The Nineteenth Byte

emanresu A

00:01

Well, looks like it's starting when DLosc turns up

DLosc

\o/

Wezl 'l o - o l'

\\o/

DLosc

Welcome to the twentieth Learn You A Lang for Great Good! Today, we'll be learning Pip, a golfing language that aims to be easy to learn and use. (No, not the Python package manager. :P) During the event, feel free to post CMCs to practice Pip (PMCs), ask questions about the language, and so on.

9

Links: ATO | Replit | Docs | Tutorial (WIP) | Tips

An older version of Pip is also available on TIO.

Y'all want me to run through the basics of the language here, or do you want to read the docs and then ask questions?

thejonymyster

ive been reading them they are written funly so good job

lyxal

@DLosc basics please. Definitely the basics

DLosc

00:08

All right, here goes

Pip works a lot like dynamically typed scripting languages such as Python, Perl, Ruby, or JavaScript.

Expressions in Pip use infix operators with precedence and associativity. The value of the final expression in the program is autoprinted: 1+2*3-4

The usual way to take input in Pip is command-line arguments. The first five cmdline args can be accessed in your program as the variables a through e: 3*a+1

A Pip program consists of a series of statements. A statement can be a command or just an expression. The most common commands are W (while), T (till), F (for-in, like Python), L (loop fixed number of times), and I (if).

Most other stuff (like printing, assignment, etc.) is done using operators. You'll want to keep the list of operators and operator precedence chart handy.

All the basic operators you know and love are there: + - * / // % for arithmetic, . for string concatenation, < <= = != >= > for comparison, & | ! for logic. And there are also many, many more.

The main data types are Scalar (string/number), List, Pattern (regex), and Block (function). There's also Range (mostly used for integer sequences--you can usually pretend it's a List) and Nil (non-value, used in a lot of error conditions like dividing by zero).

"String" is a string literal; 'x is a single-char string literal. Pattern literals are surrounded in backticks (I'm not gonna fight the chat formatting to try to get those right).

Lists are multiple expressions in square brackets. No separator is necessary unless leaving it out causes a parsing problem, in which case you can use ;.

The default output format for Lists is to concatenate all their items together--often good for golf, but bad for readability. Try adding the -p flag for more legible output. There are lots of other flags too.

Since Scalars are both strings and numbers, Pip has a separate set of operators for string and numeric operations (rather like Perl). For example, + is addition, . is concatenation; * is multiplication, X is string repetition; = is numeric equality, Q is string equality; etc.

If you pass a string to a numeric operation, it's converted to a number first: If it starts with a number, that's its value, and if it doesn't, its value is 0.

A lot of operators work item-wise on Lists. This means List operations have their own set of operators, for example AL to append one list to another.

Functions can be written as a series of statements surrounded by curly braces. All functions are variadic. The arguments can be accessed as the variables a through e, and the last statement in the function is returned: {%a?3*a+1a/2}

Simple functions can also be written as bare expressions, using _ for the first argument and B for the second: _.',.B is equivalent to {a.',.b}

Uppercase letters are used for 1- and 2-letter tokens. Runs of 3 or more uppercase letters are split into tokens every 2 letters, with the odd one out (if any) at the beginning: JWVRVUWTM is J WV RV UW TM. Lowercase letters are always separate tokens.

And that's a lot, so I'll stop there for questions and maybe a challenge or two.

emanresu A

How does take innput?

lyxal

@DLosc how do I call these functions? Or are they just used for meta-ops/function overloads?

@emanresuA a-e

10 mins ago, by DLosc

The usual way to take input in Pip is command-line arguments. The first five cmdline args can be accessed in your program as the variables a through e: 3*a+1

des54321

you said that the first five arguments are available as a,b,c,d,e, are arguments past the first five available in any way (ex as a variable that is a list of all the arguments)?

