The Nineteenth Byte

@sergiol Hello! No, popularity-contest are not forbidden., but you must have an objective voting criterion for pop-cons. If you switch to code golf, your question might be reopened.

Erik the Outgolfer

6:05 PM

@sergiol well the challenge itself is too broad regardless of popularity-contest, simply "the best wins" isn't objective

sergiol

the last challenge I posted people didn't ike

Erik the Outgolfer

also to me it seems like a multi-part challenge

Dennis

@sergiol It depends. Do X and "be creative" is considered too broad now.

@EriktheOutgolfer Combining two scores doesn't make it a multi-part challenge.

Mr. Xcoder

@sergiol You might want to just switch to code golf.

caird coinheringaahing

@Dennis who needs only nilads, monads and dyads? I have quadrads in Deorst v2 :P

Mr. Xcoder

6:07 PM

I have "fünfdads" in Cthulhu

Erik the Outgolfer

@Dennis what scores? I was referring to "sum" and "collect the score of each answer of a ppcg question", they seem like two parts to me although I didn't vtc for that

caird coinheringaahing

@Mr.Xcoder What functions could possible need 5 arguments?

muddyfish

Pyke, 5 bytes: 3%Qe+

Erik the Outgolfer

heh that's a permutation of the pyth one

Dennis

@cairdcoinheringaahing Every JavaScript function has essentially infinite arguments. Doesn't mean it'll come close to beating Jelly.

Mr. Xcoder

6:07 PM

@EriktheOutgolfer If a challenge is - Given a list of numbers, subtract 1 and sum - It isn't multi-part.

caird coinheringaahing

@Dennis Ok, nice burn :p

@EriktheOutgolfer most Pyke answers (for CMCs) are

Anonymous

@Dennis Well Jelly is sensible, logical, and consistent, so that's 3 legs up it has on JS

Mr. Xcoder

@muddyfish Do you know Pyth?

muddyfish

@Mr.Xcoder yes

Mr. Xcoder

@Mego Don't forget golfy

caird coinheringaahing

6:09 PM

@Mr.Xcoder JS can be quite golfy

Dennis

@EriktheOutgolfer Misread your first comment. Still don't see why it would be a multi-part challenge.

Mr. Xcoder

@muddyfish ... So that inspired you (partly) to name the Pyke functions.

muddyfish

yep

Anonymous

@Mr.Xcoder And it was designed and created in more than a week, so Dennis actually put thought and effort into making it good

sergiol

why? this way almost all questions can not be popularity contests!

muddyfish

6:09 PM

The first ones I did were all from Pyth but I reimplemented them

Erik the Outgolfer

@Dennis because the main part is "get the scores of the answers" and "sum" doesn't really add much to it imo

muddyfish

Best to start from something known good :P

caird coinheringaahing

@sergiol Most questions are code golf. It's in our site name. But if a challenge is written well, and people like it, then pop-cons can be very popular.

No pun intended

Mr. Xcoder

@sergiol That's not true. If you give an objective reason for people to vote (and if the challenge encourages creativity, and doesn't have that as a winning criterion explicitly), it is on-topic.

Anonymous

Popcons aren't forbidden, but we as a community can't figure out what makes for a good popcon, so they're usually best avoided

muddyfish

6:11 PM

^

Mr. Xcoder

If you encourage people to post creative solutions due to the task itself, and people are told exactly what to vote for, it is fine.

caird coinheringaahing

Unfortunately, a lot of the highly voted pop cons are underhanded, which isn't allowed anymore.

Erik the Outgolfer

or code-trolling in that sense

sergiol

@Mr.Xcoder Can't understand! I have to ask for a popularity contest that is not a popularity contest?

muddyfish

Would it be useful to remove the standard loopholes dedicated for underhanded?

Erik the Outgolfer

6:12 PM

it should encourage creativity

Mr. Xcoder

@sergiol A popularity-contest is a popularity-contest by logical deduction.

Anonymous

Really though, it seems to me that the community is trying to search for redeeming qualities of popcons, and saying "well there has to be some somewhere!" when coming up empty

New Main Posts

-2

Q: Given code golf question link return sum of votes of all answers

I challenge you to implement a vote adder for all answers of a given question. Input A code golf site question URL. Does not need to be validated; needs just to work with valid links. Output The sum of all votes of all answers to the given link's question. I want the collapsed value of each a...

