The Nineteenth Byte

2:09 PM

0

Q: Advent Challenge 8: Storage Cart Transport Planning!

<< Prev Thanks to the PPCG community, Santa now has balanced his storage carts. Now, he needs to move them into the transport docks so that they can be sent to the loading bays. Unfortunately, the tracks to move the carts around are a mess, and he needs to figure out how to get them all around w...

Poke

@Mego you can get cosmetic items even if you lose

Anonymous

@Poke s/even if/when/

Poke

well sometimes you get carried by your team :]

LiefdeWen

codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/150262/… Is that winning condition allowed?

Anonymous

@LiefdeWen It's actually encouraged. Though there will be one overall winner, we encourage users to view challenges as per-language competitions, so they don't get discouraged by the extremely succient golflangs.

Anonymous

2:21 PM

I'm struggling to find any of the relevant meta posts, though. My search-fu is off.

J. Sallé

All my challenges are scored like that: overall shortest answer is the winner, and one winner per language.

Anonymous

Comparisons between solutions in the same language are much more meaningful than comparisons between solutions in different languages

LiefdeWen

`Isn't choosing the right language for the job a thing though too

J. Sallé

Well, if that was the case, most of the solutions would be in Jelly

Anonymous

@LiefdeWen It is, but often it's fun to push more-or-less unsuitable languages to their limits

2

Luca H

2:33 PM

@Mego for example people awarding bounties for solving it in brainfuck, emoji, TrumpScript, or whatever else they think is interesting

Anonymous

Exactly

Anonymous

If it wasn't fun to golf in unsuitable languages, nobody would use Java

Luca H

true

Poke

unsuitable?!

java gives plenty of tools to golf things

it just has a disadvantage because it's verbose by default

:]

HyperNeutrino

@Poke such as?

user202729

2:40 PM

Oh, compare to some minimal languages, it still has plenty of tools.

Anonymous

@HyperNeutrino Java 8 added a bunch of new functional programming features that makes golfing in Java slightly less unbearable

user202729

But IIRC it doesn't have permutations.

Poke

72

Q: Tips for golfing in Java

Are there any useful shortcuts that can be used in Java? As shown below, import already adds at least 17 characters to a program. import java.io.*; I understand that the simple solution would be to use another language, but it seems to be a real challenge to shorten Java programs. Ti...

code-golf tips java

user202729

BTW is anyone willing to do the next OEIS sequence A104?

HyperNeutrino

@Mego oh yeah that's a good point. Still, that's only more golfable than old Java, most languages easily beat Java :P but yeah it's bearable now :P

@user202729 I'd be willing to try, but I still need to fix my program for the other OEIS one some time ago. By the way, do you think your solution would be adaptable to fix my program?

user202729

2:42 PM

Wait a minute I need to prepare my message...

Anonymous

@user202729 Yeah, stats stuff is a strange omission from the stdlib. I remember having to use Java in a programming competition and getting to write Johnson-Trotter from memory under time constraints.

user202729

in One OEIS after another, 23 hours ago, by user202729

Yay!!!! 14 now!!!! @HyperNeutrino

FYI, I have a Python program (modify from yours) that can calculate exactly terms up to 14. (that is, 6 first terms 1, 1, 1, 2, 5, 14, others take too much time for me) --- If you use Py(th)on for this answer instead, probably others can use Proton in next answers? --- However, because this is your answer, you would probably prefer to work it out yourself. — user202729 1 hour ago

HyperNeutrino

Cool. I mostly wanted to just see your approach because the ones I've tried so far don't seem to actually do the task correctly, though it's somewhat close to getting the right approach.

user202729

My approach is essentially yours, with some bugfixes.

HyperNeutrino

Ah okay. I'll look at your Java solution then to try to find where my bugs are :P

user202729

2:45 PM

Because you don't want to say "this code is entirely written by user202729, etc etc"

you may want to post your code

and I will point out some bugs.