DLosc

@lyxal Function call syntax is to wrap the function and its arguments in parentheses, like ({a+b} 3 5)

@des54321 Yes, g is a list of all the arguments

thejonymyster

@DLosc what benefits does this have over just using a and b? :)

lyxal

00:21

@DLosc that's very lisp-esq :p

DLosc

@thejonymyster _.',.B is two bytes shorter than {a.',.b}

@lyxal Yes

thejonymyster

ah right, since otherwise youd be asking for the literal cmd line inputs

des54321

this language seems like about half a dozen languages got in a train crash and produced a bastard lang with features from each

thejonymyster

i kind of love it for that

i may genuinely learn this lang lol it seems pretty great

DLosc

@des54321 I stand on the shoulders of giants ~~and steal all their ideas~~

10

thejonymyster

00:23

and its even pandering to me as a javascript user :P

Nobody Needs Names

Wondering why dlosc is in charge

thejonymyster

what flavor regex does it got going on :]

(not sure where to reply to ask that lol)

lyxal

whatever the hell python uses I would assume

thejonymyster

i log on and i dont make assumptions :P

lyxal

because it's not PCRE but it has more functionality than JS regex

DLosc

00:25

@thejonymyster It's mostly Python flavor, with a few added quirks. I'd like to have used a more powerful flavor, but I don't want to reimplement a regex engine or install non-standard packages.

thejonymyster

i respect that yea

we all want to make regex be better but nobody wants to reprogram regex :P

lyxal

@DLosc can confirm about this. Python regex is a nuisance sometimes lol

DLosc

The main thing I added on top of Python flavor is that you can use & in replacements to indicate the whole match: ATO

emanresu A

PMC: Given n, calculate n factorial. No builtins (if it exists)

DLosc

(There is no factorial builtin, BTW)

thejonymyster

00:28

thats tricky cause i dont know how to conditionals yet :P

DLosc

? is the conditional operator. It works like the one in C or JavaScript, except it doesn't need the : part. a?bc

lyxal

@emanresuA Pip, 5 bytes: ATO

des54321

@lyxal damn was just working out how to write that

emanresu A

^

DLosc

@lyxal Yep, that's the shortest way.

des54321

00:31

PMC: n-th Fibbonaci number given n

DLosc

The $ (fold) meta-operator can be applied to any binary operator.

emanresu A

How do I call a function?

DLosc

13 mins ago, by DLosc

@lyxal Function call syntax is to wrap the function and its arguments in parentheses, like ({a+b} 3 5)

If you have the arguments in a list, you can also do {a+b} V [3 5] (which is the only way to call a function with zero arguments, by using an empty list).

des54321

Pip, 19 bytes: a<2?1;(REa-1)+REa-2 for fibbonaci

emanresu A

Why doesn't this work?

des54321

00:37

@emanresuA according to putting a -w flag on it for warning youre trying to add nils together

DLosc

@emanresuA Statements like I don't have return values. You'd need to use the conditional operator like des did

emanresu A

Oh okay

des54321

also actually 18 bytes: a<2?1(REa-1)+REa-2, didnt need the semicolon

DLosc

I was just about to say that :)

emanresu A

@des54321 17

DLosc

00:41

Hint to shave another byte: comparison operators return 1 for truthy, 0 for falsey.

lyxal

ooh I like that

I like that a lot

very nice 16

des54321

why use ternaries when you can use python-style shortcircuiting of AND/OR :P

DLosc

Hint to shave another byte: Da decrements a (like --a in C).

@des54321 In Pip, a ternary is frequently just as short or shorter, but not in this specific case.

des54321

@DLosc i get a different result for a<2|(fDa)+REa-2than for a<2|(fa-1)+REa-2

lyxal

same

emanresu A

00:45

aesthetically pleasing 15

7

lyxal

oh

right yeah that makes sense

emanresu A

(because RED is parsed as R ED)

des54321

oooooh

it has side effects

ive been trying to learn haskell recently and my brain was stuck in functional programming mode

lyxal

yeah I was wondering how it'd work with side effects, but two Ds has the same effect

des54321

@emanresuA this one is very beautiful

DLosc

00:48

@emanresuA Mine was less aesthetically pleasing

lyxal

is it just me or is ATO not working anymore?

emanresu A

^

DLosc

Not just you.

des54321

PMC: fizzbuzz, 1 to input n

emanresu A

ಠ_ಠ

DLosc

00:49

@lyxal Staging works

lyxal

@DLosc no implicit input in Pip?