Erik the Outgolfer

@muddyfish I guess so, since its banning is one of the reasons ppcg graduated at all

muddyfish

I guess it could be asked on meta

Mr. Xcoder

6:13 PM

"Be creative" isn't an objective reason. People that vote decide what creativity is by voting on answers depending on the reasons gave by the asker

muddyfish

Well if you can do that, why not just use code-challenge?

Dennis

Also, creativity is a tool, not a goal.

3

Mr. Xcoder

@Dennis Indeed.

Erik the Outgolfer

yeah

DJMcMayhem

@Mego Hell, Jelly probably has a leg up on JS for readability :P

muddyfish

6:14 PM

"This is a popularity-contest, the anwser with the most votes wins. Please vote up the answer with the fewest bytes"

9

Erik the Outgolfer

@muddyfish popularity-contest means upvotes decide the victor

muddyfish

@EriktheOutgolfer See ^

TheIOSCoder

Woah what's going on here?

sergiol

@cairdcoinheringaahing: Programmming puzzles and ... " even appears first

@Mr.Xcoder So I have to post a question and the definition of it to be a pop-con needs to be done another?

DJMcMayhem

@TheIOSCoder What do you mean?

Erik the Outgolfer

6:16 PM

@muddyfish that's just a case of misusing votes and mistagging

Dennis

@TheIOSCoder Rather atypically for TNB, we're having an on-topic discussion.

15

Erik the Outgolfer

there isn't any broadness in there for voters to decide

TheIOSCoder

@DJMcMayhem This is far more hectic than usual.

Anonymous

@Dennis I'm getting scared :P

caird coinheringaahing

@sergiol can I point something out? The top 10 pop cons on this site were posted in 2014, except for the very first code-trolling which was in late 2013. This is the only pop con with >100 votes that was posted in 2016 or later and this is the highest voted on this year, posted by someone who knows how to post Qs.

sergiol

6:16 PM

@Mr.Xcoder: I mean by another one

Anonymous

The fact that Chrome 61 refuses to autoscroll the room means it's even more difficult than usual to keep up with the conversation

muddyfish

@EriktheOutgolfer Well if you have to decide on a winning objective that's actually objective then you can use other tags most of the time

Mr. Xcoder

we're having on on-topic discussion – That happens sometimes :P

2

DJMcMayhem

@cairdcoinheringaahing Ironically, He absolutely hates that question and dislikes it when people point to it as a good popcon

Erik the Outgolfer

@muddyfish if it's objective no reason to rely on upvotes

caird coinheringaahing

6:17 PM

The stats aren't in your favour. Try some basic code golf questions if you really want to have some nice ones

@DJMcMayhem I'm not pointing to it as a good pop-con, just that it was asked by basically Calvin's second in command

DJMcMayhem

;_; People used to call me that...

caird coinheringaahing

@Mr.Xcoder Rarely enough to warrant surprise though :P

muddyfish

@EriktheOutgolfer We require an objective winning criteria. popularity-contest with "upvote the prettiest answer" wouldn't be on topic IMO

caird coinheringaahing

@DJMcMayhem People ~~used to~~ still do call Helka Calvin :D

muddyfish

I keep on forgetting Calvin changed their name to Helka :P

caird coinheringaahing

6:19 PM

@sergiol can I ask your opinion on something as a (theoretical) question?

Erik the Outgolfer

@cairdcoinheringaahing I think he meant he was the "second-in-command" a long time ago or something

Poke

oh christ are we having the popcon argument again

Mr. Xcoder

Also, pop-cons are rather unfair, because either unusual answers in very esoteric languages are upvoted, either a mainstream language (such as Python) takes over the challenge.

muddyfish

@Poke isn't it great? I've missed these so much</s>

caird coinheringaahing

To all, would you like a question which was "Print an image. The one with the most upvotes wins"? Because, that is what most recent pop cons can be likened to, with surprising ease.

