The Nineteenth Byte

10:19 AM

I used to not like golfing. Now I kinda almost like it. Sometimes people come around

+1 I don't golf, and every time I visited the site (until very recently) the only thing I saw on the front page was golf. This caused me to just plain ignore the site for a long time, and I think many users here see golf as somehow a "better fit" for the site than other challenges/puzzles. — Geobits Mar 3 '14 at 17:11

ASCII-only

@Geobits Well it's significantly harder to write a good programming puzzle :P

Geobits

Sure, but it's more rewarding imo too :P

muddyfish

I like KOTHs

Geobits

I enjoy getting answers to my challenges and koths far more than getting answers to my golfs.

Jester Tran

hi

Geobits

10:21 AM

And I enjoy answering them more as well

muddyfish

Hey

Jester Tran

im bored and need something to do

i want to write a script but not sure

idk what i want to automate

ASCII-only

@JesterTran Automate turning every website dark :P

Geobits

Can you automate some coffee delivery to my mouth?

ASCII-only

Make everything Comic Sans MS

Geobits

10:23 AM

@ASCII-only That's not dark, that's twisted.

ASCII-only

@Geobits Close enough?

Jester Tran

@Geobits i can automate planning your funeral

ASCII-only

@JesterTran what O_o

Jester Tran

im joking

lol

Geobits

@ASCII-only Nah. I want coffee more than caffeine. Thanks though.

Jester Tran

10:25 AM

how can i efficiently monitor gaming activity on steam of my friends?

im thinking of scraping websites

ASCII-only

O_o

@JesterTran Activity?

Mayube

@Geobits the trouble is our entire scoring and criteria system is built around golfing

it's not like puzzles SE where it's just "who can get the answer first"

there has to be a way to score the best answer

ASCII-only

@Mayube Nope, we have complexity-golf, fastest-code, code-bowling and KOTH as well

Mayube

which means either codegolf or fastest code/algorithm most of the time

Geobits

Oh I know this well. But there are winning criteria that manage to do that. People choose golf because it's the easiest to tack onto a random challenge a lot of the time imo.

Jester Tran

10:27 AM

@ASCII-only when a particular friend is online, what game they were playing etc

Mayube

@ASCII-only afaik code-bowling is considered a deprecated tag

Jester Tran

visualize

analyse

ASCII-only

@Mayube Nope

Geobits

@ASCII-only It's just (basically) impossible to do it right lol

ASCII-only

Yeah

Mayube

10:29 AM

I might start doing fastest-code programs

Jester Tran

@ASCII-only any tips

Mayube

see the thing is, with code golf, languages like jelly and pyth often come out on top

and with fastest-code, languages like C and Rust will usually prevail

ASCII-only

@JesterTran :/ no, there appears to be no documented API I think? but Steam can do it so if you install some kind of sniffer you might be able to find out how to do it easily :P

Use Crystal then :P

Jester Tran

@ASCII-only more interested in implementing it myself

ASCII-only

@JesterTran I'd still say use an API, scraping is terribly hacky and not robust at all

Jester Tran

10:32 AM

@ASCII-only what is API in your own words

ASCII-only

@JesterTran Anything returning data given parameters I guess? Basically a black box function on the web

i.e. you open some kind of socket to Steam => they send friend online/game notifications etc.

Jester Tran

ooh

thanks

ASCII-only

But I'd say that isn't the best idea because you need you computer running 24/7 to be sure not to lose out on any data

Jester Tran

are you saying you information is stored but not to the public?

ASCII-only

I don't think it's stored at all actually

Jester Tran

10:38 AM

whydo you think that?

ASCII-only

They wouldn't have a reason to keep it (except maybe for analytics)

Jester Tran

yes, that's the only reason i can think of

always some pattern in a data that may be useful in generating $$$

ASCII-only

And I don't think they would want users to get that data :P

Jester Tran

:(

Adám

11:06 AM

After Dyalog APL 17.0 comes out, I'll post a fastest-code challenge to convert CRLF into LF.

ASCII-only

@Adám O_o

That is certainly an unusual fastest-code

Adám

@ASCII-only Why?

New Main Posts

-4

Q: Get the sequence from array

I have array [1,3-9] and i want this array like [1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. if values is repeating then don't show duplicate value. E.g.[1,2,2-5] result:[1,2,3,4,5]. I want to use jquery or MVC.

sequence

ASCII-only

@Adám Haha I guess I just haven't seen a non-pure-algorithm fastest-code before

Adám

@ASCII-only Explain "non-pure-algorithm" for the uninitiated, please.