DLosc

How do you mean?

lyxal

DB*\, with an input of 5 doesn't produce [2, 4, 6, 8, 10]

but DB*\,a does

emanresu A

Is ATO down again?

lyxal

Some languages would let you drop the trailing a and just automatically read the input

DLosc

00:53

@lyxal Correct. There are no implicit variables in expressions.

@emanresuA Yes

lyxal

how do I do input on TIO?

Try it online! doesn't seem to work

DLosc

Oof, now ATO staging is down too

lyxal

yeah, that's why I switched to TIO

emanresu A

^^

DLosc

@lyxal That's the correct way to input, but TIO has an older language version that doesn't support DB.

emanresu A

00:55

Alright, I'ma try and get pip running in wasm

Wish me luck

@DLosc Any external dependencies I should know about?

lyxal

Why in the frickity fruck is this debugging output?

DLosc

You can also run Pip in REPL mode at Replit

@emanresuA Nope. Just needs Python 3.8 or higher, I believe.

@lyxal Yeah. That's been fixed in recent versions too.

des54321

damn that REPL doesnt work very well, cant paste or move the cursor with arrow keys

lyxal

Shift ctrl v for paste

DLosc

@DLosc ... I say that, and then I try it on Replit and it throws an error. >_<

@des54321 Yeah, it's not great.

des54321

01:00

@lyxal only seems to work for me if i rightclick - paste

thejonymyster

somebody's sabotaged the lyal

DLosc

@lyxal Anyway, what were you trying to do here?

lyxal

Trying to get the basis of a fizzbuzzz

DLosc

Because what you've done is construct a lambda function that adds its argument to a list of numbers.

lyxal

I know

des54321

01:02

I think Fi\,a{P(i%3?x"Fizz".(i%3?x"Buzz")|i)} is something close to a fizzbuzz if im doing things right, but I cant get anything working to test it

lyxal

I had % it errored, tried + and realised that there's still no implicit variables

des54321

37 byte fizzbuzz: Try it online!

lyxal

I once had a 33-35 byte Fizzbuzz in Pip but now I can't find it

Found it!

U,hM{"Fizz"X(!\_%3)."Buzz"X(!a%5)|a}

I think

36 bytes if it works

thank goodness I never clear my browser history :p

but that's only over 1 to 100

DLosc

@lyxal Doesn't quite look like it'll work as written

@lyxal Easily changed to take input, just replace h with a

des54321

@lyxal oh string multiplication instead of if/else, that is a good one

lyxal

01:08

@DLosc some variation of it worked, because I remember thinking "dang it just a few bytes long of the actual one"

DLosc

Yeah--easy fix

des54321

Try it online! works with string multiplication, but needs !s so its still 37

DLosc

@des54321 You've got six bracket characters and you can drop four of them ;)

des54321

im pretty sure i cant drop the ones surrounding each side of the . because its precedence will mess everything up

DLosc

That's true on one side, but not on the other.

des54321

01:14

wait and the loop works with the P so it doesnt need {}? huh thats neat

33 bytes: Try it online!

DLosc

Yep. Any loop, if, etc. that only has one statement in its block can drop the curly braces.

