of you which types the text you just typed ? No ? Because that's exactly what I'm challenging you to do ! The program needs to check how many time it took for the user to input a text at program launch and then retype the t...

popularity-contest

[duplicate] ... are you saying I'm boring?!

Riker

lol

interesting: this user is unregistered, has 1 answer, but it's scoring 183 and is pretty much word-of-god

184

A: Why is "Pokémon" written with an accent?

The mark in question is an acute accent mark and is absolutely intended to mimic the native Japanese pronunciation, which itself is based on the English words "pocket monster". Because of English orthography, there is considerable ambiguity surrounding the pronunciation of the character "e". (C...

New Sandboxed Posts

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Which Day of Christmas is it? In the well known carol, The Twelve Days of Christmas, the narrator is presented with several gifts each day. The song is cumulative - in each verse, a new gift is added, with a quantity one higher than the gift before it. One Partridge, Two Turtle Doves, Three Fren...

Peter Taylor

@orlp No, that's not it at all. It just comes down to the fact that addition in GF(2) is xor and multiplication by 0 or 1 is easy. The mul method in codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/9284/194 could be applied to any field GF(2^a) built directly on top of GF(2) by just changing 8 to a, 7 to a-1, and 0x1b to the polynomial minus x^a.

For a field tower built as GF((2^a)^b) addition could still be done as xor, but multiplication has to be done element-wise.

DJMcMayhem

@Riker that's awesome, but there's an even cooler one:

1230

A: Transatlantic ping faster than sending a pixel to the screen?

The time to send a packet to a remote host is half the time reported by ping, which measures a round trip time. The display I was measuring was a Sony HMZ-T1 head mounted display connected to a PC. To measure display latency, I have a small program that sits in a spin loop polling a game contro...

Probably one of my favorite answers across the entire SE network

orlp

@PeterTaylor right, I'm confused with other crypto

@PeterTaylor I just always approached the AES parts from a bit level, rather than polynomial level

mbomb007

19:08

@Maltysen I tested google.com, and the image shown on the right of the site was a captcha.

orlp

my point still stands about it being a fixed sized field with a fixed polynomial, allowing you to ignore the details and just look at the bit stuff

DJMcMayhem

Coding-style question: Which one of these is better:

if (foo())
    bar();

if (foo())
{
    bar();
}

orlp

@PeterTaylor I was confused with ed25519, which specifically chooses 2^255-19 for special properties to make computation fast

@DJMcMayhem they're both bad

if (foo()) bar();

mbomb007

@DJMcMayhem #2. Lower risk of programming mistakes later.

orlp

if you omit braces, do it on the same line

if you do use braces, I strongly prefer "java style" braces:

Kritixi Lithos

19:10

@DJMcMayhem Personally I'd choose the second one (although I used to do the first one when I was younger)

orlp

if (foo()) {
    bar();
}

2

never do the first one though

it will lead to bugs

e.g.

if (foo())
    bar();
    baz();

mbomb007

@orlp This. First brace on the same line is more aesthetically pleasing.

orlp

baz() looks like it's in the if, but it isn't

DJMcMayhem

@mbomb007 Ehh, it's subjective

orlp

@mbomb007 that's subjective, but it objectively takes less screen estate and doesn't break code flow when the opening brace starts on the same line

DJMcMayhem

19:11

I prefer brace on new line because they align with the closing brace

mbomb007

@DJMcMayhem Ehh. You can always add a blank line, but putting the opening brace on its own line is ugly, because then you have two lines to start the block and only one to end it.

FlipTack

^

orlp

technically this style is the most superior one out of all, in terms of screen estate and code flow

if (foo()) {
    bar(); }

but it loses out on refactorability

FlipTack

Some see it that the braces need to line up, but I think the "statement" and the brace should line up

so if has to be aligned with the closing }

orlp

which is also lisp style

FlipTack

19:13

still, this is another "tabs vs spaces" debate

orlp

(if (foo)
    (bar))

@FlipTack much less so

mbomb007

@orlp That makes it harder to insert a line inside the if and harder to copy a section if the last line is included.

orlp

@mbomb007 that's what I said

1 min ago, by orlp

but it loses out on refactorability

DJMcMayhem

I think the official GML examples have the worst style I have ever seen.

if foo()
{
bar();
if baz()
    {
    spam();
    }
}

mbomb007

@orlp Yeah, but you golfed your English too far.

orlp

19:15

@mbomb007 .