Poke

6:21 PM

The verdict is and has been that you can go ahead and post a popcon but don't be surprised if it gets closed

for "reasons"

Mr. Xcoder

@cairdcoinheringaahing Well, at least all of them are very well written

Dennis

@cairdcoinheringaahing That's an art contest and thus off topic.

muddyfish

@Mr.Xcoder We often get the same effect for questions with a relevant language is in the answers. See my top voted answer: Build me a brick wall written in Trumpscript. Just before the election

Whilst I thought it was rather amusing, it didn't deserve the votes it got

Mr. Xcoder

@muddyfish The same applies to Python and an esoteric module

caird coinheringaahing

@muddyfish Unfortunately, voting is a broken system across SE. Remember StepHen's Taxi answer?

New Sandboxed Posts

6:23 PM

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Exponentiation sequence The oldest polish salt mine, located in Bochnia, was started in year 1248, which we can consider a magical number. We can see that it's equal to 4 digits from the sequence of exponentiations: , , and . As the date is actually 4 digits from the sequence, we could make it...

muddyfish

@cairdcoinheringaahing I do not

DJMcMayhem

@muddyfish Which is why all of PPCG is a popularity contest, just that most of the popcons also happen to have an objective winner too (that isn't the highest voted)

Mr. Xcoder

@muddyfish Here

DJMcMayhem

But at the end of the day, everyone behaves the way they do to get votes which is why we have 100+ answers in taxi or trumpscript or whatever.

muddyfish

I spent far too long battling with the compiler to write that

caird coinheringaahing

6:24 PM

It's quite a trivial program, even in an esoteric language like that, but he got +100 votes for it

Mr. Xcoder

The question contains "Taxi", and an answer in a language called "taxi" is upvoted a loooot. The question contains "xkcd", Python imports a module and gets upvoted a loooot. The question contains "Abuse Undefined Behaviour!", the answer with "This abuses undefined behaviour" gets upvoted and so on... Not to mention "COBOL"

AdmBorkBork

@Mr.Xcoder brb, making a challenge about PowerShell ...

Mr. Xcoder

@AdmBorkBork Shh

DJMcMayhem

This is slightly unrelated, but could we stop upvoting bubblegum answers? They literally take 0 effort to golf, and have 0 room for improvement. Absolutely bottom of the barrel kind of answers

Poke

If the question is code golf, java gets upvoted a ~~looooot~~ little :[

DJMcMayhem

6:26 PM

I'm fine with bubblegum as a language, but IMO it should ever get upvotes

caird coinheringaahing

@DJMcMayhem What if they've been golfed?

Mr. Xcoder

@DJMcMayhem I totally agree.

DJMcMayhem

@cairdcoinheringaahing Then someone decided to switch compression algorithms. Whoopee

Mr. Xcoder

@cairdcoinheringaahing You basically can't.

Dennis

False.

caird coinheringaahing

6:27 PM

@Mr.Xcoder Dennis is right. Anders did it, but I'm trying to find the link

Mr. Xcoder

I forgot to mention unless you are Dennis or Anders

Dennis

Golfed Bubblegum answer:

20

A: Put together a Senate majority

Bubblegum, 165 164 163 162 161 160 bytes 00000000: 1dc6 410a 0231 0c00 c0bf b50a c22a 880a ..A..1.......*.. 00000010: e231 b4c1 0697 6449 5aa5 bede c4cb 303b .1....dIZ.....0; 00000020: 2046 5bc2 5b1b 0ead 2b59 5a07 f72c 5eb6 F[.[...+YZ..,^. 00000030: bdb2 f9c5 c75f 4ac8 8c7d 09eb cc60 1818 ...

caird coinheringaahing

@Mr.Xcoder Quite a few caveats

Poke

139

A: How can we help users who are put off by the use of golfing languages?

Stop upvoting trivial solutions It's easy to imagine why a new user would be frustrated when the highest-voted answer is a 3-byte solution in a golfing language with a built-in that nearly solves the problem. It feels like no matter how hard they golf in a conventional language, their solution w...

Mr. Xcoder

Ok, agree. However, very, very few of the Bubblegum answers are golfed.

DJMcMayhem

6:28 PM

@Dennis OK, so that's actually a very creative answer.