HyperNeutrino

@user202729 yeah that's true :P

SE chat bug: if you post a onebox to a chat message with an oversized link, there's no way to open the link other than to open the original message in the transcript and copy-paste the link into the address bar

Actually, SE chat bug: if you post an oversized link, if the link collapses, then the link will point to the collapsed location

user202729

Not updated?

(I mean, didn't you do anything with the code?)

HyperNeutrino

not yet

user202729

Ok, one of the most elementary bug:

yesterday, by user202729

[Python 3] Is it true that variables in list comprehension and generator expression are always local (not modify variables outside of the list comprehension or generator expression)?

^ for loop variables are not local.

Anonymous

@HyperNeutrino status-wont-acknowledge

HyperNeutrino

2:49 PM

@Mego lol rip then :P yeah I'm pretty sure it's been pointed out on Meta already, but I don't know

Anonymous

@user202729 Variables in comprehensions are local in Py3. Loop vars are not. Neither are local in Py2.

HyperNeutrino

@user202729 oh? that wouldn't be a problem if I name my variables correctly, but I probably don't. I'll look for related issues, thanks

user202729

Yes I know...

Anonymous

But Py2 was the result of a series of increasingly bad decisions so that shouldn't be surprising

HyperNeutrino

for loop variables are non-local, not global, right?

user202729

2:49 PM

One other issue:

Anonymous

@HyperNeutrino They have the same scope as whatever encloses the for loop

Anonymous

So they're global if the for-loop is in global code

user202729

Line 40:

		for i in range(len(graph)):

Line 54:

				for i in range(3):

^ See? Problematic.

user202729

The "other issue" is:

		i -= 1; j -= 1; k -= 1

while cycles and nodes are supposed to be already 0-based.

HyperNeutrino

Oh right, I'm smart. ._.

That theoretically shouldn't cause any issues because then the entire matrix is just cycled, but I fixed it anyway

But yeah, thanks for pointing out the for loop thing. I think I found all of the variable overlaps and corrected them all

Sherlock9

2:55 PM

How long after the latest major revision of a Sandbox post should I wait until I post the challenge?

Another 24 hours?

user202729

In PPCG v2 hopefully there should be a "ready-vote", when a challenge receive enough vote it will be posted on main.

Ok, anyway, continue.

Anonymous

> That theoretically shouldn't cause any issues

user202729

@HyperNeutrino You realized the graph isomorphism problem?

Anonymous

Translated: "that will definitely cause issues"

Erik the Outgolfer

final call for feedback

user202729

2:57 PM

@Mego I believe it doesn't cause any issue.

(that is, your (HyperNeutrino) graph isomorphism checking is wrong)

HyperNeutrino

@user202729 I know it's broken, but I haven't fixed it yet. I will be fixing it soon.

user202729

@EriktheOutgolfer I think it's ready. Currently it has 3 upvotes.

betseg

when hats

Erik the Outgolfer

winterbash2017.stackexchange.com

HyperNeutrino

o0 hats are back

betseg

3:01 PM

oh almost a day nice

user202729

Can someone delete this?

Anonymous

@HyperNeutrino Hats never leave. They're inside our hearts. Get to a cardiologist ASAP.

6

Sherlock9

XD

user202729

Hm... I remember something like this last year. Not sure what exactly it is, though.

Erik the Outgolfer

@user202729 only mods or the owner can

user202729

3:03 PM

That's why I'm asking for some mods here...

Erik the Outgolfer

the answer has a positive score

HyperNeutrino

if we mass-downvote it we can get it deleted /s

user202729

See? People don't test it, just upvote it. LARGE issue.

Ok, downvote. Everyone?

HyperNeutrino

@Mego I certainly hope my heart doesn't have a hat inside of it... :P

Anonymous

@user202729 There will be various hats that you can put on your avatar, earnable on each site through some trigger. Public hats are known, and their triggers are stated. There are always several secret hats whose existence and triggers aren't known until someone earns one and the community figures out the trigger.