Luke

I prefer
if (foo()) {
    bar();
}

mbomb007

@DJMcMayhem qux comes after baz.

Luke

Oh well, it removed my indentation

orlp

but Python has the best system

6

if foo():
    bar()

DJMcMayhem

@Luke if you edit it, you can select "fixed font"

orlp

19:15

unambiguous, clean

DJMcMayhem

@orlp amen

mbomb007

@orlp What about SQL? :D

Luke

Python looks nice, but it get's annoying when merging different files (when one file uses spaces and the other tabs)

orlp

@Luke this is an editor fail, not Python fail

mbomb007

IF
BEGIN
...
END

Luke

19:17

SQL is the Shouting Query Language

3

@orlp: True, but it's inconvenient.

mbomb007

SQL Query Language

orlp

@Luke I don't know why people insist on WRITING IN CAPS in SQL

the lowercase versions work just fine

@Luke I have no such problems

:%s/\t/ /

done

mbomb007

@orlp Because it's old enough that editors didn't have highlighting back then

CamelCase made it hard to separate table/column names from key words.

Poke

@orlp It helps differentiate code syntax from input/variables

DJMcMayhem

@mbomb007 I think you've got RAS Syndrome there

mbomb007

19:19

@Poke Input and vars all start with @.

Poke

@mbomb007 I included things like column names or hardcoded input in that

SELECT column_name FROM database WHERE other_column = 'string'

DJMcMayhem

Another coding style question: "using namespace std; yay or nay?"

Business Cat

Why wouldn't you

ais523

@FlipTack as I learned from "add a language to a polyglot", Stack Exchange mangles tabs really badly, and actually destroyed a Whitespace answer so badly we couldn't reconstruct it; this means that in any case where the exact sequence of bytes matters, spaces are much better, and tabs are only really usable in situations where you don't care about them being accidentally replaced with spaces

Luke

It's not great for golfing, but otherwise it seems fine to me

Business Cat

19:23

There's probably a legitimate answer to that, I'm not super knowledgeable about C++

Poke

@DJMcMayhem Depends if you know things are/are not going to collide

Business Cat

I always use it

DJMcMayhem

@BusinessCat Ambiguity in the namespace. Std includes a lot of names, sometimes it overrides an otherwise reasonable name

mbomb007

@ais523 How so? If you "edit" the answer, the exact sequence of bytes remains unmangled.

Kritixi Lithos

@DJMcMayhem yay, so many std::couts and std::endls get annoying

Luke

19:24

Yeah, that's a potential problem

Riker

@DJMcMayhem that's not word of god though

Poke

Also I think using can be scoped to a function in C++

Riker

the one I linked was an explanation from one of the people who made it

kind of like the imagemagick dude on PPCG

mbomb007

@ais523 It's only the markup that mangles it when displayed. You can always view the original.

DJMcMayhem

@Riker yeah it is. "John Carmack said XYZ, is it true?" John Carmack: "Yes. Here's how I proved it"

ais523

19:25

@mbomb007 it wasn't me it happened to, so I don't know all the details

Riker

@DJMcMayhem he didn't invent that though

I guess they're about equal

DJMcMayhem

@ais523 a similar annoyance I run into in my challenges a lot is that SE doesn't display trailing spaces very well.

ais523

@DJMcMayhem agreed

especially in inline code blocks (`…`)

DJMcMayhem

When I wrote fill in minesweeper clues I had to surround the examples in brackets to get around that

Zgarb

SE really hates all-whitespace lines in code blocks.