But it's also an unusual kolmog question, so it's not quite what I'm talking about

Mr. Xcoder

^

caird coinheringaahing

@Poke We can have a massive long argument in Meta, or chat or wherever, it doesn't stop new users coming in, getting the rep bonus and upvoting standard answers

DJMcMayhem

I'm talking about challenges saying Print this text and bubblegum (or heck, even Jelly/05AB1E/SOGL/whatever) answers saying: Here is exactly that text run through a compression algorithm

Mr. Xcoder

I agree with DJ

AdmBorkBork

SJMcMayhem

Mr. Xcoder

6:30 PM

@AdmBorkBork Corrected a while ago

caird coinheringaahing

@DJMcMayhem Most of the Jelly answers I've seen with compression do something with that compressed data, which can be quite clever

Mr. Xcoder

Oh, don't find the needle in the haystack

Poke

@cairdcoinheringaahing Well I don't think banning users for posting trivial solutions or voting on trivial solutions is the answer here so telling folks in chat not to do it isn't really achieving anything

caird coinheringaahing

See, I'm nice. I've upvoted 199 posts, and only downvoted 27. How about you (to anyone who wants to answer)?

Jonathan Allan

I like the questions where you, as a competitor, need to make choices about which data to compress, it often makes you try creative things (couldn't do anything much with the Senate one though).

Mr. Xcoder

6:32 PM

@cairdcoinheringaahing 1384 upvotes, 228 downvotes

AdmBorkBork

@cairdcoinheringaahing 1727 up / 357 down

Poke

205/5

caird coinheringaahing

You know our voting is messed up, when this gets 9 upvotes.

muddyfish

859 up/76 down/222 del

Mr. Xcoder

Woah, I upvote too much

Dennis

6:32 PM

4,477 / 712

DJMcMayhem

@cairdcoinheringaahing Agreed, but I find lots of answer that are just Hey everybody, I ran this through a compression script! with no extra effort added

Mr. Xcoder

I have about the same ratio as Dennis

DJMcMayhem

Those are like nails on a chalkboard to me

Jonathan Allan

...and when you do something creative (so long as you're not too late to the party) you get upvotes to reflect it, so not much requires a specific Popcorn [sic] tag

DJMcMayhem

@cairdcoinheringaahing Then why'd you post it?

Mr. Xcoder

6:34 PM

@DJMcMayhem Because he obviously wanted to get upvotes

caird coinheringaahing

@DJMcMayhem The actual answer or the "I'm a good person" answer?

DJMcMayhem

@cairdcoinheringaahing Both

If bubblegum tends to be the bottom of the barrel, then ;# is underground

caird coinheringaahing

Actual: @Mr.Xcoder got it right, but I thought I'd only get 2/3 votes

AdmBorkBork

@cairdcoinheringaahing Geobits has 984 up / 1152 down

caird coinheringaahing

"I'm a good person": I wanted to point out the flaws of the question

Mr. Xcoder

6:36 PM

@DJMcMayhem I'd say it is so down that it reaches the other side of the globe

DJMcMayhem

@cairdcoinheringaahing But you didn't...

caird coinheringaahing

@DJMcMayhem If ;# can compete, its not a good question (Hello, World! excluded)

@AdmBorkBork How do you find that out?

TheIOSCoder

o_O How does that ;;;.... answer work?

DJMcMayhem

I strongly disagree. I think that's a very high quality kolmog question

caird coinheringaahing

@TheIOSCoder No onebox

Mr. Xcoder

6:38 PM

@TheIOSCoder ; repeated a number of times equal to the ascii value of the outputted character, # modulo 127 and output

caird coinheringaahing

@DJMcMayhem I don't want to argue, in case I get kicked :P so agree to disagree?

AdmBorkBork

@cairdcoinheringaahing Click into the user and then click their Activity tab. It's public knowledge.

TheIOSCoder

that's.... strange

Mr. Xcoder

:'-( I think the on-topic discussions have ended

caird coinheringaahing

@TheIOSCoder I have an interpreter here if you want to use it :P

@Mr.Xcoder Its still about coding

Mr. Xcoder

6:40 PM

Yes, but the pace is much lower

TheIOSCoder

@cairdcoinheringaahing Any reason for the input field?