HyperNeutrino

3:04 PM

I downvoted it already because it's wrong but I don't recommend encouraging mass-downvoting :P idk, it's probably not illegal, but I don't think SE mods like it or something like that. I don't know

user202729

@DJMcMayhem too.

Erik the Outgolfer

@Mego always

user202729

@HyperNeutrino something that need to be fixed in PPCG v2

Anonymous

As stated last year (as well as a few days ago): abusing privileges to earn hats will earn you a suspension for the duration of Winterbash. Additionally, inappropriate behavior in chat isn't acceptable, even for the purpose of earning hats.

Erik the Outgolfer

of course :p it's one of the rules of WB

KSmarts

3:06 PM

Hey, could I get some feedback on my question? codegolf.meta.stackexchange.com/a/14336/69481

user202729

BTW... What is the condition for an answer to be deleted?

HyperNeutrino

score is negative

user202729

Still... will you solve the next OEIS? If no, I should start working on it soon, otherwise...

KSmarts

I'm working on the next OEIS, but offer no guarantees that I will solve it.

user202729

Sounds dangerous...

probably I should start working on it anyway.

HyperNeutrino

3:14 PM

I'm going to start working on it as well, but I cannot guarantee that I will finish or be decently close to finishing before time runs out.

BTW polyominoes use von Neumann neighbourhood right?

Sherlock9

Yes, they do

user202729

Why don't just say sharing an edge... but yes.

HyperNeutrino

BTW polyominoes use adjacency by sharing an edge, right?

It's longer

:P but yeah whatever close enough

PhiNotPi

3:27 PM

Hey @doork long time no see.

Hmm... I wonder if they've changed how pings work.

user202729

@phinot Do you receive the notification?

PhiNotPi

yep

NieDzejkob

@HyperNeutrino by 5 pixels (yes I just fired up GIMP to check)

user202729

@PhiNotPi So... they haven't.

HyperNeutrino

@NieDzejkob ._. is there a charcount difference though? let me check

NieDzejkob

3:29 PM

@HyperNeutrino and that's probably because you used a comma in the supposedly inferior one

user202729

4 char.

Ignoring the , it's 3 char.

HyperNeutrino

okay thanks

New Sandboxed Posts

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

The 64 | 64 Color Selector All colour selector tools suck. Let us make another one that sucks also, but in a different way. Your interface will have: two squares, of 64x64 "pixels" each one. Pixels do need to be strictly pixels, but anything where the user can have 64 possible selections in e...

HyperNeutrino

though really, the second one is better because a) more people understand it and b) it's easier to type because they're all common words and "Neumann" takes me about 2x typing time compared to normal 7-char words.

NieDzejkob

you just need to golf it a bit: "BTW polyominoes use adjacency by edge sharing right?" would be the same length

sergiol

3:30 PM

hello

just posted the challenge you see above

how can I improve its enunciation?

user202729

@NieDzejkob Just say:

NieDzejkob

@user202729 I don't see your point

user202729

Anyway. Ignore it.

NieDzejkob

I'm not improving by compromising understandability, Hyper does it

HyperNeutrino

BTW polynomioes' cells must be connected by edges right?

yay

NieDzejkob

3:37 PM

"cells in polyominoes"

HyperNeutrino

oh well enough discussion with phrasing issues :P

sergiol

just edited my challenge

=>@HyperNeutrino

Riker

@dylnan nothing that's SE's fault, just things where SE isn't built for a PPCG-like site

... and the design

what is that, 2 november 1sts that have come and gone?

NieDzejkob

@Riker do you know about PPCGv2?

Riker

yes

that's what the convo back there was about :p

New Sandboxed Posts

4:15 PM

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

The working time calculator code-golf time math (More tags welcome) This is based on how my company deals with the monitoring of the working times for every employee. Each one of us has a card that can be passed in front of a sensor, so that a clock registers the times at which the employees ch...