Business Cat

19:30

You could probably put a zero-width space after the trailing whitespace

mbomb007

You clearly need to figure out how to use Europe as a display technology. — wfaulk May 3 '12 at 14:29

Business Cat

Though maybe that would mess things up if people tried to copy-paste the inputs

DJMcMayhem

@mbomb007 reply to the wrong person there?

mbomb007

Oh. Yeah

Too late to delete

DJMcMayhem

Reading answers like that makes it more mind blowing that video games are even feasible, not to mention playable and fun

mbomb007

19:33

You clearly need to figure out how to use Europe as a display technology. — wfaulk May 3 '12 at 14:29

ais523

@DJMcMayhem well, in some games (like chess), lag fundmentally isn't a problem; in others, you can deal with it by anticipating the user's actions to some extent

AdmBorkBork

I think the bracketing debate is partially based on the editor used, too. For example, the way that PowerShell ISE collapses brackets leads me to use the curly-opens-on-the-same-line-as-the-if style.

ais523

for example, in League of Legends, almost all actions have some sort of delay before they have any effect on other players; this is partly for gameplay reasons, meaning that you can't just counter every action as soon as it's made, but it's also partly a method of hiding lag (because it gives the system a small window in which to make "retroactive changes" because the original change hasn't had any permanent effect yet)

AdmBorkBork

@DJMcMayhem Here's an excellent article from a Valve developer explaining lag compensation in coding a client-server game

wat

@Downgoat That page doesn't even have SSL enabled

also, yes, I do use letsencrypt, try installing the root cert, it isn't installed on Macs for some reason.

DJMcMayhem

19:43

@ais523 that makes sense. A lot of it comes down to have style/type. A MOBA game might be a little easier to hide latency compared to an online FPS, where you have to handle client graphics latency, all the clients sending their actions and they latency, and the server latency sending actions back to each client.

The moment from when I fire my gun to when your computer is aware of it has to be at least 100-150 Ms I imagine, and you need to know ASAP so you can render bullets/Dodge

ais523

right, online FPSes are particularly badly affected by lag

it's worth noting that whenever it fits the setting, FPSes tend to have fairly slow bullet travel times

you might think that in a sci-fi setting, the weapons would fire fast and instantly, but they tend to have bullets that move comparatively slowly in computer games so that lag is less of a problem

DJMcMayhem

If they actually traveled at realistic speeds you wouldn't be able to see them

ais523

yep

wat

...FPS games don't render bullets.

ais523

although the occasional game solves that for hitscan weapons by leaving a visible trail in the air showing their route

wat

19:48

They use hitscan?

ais523

"hitscan" is a term referring to a bullet hitting the target as soon as it's fired

wat

@KritixiLithos using std::cout; using std::endl;

@ais523 yes I know

Imagine my two messages joined together.

Kritixi Lithos

@wat I know, the "s" was outside the code block :)

Luis Mendo

Anyone knowledgeable about calculus/analysis? Would you mind to take a look at this ~~and please tell me it is correct~~?

wat

@KritixiLithos ?

what

DJMcMayhem

19:50

It also depends on the game and the weapon. For example, in overwatch hanzos arrows are definitely rendered and fairly slow traveling, almost to the point of being dodge able. Widowmakers sniper rifle is pretty much instantaneous so it shows the visible trail like ais532 mentioned

Poke

@wat even overwatch uses hitscan for a lot of things

roadhog's left click is hitscan

but right click is projectile

Kritixi Lithos

I was talking about using cout instead of std::cout when you do using namespace std

Poke

reaper is hitscan

etc

wizzwizz4

Does anyone here know of a Scheme implementation in Python 3?

DJMcMayhem

I saw a clip of ARMA 3, which is all about hyper realism, and they even simulate how long it takes a sniper rifle to travel long distances

@Poke which weapons don't use hitscan? (Hanzo obviously)

Anonymous

19:53

@DJMcMayhem Genji

DJMcMayhem

Oh good point. And pharah too

Lembik

@wizzwizz4 nice question!

are any languages implemented in python?