PMC: Given a length, output a diagonal line of that length. For example, with an input of 4:

\
 \
  \
   \

des54321

@DLosc 11 bytes Try it online!

emanresu A

I'm beginning to doubt the integrity of pxeger's servers

DLosc

@des54321 Good--now see if you can find my 9-byte solution.

des54321

I feel like it wants to be something involving Ua but I cant quite work out what

DLosc

01:28

Hint: it's a single expression, no loop involved

des54321

alternate 11-byter with -n flag: Try it online!

emanresu A

@DLosc Found it

des54321

oh thats a good one, i forgot about that whole item-wise on lists thing

and of course that one is a 7 byter with the -n flag

lyxal

Imagine not calling it vectorisation :p

emanresu A

^ lol

DLosc

01:36

@lyxal Why would I call it vectorization, it doesn't turn things into vectors :P

PMC: Output this string:

des54321

@DLosc arguably given that it lets you use operations that take scalars on lists, scalarization might be a more appropriate name :P

where the hell is the alphabet coming from here: Try it online!

DLosc

It's the initial value of z

des54321

okay i clearly dont fully understand what im trying to do here, as the variable should get immediately set to "0123456789"

DLosc

The first time through the loop, i%9 is falsey, so the zR`[1-8]`s branch gets evaluated.

des54321

oh i put my branches the wrong way around facepalm

DLosc

01:46

Also, note that the output has 12 lines in total, not 10

des54321

okay whats going wrong with the last line here: Try it online!

DLosc

You're joining on x assuming that it'll be the empty string, but you're also assigning 0123456789 to x ;)

des54321

oh facepalm yep

Try it online! 31 bytes, fully working

DLosc

Pip golf often involves shuffling around which variables to use

@des54321 Nice! You can save some bytes by using Y

des54321

theres probably a better way to cut out the middle of the string than the regex

DLosc

01:50

That too

des54321

that yank is an awesome feature, down to 26 bytes: Try it online!

thejonymyster

@DLosc is there a similarly golfy hard version of this challenge, where the numbers increment/decrement vertically as well? :P

DLosc

@thejonymyster I doubt it'll be similarly golfy, but pose it as a PMC and we'll find out :D

thejonymyster

PMC: Output this string:

had to squish it sorry :P

DLosc

Nah, that's good. Could be some interesting options for golfing.

des54321

01:56

Im already seeing an interesting idea with "rotating" the string "0123456789", the problem is cutting out the middle

DLosc

23 bytes

Cheeky 21 bytes (would be 20 in modern Pip)

Even cheekier 19 bytes (18 in modern Pip)

thejonymyster

02:11

its starting to look like a compressed string :P

also whats the change that would make it modern pip

DLosc

U instead of ++

Although ++ also still works

thejonymyster

ah right ok

DLosc

22 bytes with the -l flag using MapCoords

Nobody Needs Names

02:33

PMC: Given a string find if it is a palindrome

Hmm wait nobody here?

thejonymyster

i'm here but i dont know enough pip to solve it yet :P

Nobody Needs Names

I think @DLosc can solve this

pretty sure there's a builtin

des54321

a==RVa

a==Ra should work too, but TIO is complaining that R is not a unary operator

Pyautogui

(\x -> reverse x==x)

Golf my horrid haskell.

Nobody Needs Names

given abc, output

abc
bca
cab

Pyautogui

02:38

permutations

^ haskell

It is a builtin.

thejonymyster

@des54321 well theres Q, which is string equal, surely that should help with this :P

des54321

of course it will :P

aQRVa for five bytes

Nobody Needs Names

Make it PMC

Pyautogui

How are yall so very quick at golfing?

thejonymyster

@des54321 i dont get why aQRa doesnt work :O

des54321

02:42

QR gets parsed as a single operator there

thejonymyster

well RaQa didnt work either :o

unless thats operator precedence :P

des54321

if youre using TIO, i think TIO doesnt have unary R for reverse implemented

thejonymyster

oh haha

des54321

because R is also replace as a ternary

PyGamer0

@RadvylfPrograms lol

emanresu A

02:49

Async Python is so cursed

Nobody Needs Names

PMC: print steps to transform input to 1, by collatz conjecture

PMC:

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Left and Right, Spsp Style WARNING This question is written by the Spsp language creator TvoozMagnificent` and might includes severe advertising. Spsp What's Spsp? Spsp is designed to be a 2D fourth generation golfing language. What are the commands? Good question, it is in developement, and if y...