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Stable modular exponents coge-golf math number-theory It is well-known that the final three digits of Graham's number are 387. This is because Graham's number is a ridiculously tall exponent tower of threes: 3^(3^(3^...))), and it can be shown that any such tower of height at least 5 has 387 as...

Pavel

4:48 PM

@Mego Might as well start now, or five years from today you'll still be wishing you started five years ago :P

New Main Posts

1

Q: The struggling college student's GPA Calculator

GPA Calculator You are a stressed out college student during finals week. Instead of studying for your exams coming up, you decide it is best to determine what GPA you will have at the end of the semester. This way you have data to back up your decision of staying up all night to get that A in C...

code-golf

caird coinheringaahing

5:06 PM

@NewMainPosts I got a +1 on my Jelly answer, without them realizing that I had forgotten D from the grades :/

Pavel

@cairdcoinheringaahing I noticed and submitted a comment correcting you the instant that the notification the answer has been edited popped up

(I've removed the comment)

caird coinheringaahing

@Pavel Must have removed it fast, I didn't get a notification :P

Pavel

@cairdcoinheringaahing Well, yeah. I noticed it was redundant instantly.

Sherlock9

Hang on let me crop that picture properly

5

I'll be honest. This is terrifying.

Pavel

@Sherlock9 We have a challenge for generating that brace style, named "Right-Hand Brace".

25

Q: Convert braces to Right Hand Brace (Sad Brace)

Right hand brace is a style of code bracketing in which curly braces and semicolons are all aligned to a single point on the right side of a a file. Generally, this is considered bad practice, for several reasons. The Challenge Take a multiline string through any method, and convert it's bra...

code-golf string code-generation

Sherlock9

5:17 PM

Good Lord

Pavel

5:28 PM

@Mego Wasn't there a hat given for achieving a certain amount of stars? I believe last year we had a chatroom to ask for stars.

caird coinheringaahing

Can someone handle this? I'm not sure how best to respond

New Main Posts

5:54 PM

0

Q: Clearly parenthesize APL trains

In APL, you can write tacit functions, called trains. How they work is irrelevant for this challenge. Here are the different ways they can be grouped, using ⍴ as the function: -> ⍴ -> ⍴ ⍴⍴ -> ⍴⍴ ⍴⍴⍴ -> ⍴⍴⍴ ⍴⍴⍴⍴ -> ⍴(⍴⍴⍴) ⍴⍴⍴⍴⍴ -> ⍴⍴(⍴⍴⍴) ⍴⍴⍴⍴⍴⍴ -> ⍴(⍴⍴(⍴⍴⍴)) ... The orde...

code-golf parsing balanced-string apl

You

6:14 PM

Hi boys, long time no see

I'm making an app this vacation

I've had this idea since this october

and it's gonna be great

btw its 3 at midnight here

Adám

6:26 PM

Anybody knows what hach bằng binh bach tastes like?

Riker

> As you mentioned, the problem will eventually be solved by PPCG getting a full-blown design.

this hurts

source

You

Oh, and I also realized I'm still 13

Erik the Outgolfer

@Adám sure, if I ever get to have an english result on my hands

Adám

@EriktheOutgolfer English? I don't get it.

Erik the Outgolfer

@Adám well, try not to have a bunch of vietnamese results when searching that

You

6:37 PM

@EriktheOutgolfer I suddenly thought a clone of myself was talking, 'cause you know, profile pics

dzaima

@You there have been multiple times I thought that Erik changed his icon and name. :p

Erik the Outgolfer

@dzaima I did in the past

before I settled...now the urges to change my name and profile picture are gone :p

You

btw I'm Nobody

well that sounds awkward

But I actually was Nobody

Adám

@EriktheOutgolfer Oh, you don't get the joke? Does it have shellfish?