Anonymous

@Lembik Python :P

wizzwizz4

@Lembik I found one in Python 2:

web.archive.org/web/20160306053440/http://www.norvig.com/lis.py

DJMcMayhem

I guess there's quite a few actually. Symmetra, Mei, zarya, lucio, dragon brothers, junkrat... Etc.

Anonymous

19:55

@DJMcMayhem Well Genji sort of does hitscan

DJMcMayhem

That's what I said. :P

Anonymous

The reflect ability does hitscan (since the reflected shots are hitscanned)

Lembik

@Mego Is cpython really written in python? I mean it's in C isn't it?

@wizzwizz4 Oh that's much simpler than I realised

Anonymous

@Lembik CPython is written in C. CPython is also not the only Python implementation. PyPy is written in Python (well, a restricted subset).

wizzwizz4

@Lembik The core stuff is written in C, but the rest is written in Python.

Lembik

19:57

pypy isn't really written in python

wizzwizz4

@Lembik It sort of is.

Lembik

some parts are in rpython

Anonymous

RPython is that restricted subset I mentioned

wizzwizz4

Why couldn't it be? gcc is written in C.

Lembik

well I am not sure it is true subset

@wizzwizz4 it could ! I just don't think it is

Anonymous

19:57

@wizzwizz4 Actually the vast majority of CPython is written in C. The only Python code is glue for C extension modules.

mbomb007

@Mego Why not just write it all in Python? :D

wizzwizz4

Please gimme teh lisp implementation! :-p

Lembik

it's hard to know what rpython is at its hardly documented

ais523

@Lembik when writing the polyglot test driver, I discovered that python seems to be the most popular language for implementing esolangs in

Lembik

@ais523 interesting

ais523

19:59

mostly python 3, although a few used python 2

Anonymous

@Lembik The documentation for RPython is actually pretty decent. It also fits well with PPCG's notion of languages, because they explicitly say in the documentation that "RPython" is defined by the implementation.

Poke

@DJMcMayhem Roadhog's right click, soldiers helix rocket, mercy's gun, pharah rocket, genji stars

dva's pistol

etc

Lembik

The RPython compiler is written in Python !

pypy is wonderful but frustratingly limited to pure python

they haven't found any sensible way to implement numpy that even matches the speed of standard numpy

mbomb007

@Lembik Yeah, they need to add more py. I'm all for PyPyPyPyPyPy

Lembik

pie!

ATaco

20:03

ThonPy when?

wizzwizz4

@mbomb007 I thought you'd prefer /(Py)*/...

Would /(abc)+++/ only match strings with 8 or more abcs?

ATaco

/(Py)+/, the output must be a valid /(Py)+/ program, there is no looping constructs.

ais523

@wizzwizz4 no, that's /(abc){8,}/; ++ is a keyword in its own right in regex (just like ++x and +(+x) are different in C), and /(((abc)+)+)+/ would match strings with 1 or more abcs (because two of the +s can match just once)

wizzwizz4

@ais523 Oh... faulty-logic. :-/

ais523

actually I can golf that to /(abc){8}/; if there are more than 8 occurrences in a row, there must also be 8 occurrences in a row

if you don't need the occurrences to be consecutive, that's /(abc.*){8}/

ATaco

20:10

Even better, /[abc]{24}/

ais523

that matches a string of 24 as though

ATaco

Well /[abc]{8}/ gets you your 8 of any in a row.

ais523

@ATaco Have you seen Muriel?

wizzwizz4

@ais523 That's the language I thought of when I saw that.

Wow... I am abandoning work...

Somebody should put that warning back up.

New Main Posts

20:29

0

Q: Tips for golfing in Brachylog

Brachylog is a language that's beginning to rise in prominence in code-golfing recently (and just received a major update with a terser syntax). Like Prolog, it has the advantage that it can often solve a problem (typically via brute force) merely from a sufficiently accurate description of what ...

tips

wizzwizz4

@NewMainPosts Isn't that a duplicate?

Apparently not; there are no posts about Branchylog...