New Meta Posts

11:25 AM

0

Q: If we can require a particular domain, can we require a particular path?

Following on from this question where it was decided that, as we define languages by their implementation, JavaScript solutions could include a requirement that they be run under a specific domain. This allows us to use, for example, /questions/[id]?site=codegolf instead of //api.stackexchange.co...

discussion policy

ASCII-only

@Adám I don't think that's an actual term, but to me most fastest code is pretty much "find this value" or "find this optimal result", not "perform a task as fast as possible"

But hmm depending on I/O format this appears to be pretty easy

Adám

@ASCII-only Oh, I didn't realise that. I never participated in a fastest code challenge, given that I mistakenly thought that an interpreted language like APL couldn't compete. It would be on-topic, however, no?

ASCII-only

@Adám Certainly :P Just remember to make your testcases take a decent amount of time to process

Mayube

@ASCII-only pure algorithm is usually fastest-algorithm

Adám

@ASCII-only It would be a challenge where you are simply given a long (KB-MB range) string (by whichever means) that contains about 1% CRLF, and you have to return the string where every CR that is followed by a LF has been removed.

Mayube

11:30 AM

fastest-code is how fast does it run, fastest-algorithm is how optimally fast does it run

Adám

@ASCII-only Yes, we want to make the overhead insignificant. It is the actual processing that's interesting.

@Mayube Can you explain the difference for simple bears like me?

Mayube

@Adám with fastest-code, all you need to know is how long it took to run for a given testcase, fastest-algorithm is about the time complexity

Adám

@Mayube Ah, then it is definitely fastest-code.

ASCII-only

@Mayube True, I guess I meant the optimization problems

Mayube

There was a discussion yesterday about the fact that Mathematica is an invalid language for fastest-algorithm as it's time complexity can't be accurately scored. Its functions are essentially black boxes, and because of its pattern matching can vary wildly

however Mathematica would be perfectly valid for fastest-code. You give it a testcase, see how many ms it takes to complete.

Adám

11:47 AM

@Mayube Right, I think the same applies to Dyalog APL. I might be able to find its time complexity, but AFAIK, few other PPCGers have access to its source code. Also, there are all kinds of special casings going on.

Geobits

I like [fastest-code] for "perform a task as fast as possible". Like Filter a large file quickly for instance.

ASCII-only

@Geobits Oh huh I've never seen that one before

Geobits

It's a Lembik. He likes things like that :)

Also likes random processing of matrices, but that's a whole other topic lol

Adám

@Geobits Nice one, yes. Mine would be a really simple task though.

How do you set requirements for challenges like that? Like: Assume it has to run on a single thread, not using a GPU, hardware < 10 years old?

ASCII-only

@Adám Preferably specify allowed instruction sets as well

e.g. SSE/AVX can make a difference sometimes

Adám

11:59 AM

@ASCII-only Ah, right.

@ASCII-only Both with and without is interesting.

Geobits

Typically the challenge poser times entries on their own machine, so it's mostly up to you on how much you want entries to able to thrash your processor/gpu/memory/etc.

ASCII-only

@Adám :P But you need to make sure you can run it

Geobits

As long as you state what's allowed and what hardware/software you have, it should be fine.

ASCII-only

I think Lembik's challenges are pretty good examples

Geobits

@Adám Simple tasks are fine, as long as they take long enough to accurately time.

For a simple crlf->lf, you might want to use a very large input

Adám

12:02 PM

@Geobits The real challenge for me will be running and timing various submitted code.

Geobits

Consider that filtering challenge for example. It was a 1.3 GB file, and the fastest times were under 30 seconds

Yes, it is a bit of work doing that for sure.

Adám

@Geobits Yeah, I'm thinking 10 KB < string length < 1 MB.

HyperNeutrino

Is there a combinations command in 05AB1E?

Geobits

@Adám It shouldn't be too hard to narrow it down. Do something naive to test various lengths, and assume somebody will find a 100-fold speedup to amaze us all :p

Adám

@Geobits Although I guess fastest-code tends to much fewer entries than CG, and that competitive entries mostly will be in C (which I bet APL will beat by a large margin).

Geobits

12:05 PM

C does usually tend to win or come close, yeah

Adám

@Geobits Not this time…

Geobits

You never know. I've often been surprised what people come up with for these and optimization challenges. That's why I like them better than golfs :)

Adám

@Geobits Right. I'm so looking forward to this. I just have to wait for Dyalog APL 17.0 to be publicly available, I guess.

Geobits

You should talk to the Dyalog team and find out when that will be >_>

:P