Poke

what is on topic for "general discussion"

caird coinheringaahing

@TheIOSCoder The * takes a char of input

TheIOSCoder

:O I can't read

caird coinheringaahing

@Mr.Xcoder ಠ_ಠ you have more gold badges on SO than PPCG

Mr. Xcoder

6:42 PM

@cairdcoinheringaahing I have Fanatic and gold review badges badges there

Not sure what made be withstand that pain

caird coinheringaahing

@Mr.Xcoder Why can't PPCG have that kind of traffic? :P

Mr. Xcoder

@cairdcoinheringaahing I was much stranger back then (when I used to stay on SO)

TheIOSCoder

Bye all! Might come back

o/

caird coinheringaahing

I'm looking through the badges I don't have, with my disbelief growing

Mr. Xcoder

\o

caird coinheringaahing

6:44 PM

Bye o/

DJMcMayhem

@cairdcoinheringaahing :/ do you really think I'd kick you for disagreeing with me?

Mr. Xcoder

@cairdcoinheringaahing What do you mean by "I don't have with my disbelief growing"

caird coinheringaahing

@Mr.Xcoder Comma inserted

@DJMcMayhem Not seriously, but you could if you wanted to

DJMcMayhem

Sure I could but I wouldn't

Mr. Xcoder

It wouldn't be nice from a RO :p

Anyone up for a CMC?

caird coinheringaahing

6:46 PM

@Mr.Xcoder Only if I can do it in Deorst

Mr. Xcoder

CMC: Given an integer, return the number of prime factors that are different than 2.

@cairdcoinheringaahing Can you?

caird coinheringaahing

@Mr.Xcoder Yeah, should be able to

Mr. Xcoder

5 -> 1, 16 -> 0, 10 -> 1

@cairdcoinheringaahing In fact, solve it and let me do it as well

caird coinheringaahing

@Mr.Xcoder Deorst, 7 bytes. Probably can be golfed

Mr. Xcoder

@cairdcoinheringaahing Spoiler pls

As usual, 6 bytes in Pyth

caird coinheringaahing

6:48 PM

@Mr.Xcoder I can't, there's no TIO page for it.

Mr. Xcoder

@cairdcoinheringaahing You can say Deorst, 7 bytes.

I didn't look at the code yet

@cairdcoinheringaahing Is there any way I can test my submission?

caird coinheringaahing

@Mr.Xcoder For Deorst? No, I'm working on the interpreter

Mr. Xcoder

Oh, sad

I assume tio.run/#deorst is outdated?

caird coinheringaahing

@Mr.Xcoder That's version 1, ^^^ is version 2

Mr. Xcoder

@cairdcoinheringaahing Is it possible in Deorst 1?

caird coinheringaahing

6:51 PM

@Mr.Xcoder Maybe, I'll have a look

DJMcMayhem

@Mr.Xcoder MATL, 6 bytes: Yf2=~s

Mr. Xcoder

heh, I was solving it in MATL too

caird coinheringaahing

@Mr.Xcoder No, because the prime tester in Deorst is broken again ಠ_ಠ

Mr. Xcoder

Also 6 bytes in Pyth

@cairdcoinheringaahing Bah

sergiol

@cairdcoinheringaahing: why not?

Mr. Xcoder

6:54 PM

@DJMcMayhem 5 bytes: Yf2=s

nono

caird coinheringaahing

@sergiol Why not what?

Mr. Xcoder

Sorry DJ

DJMcMayhem

@Mr.Xcoder You could golf that down to o~ :P

Jonathan Allan

@Mr.Xcoder up to multiplicity? i.e. 18 -> 2 or 18 -> 1?

sergiol

@cairdcoinheringaahing: why not? is for
@sergiol can I ask your opinion on something as a (theoretical) question?

Mr. Xcoder

6:57 PM

@JonathanAllan 18 -> [2, 3, 3] -> 2

Jonathan Allan

@Mr.Xcoder Jelly - 5 bytes

Zgarb

@Mr.Xcoder Husk, 4 bytes: #>2p TIO

Mr. Xcoder

Some messaging really deserve trashing cc @DJMcMayhem

caird coinheringaahing

@sergiol What's your opinion on this?

DJMcMayhem

@Mr.Xcoder I can't from mobile

Mr. Xcoder

6:59 PM

@DJMcMayhem Oh, ok

Then cc @RoomOwner

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