PMC:

-1

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Roman Numerals... But With A Twist I'm assuming you have some knowledge of roman numerals, but more is at Appendix A. Fine. What's the twist? I want it short So, I don't want to express 1 as IIIIIIIIIX, I want it I. And we are not Romans, come on... Instead, you will create a program that takes i...

I lack an example program ;-)

DLosc

@des54321 Unary R is a newer addition

thejonymyster

that surprises me honestly

Nobody Needs Names

@DLosc why, what was the way before it was there

DLosc

RV

Nobody Needs Names

03:02

ko neht

m'i ni a Backwards doom

enoyna od eht CMP?

si enoyreve cigrella ot Backwards?

DLosc

Yes :P

It's getting a bit late for me, so I'm going to sign off for the night. Ping me with any Pip-related questions and I'll reply in the morning. o/

emanresu A

o/

wasm pip is slightly not working

thejonymyster

thats the best kind of not working

Nobody Needs Names

@DLosc KO

emanresu A

\o/ I managed to finally get writing-then-importing files into the emscripten virtual filesystem

Which means, in theory, I can run Pip

And anything python-based

I've been trying to do this for ages. Turns out all I needed was a sys.path.append

Nobody Needs Names

03:22

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\oooo////////////////////////

PyGamer0

03:37

@cairdcoinheringaahing lmao

how would that look like..

des54321

any combination of python and haskell sounds like a recipe for something horrible

Nobody Needs Names

except maybe

you just use haskell's comment system

;-)

@des54321 .

emanresu A

@emanresuA @PyGamer0 this means, in theory, I can also run flax in wasm

Unrelated String

lol

Nobody Needs Names

wait

what's wasm

i suk

Unrelated String

03:43

webassembly

Nobody Needs Names

@emanresuA .

@UnrelatedString oh...

emanresu A

Mar 9 at 4:34, by emanresu A

thejonymyster

@DLosc how often is the ' single char string useful? i see how it is objectively golfier but im just wondering how often you find yourself using it :P

emanresu A

Jan 30 at 9:09, by emanresu A

Assembly is Wednesday

des54321

@thejonymyster ive already used it in one of our PMCs today

thejonymyster

03:51

oh!

PyGamer0

@emanresuA yes you said that you can run anything :p

@emanresuA lol

before i go to school i would like to say that on one of the benches i successfully managed to write the url for the vyxal repo :)

hopefully someone get curious and types that into a browser

des54321

because everyone knows visiting random urls written on benches is a good idea

although i suppose the amount of damage a hacker can do from you visiting an arbitrary url is fairly small

thejonymyster

one time i picked up a cd someone left at a gas station

(not in the store, on one of the pumps)

Nobody Needs Names

o/ gotta go

Nobody Needs Names

05:10

.

Jo King

@NobodyNeedsNames please don't just post noise

emanresu A

\o/ 1+1 works in Pip in wasm!

justANewb stands with Ukraine

05:28

any more feedback on this question?

des54321

@justANewbstandswithUkraine seems like a pretty good, if fairly simple question, sequence with a closed form on the OEIS, only thing id say is your use of "maximal" in the title vs "minimum" in the body is slightly confusing

justANewb stands with Ukraine

thanks for the feedback! it is "minimum", horrible typo

emanresu A

So... now pip wasm half works

As in works half the time

And now it's completely broken

So much for that

des54321

05:49

@emanresuA works half the time as in half of the things you want to do work or every time you use it it has a 50% chance of breaking?

emanresu A

50% chance of breaking, and now it's more like 100%.

Okay, now it works :) (I hope)

fingers crossed I don't have to delve into the depths of importlib.util, from which few return alive.

justANewb stands with Ukraine

can I ask what are you trying to do?

like why pip+wasm lol

emanresu A

not pip as in the package installer, pip as in read the starboard.

des54321

@emanresuA throw some of the PMC solutions from todays LYAL at it and pray to any god you believe in that nothing breaks :P

emanresu A

Pip is now on DSO!