Erik the Outgolfer

@Adám if you're referring to the fish shell, dunno how that's related?

hm, that seems to mean "hach by soldiers bach"

Adám

6:40 PM

@EriktheOutgolfer #!/bin/bash

Erik the Outgolfer

oh

You

oh

Erik the Outgolfer

@Adám that looked very vietnamese btw

also what is the "tastes like"

Adám

@EriktheOutgolfer A joke.

You

we need multilanguage bash, don't we?

Erik the Outgolfer

6:42 PM

sorry, I don't get it

@You that would be detrimental

it already supports different system locales

You

Yeah ikr

Riker

@Adám my vietnamese is rusty (never was fluent) but that means "___ of soldiers ___" or smth

Erik the Outgolfer

4 mins ago, by Erik the Outgolfer

hm, that seems to mean "hach by soldiers bach"

Riker

binh is soldiers or something like that, I vaguely remember bang meaning 'of/by'

@EriktheOutgolfer ah missed that

Adám

@Riker It wasn't supposed to mean anything. My colleagues at the table just noticed that the pronunciation of #!/bin/bash sounded vaguely Vietnamese.

Riker

6:45 PM

ah

You

Speaking of shebangs, I found somebody named 'Joel Scherban'

Mr. Xcoder

TFW when you nearly solve a challenge but find a little bug, and then you realise the fix is easy but once you do it, you close the window without saving and exit Safari...

You

hmm

why did I dual boot android on my laptop

Mr. Xcoder

in Spyfall, 34 secs ago, by Mr. Xcoder

Anyone up for a game?

Poke

7:24 PM

@Sherlock9 Award for worst screenshot ever goes to...

DJMcMayhem

8:01 PM

That feel when you take a critical piece of code that used to take up to 30 seconds to run and rewrite it to finish in 1.5 seconds.

:D

Sherlock9

That sounds beautiful :D

DJMcMayhem

It is

Sherlock9

Calling for feedback on this challenge once more

Will probably ask again in 14 hours or so and then post

New Main Posts

8:55 PM

0

Q: Help me with my chemistry hw!

Near the middle of the semester in chemistry, we get problems like: Convert 1.283850057 to Scientific NotationandConvert 3.583•10^6 to Standard Notation This is just stupid busy work for people who already know how to do this. So... The Challenge Given an input in any reasonable, convenient for...

code-golf number conversion

caird coinheringaahing

9:07 PM

@MartinEnder Do you want to Sandbox this challenge, given that you posted the original?

DJMcMayhem

9:19 PM

Erik the Outgolfer

guess what, a little bit after tomorrow WB starts

Pavel

6 hours ago, by Erik the Outgolfer

https://winterbash2017.stackexchange.com

Just so long as they don't drop hats from lootboxes, we're good.

Martin Ender

@cairdcoinheringaahing thanks for asking, but feel free to post it yourself (or whoever is involved with the revival)

New Main Posts

9:41 PM

0

Q: Reverse Concat time data into blocks

We are currently trying to run some analysis on some data and have the current problem we are trying to tackle. Ideally using Excel or MSSQL, we want to take some data we have in a MSSQL database and extrapolate from it some information about usage in relation to time blocks. Challenge The inpu...

date

-4

Q: Create a Python program that does the following

What is a Python program that does the following: 1) Displays an input text box that asks for a student name. 2) Stores the typed input into a string variable. 3) Computes how many characters are in the student name. 4) Displays a user-friendly phrase about the length of the name and the len...

code-golf

ATaco

9:55 PM

> Can you write one for me, please?

New Meta Posts

0

Q: New [Scientific-Notation] tag

I'm a bit new to meta, but I recently posted a question and it requires converting to and from scientific-notation. I almost created a scientific-notation tag, but I'm not sure if I would be justified in doing so. I did a little research and found around 10 other question that could be reasonably...

discussion feature-request tags

Anonymous

@Pavel The hat was to get just one star

JungHwan Min

10:21 PM

I'm getting this increasing sense that a part of the PPCG community is becoming increasingly immature and toxic... I am not saying we need to make this very formal, but what I have observed is (1) some people are posting more and more aggressive comments, and (2) those comments get upvoted. I don't know how strict this community is supposed to be, but in some cases, those comments are just downright violations of the "Be Nice." rule.