LliwTelracs

You mistyped the name, it is Brachylog, but this is the only

tips for it

mınxomaτ

@wizzwizz4 "Branchylog" sounds like a logger for git branches.

wizzwizz4

@LliwTelracs If I blamed it on autocorrect, would you believe me?

@mınxomaτ Oh... Yes, that is what I definitely meant. I was definitely certainly making a pun.

AdmBorkBork

A fuel for fires that also has good carrying handles.

mbomb007

20:36

@mınxomaτ I cut down a tree. It was quite a branchylog.

mınxomaτ

10 internet points to you

mbomb007

The quick brown fox jumped over the branchylog.

Anonymous

Finally, language puns that aren't about languages I made

AdmBorkBork

Seriouslylog

mbomb007

@Mego Yeah, seriously.

mınxomaτ

20:38

-15 points for cheapness

mbomb007

It's the only language with Mego's name on esolangs.

Anonymous

@mbomb007 It's also the only esolang I've made (yet)

Anonymous

@mbomb007 If I get added as a room owner, I will kick everyone who makes that pun :P

Anonymous

I haven't decided if I'm joking or not

mınxomaτ

@Mego That sums up most political candidates AFK, too.

mbomb007

20:40

@mınxomaτ They're away from keyboard?

Internet weapons showcase: the AFK-47

AdmBorkBork

@Mego So, you're not sure if you're Seriously kicking people?

mınxomaτ

@mbomb007 imdb.com/title/tt2608732/quotes?item=qt1898277

Anonymous

@AdmBorkBork Every pun pushes the scale closer to seriousness

wat

@Mego Will you actually kick anyone?

AdmBorkBork

Excellent. Now I just need to find the topple point such that the pun after mine causes the kicking to commence. Like that polyglot challenge.

ais523

20:44

wasn't the whole point of the name "Seriously" to be a retroactive pun?

New Sandboxed Posts

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A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

FUNCTIONal arrays In some of the easier languages to learn such as Python and C++, functions are called by using parentheses (). Occasionally you can find nested functions like in this code in Python 3 print(max(list(range(10)))) Now lists make it into a list of functions and arguments. The l...

Business Cat

Seems like it's supposed to be people's reaction when they see an answer in it

Seriously, 10 bytes?!

mbomb007

@AdmBorkBork Did you change your name recently? I can't remember who had the powershell logo.

wizzwizz4

@mbomb007 TimmyD.

mbomb007

Ahh

wizzwizz4

20:48

I was like that when I noticed too.

I finally twigged that the user was the same when I saw the reputation count.

AdmBorkBork

Yes, I opted for a name change.

wizzwizz4

> That's far too much rep for a new user... Where's that Tommy person gone?

(I'm not very good with names...)

ais523

@BusinessCat This explains how the whole thing started

Business Cat

Yeah I've seen that

AdmBorkBork

Dec 15 '16 at 20:29, by TimmyD

@Pavel If you see AdmBorkBork (or slight variations, like Adm BorkBork) someone online, it's very likely me.

mınxomaτ

20:50

@AdmBorkBork Oh, I just thought you lost a bet.

ais523

@DJMcMayhem: why are we putting code-golf on tips questions? Tips questions don't have a victory condition, and it seems weird to use the same tag for two different things (questions which are code golf, and questions which are about code golf)

2

Anonymous

@ais523 Because we don't have a better system, and it's used to indicate that the desired tips are for golfing.

DJMcMayhem

^

ais523

so what is the code-golf tag actually for, then? if we put it on every post except posts with a weird victory condition, then it's less useful than its complement would be

DJMcMayhem

@ais523 idk, I added that because it's generally been added to tips questions but I don't have super strong opinions either way. It might be worth a meta post

ais523

20:58

now I'm wondering what it would be like if tips questions did have a victory condition

"the winner is the person who posts the shortest useful tip"

DJMcMayhem

Sorry, it's generally been added to "golfing tips" questions. We have a couple tips questions that aren't about golf

Anonymous

@ais523 No, the winner would be the post that shaved the most bytes off of answers across the site

Anonymous

Which means the tips answer from Best Of 2016 would probably win

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