Should be running the latest commit although it currently requires manual pulling

des54321

05:58

all i did was ask it to calculate the 100th fibbonaci number

emanresu A

Recursion is kinda slow

des54321

okay ATO seems to time out on that one too, so its just that recursion is a stupid way to do things in pip

emanresu A

Wait, ATO's back up?

des54321

it didnt give an immediate error when i clicked the button and it was doing that earlier

yeah ATO is working

emanresu A

@des54321 anything will time out on calculating the 100th fibonacci number recursively

That's 300 quintillion recursive calls

des54321

06:03

oh yeah fibbonaci numbers do work like that dont they, number of calls is exponential

Unrelated String

(naively that is)

des54321

which you usually are, if youre golfing it

Unrelated String

you could hypothetically write naive recursion but have the calls memoized

emanresu A

Now that I'm done with that,

PMC: Generate a nxn checkerboard. Must have two distinct values.

emanresu A

06:16

^ is actually quite hard, I have 15

des54321

damn thats way better than what i have, i have like 35 bytes and it doesnt work yet

-l flag provides a very nice output format for this

emanresu A

I like my Y{%a}MCa

des54321

Pip, 30 bytes: Y([1 0]RL(a/2+1))@<a;Fi,aP!*:y

definitely better ways to do this one

i do like the !*:y here though

emanresu A

Hm nice

13

And ATO's down again

Oh well, 10

PMC: ASCII-art checkerboard with # and spaces.

des54321

06:43

why isnt this working

emanresu A

06:53

Adapting works?

Sandbox Posts

07:33

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Don't touch the walls! code-golf array Given a multi-dimensional non-jagged array of non-negative integers, pad it with the minimal number of zeroes so that no non-zero elements of the array are "touching the edges" of the array, in any dimension. The output must remain non-jagged and have the sa...

Nobody Needs Names

@SandboxPosts Wait, what's a non-jagged list @pxeger

Bubbler

all lists at the same depth have the same length, aka rectangular array

Nobody Needs Names

ok

@SandboxPosts maybe u should add more tests of multidimensionals and make them appear early

else it seems like a withAtwist probem

can ultidimensional be 1D?

pxeger

@SandboxPosts why the downvote?

Bubbler

Examples of edge elements for 1D and 3D (like the current one for 2D) might be helpful

mathcat

08:40

I just found a KOTH gold nugget

I think all five games would make good KOTHs

lyxal

Maybe not the last one as it requires the context of the first four

Also hey I remember watching that lol

mathcat

yeah

@lyxal I was thinking of koth challenges, and then I remembered the video.

I think I'll post biweekly KOTHs

Part 1:
The prize money is $100 in round 1, $300 in round 2, and $500 in round 3.
All bots tell each other how many tickets they will draw, a number between 0 and 20.
They are allowed to lie and then draw a different number of tickets.
The winner gets $100 divided by the number of tickets ordered.

Onions?

mathcat

09:16

Is python a good language for KOTHs?

Hello, World!

0

A: "Hello, World!"

Scratch, 33 bytes when gf clicked say[Hello, World!

emanresu A

09:33

@mathcat Definitely.

mathcat

okay, I'll write an API

Hello, World!

09:46

1

A: "Hello, World!"

ABC, 21 bytes WRITE "Hello, World!" Try it online!

Sandbox Posts

10:17

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Money: The Koth - Part 1 These KOTHs are based on Tom Scott's series Money, so make sure to check out his video first. Challenge: Prize draw The prize money is $100 in round 1, $300 in round 2, and $500 in round 3. All bots tell each other how many tickets they will draw, a number between 0 and ...

pxeger

CMC: (Haskell) define a type and a Monad instance where you can legally define return = return . return

PyGamer0

10:46

when will LDW start?

like when will it get scheduled

and be happening

Nobody Needs Names

10:57

@PyGamer0 what is ldw again

the new thing?

Transcript for