Am I being paranoid?

Anonymous

@JungHwanMin Do you have any examples in mind?

JungHwan Min

I don't think I should post specific examples (I don't want accidental blaming), but some users tend to get defensive about their submissions.

Anonymous

In some cases I agree - people need to tone it down a bit. In other cases, what may seem like hostility isn't - remember that intent is hard to convey over text. And since we have users from all over the globe, you have to keep culture in mind, too - what may be perceived as hostile or aggressive in one culture may be the norm in another.

Anonymous

The best thing to do is flag overly hostile comments, and remind users to Be Nice.

JungHwan Min

Well, for example, I created my last meta question because I thought the comment chain was not acceptable for this site.

And I think mods agree as well; the comments were deleted

Probably I think this way because to me, SE is a formal website, and I'm uncomfortable with seeing a bunch of "me" and "you" in the comments.

DLosc

10:34 PM

PPCG is a pretty informal branch of StackExchange, probably because there's (mostly) no "professional" reason for participating here.

JungHwan Min

It's just that a lower formality sometimes leads to what people would flag as "rude or abusive"

ATaco

Hence PPCGv2

Anonymous

I think that might be a culture thing - I don't see very many rude/abusive comments on PPCG (though I also don't scour new challenges and meta posts to look for them).

ThePlasmaRailgun

Anyone here know of any tools for formatting C or C++ code into shapes and figures? I've been looking at IOCCC but I can't find anything on what they use to make their cool looking source code. Any help is appreciated.

Anonymous

@ThePlasmaRailgun A sturdy spacebar

JungHwan Min

10:37 PM

I guess they're not too frequent. However, all of my flags were marked "helpful," and the comments were deleted.

I believe it's more than just cultural difference.

There's one user that comes to my mind, whose comments I flagged on multiple occasions.

ATaco

@Mego s/spacebar/tab key

H.PWiz

In case people haven't seen, does anything need to be done about this answer?

Anonymous

@JungHwanMin Maybe I'm just not seeing them because of your due diligence.

JungHwan Min

Possibly.

DLosc

10:54 PM

@cairdcoinheringaahing My most recent non-PPCG post was last month, for a writing challenge on Writers Meta. Oddly enough, I have never posted on the Writers main site.

Christopher 2EZ 4RTZ

@H.PWiz it is valid

DJMcMayhem

@Christopher2EZ4RTZ In what universe is that even remotely valid?

Christopher 2EZ 4RTZ

@DJMcMayhem he did it, in ascii

it is a physical computer

DJMcMayhem

So?

It doesn't take any input

Christopher 2EZ 4RTZ

human Turing machine?

i just noticed that it needed input

DJMcMayhem

10:58 PM

But even if it didn't, it wouldn't be valid because there's no way you could even score it

Christopher 2EZ 4RTZ

square inches?

JungHwan Min

Plus, the result isn't really an ascii art

DJMcMayhem

Like if there was a kolmogorov-complexity to output a picture of something, I couldn't say my camera, 0 bytes

Christopher 2EZ 4RTZ

@DJMcMayhem i downvoted and flagged as NAA

JungHwan Min

The user could take an approach like this one and post the size of the 3d model.

However, the result still wouldn't exactly be the expected ascii art in the question

DJMcMayhem

11:04 PM

15

A: Are physical analogs of programming legitimate?

To be acceptable as a programming language, a digital simulator must exist. Photos of dominos are great fun and all, but by themselves they don't really meet the definition of programming language. The basic problem with programming languages 'implemented by the physical world' is that the resul...

ATaco

11:46 PM

We accepted Dominoes, soo...

Oh, that's what that answer is about.

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