hehe, true

@Doorknob I think you can unpin that keyboard shortcuts post now

hey, 5.9 questions a day!

Congratulations people: We're below 6 questions per day now!

This pacman question has nearly doubled my rep on codegolf

Some of the visibility questions might not have applied with the original pacman's maze style. The walls were at least one tile thick, mostly 2 tiles thick.

@Geobits It was still 6.1 this morning.

Sounds like some site's got a case of the Mondays... ;)

quick! let's ask a bunch of questions then close them immediately

One of us just needs to post a tenth of a question

What i

"unclear what you're asking"

@NathanMerrill would you like me to fork and submit pull requests, or commit directly?

@MartinBüttner "too broad"

or fork and accept my own pull requests?

@githubphagocyte I'm surprised there's not more going on with the new CG proposal after the all the fuss with closing the old one

This question is a possible duplicate of What i...

commit Sparr

I don't know how to deal with pull requests :P

I'll just make a popcon. They're like low-maintenance rep farms :D

@MartinBüttner yes it seems the small number of very enthusiastic members have rejoined but the huge numbers that took months to gather initially haven't come back for the new proposal.

i made 340 rep from the tweet pics popcon in 2 days

@cjfaure There's about a 90% chance that it'll be a low-maintenance close-vote farm.

wait did you change your username?

(need to refresh)

@MartinBüttner yeah

who does that?

@MartinBüttner blinks and looks at rusherbolt

@Rusherbolt

* cough *

@Baconbits

Hell yes

Are there people who change their username to fit in with each new question they ask?

ha, you can't even pronounce my username xD

@githubphagocyte Redditors

You can only change it once every 30 days, IIRC.

Is there a proper word for a range of numbers where the end comes before the start? Like "All numbers from 6 to 4"?

Just in case someone can spit it out quickly before I go ask math stack exchange lol

I had to wait until mid-January to change mine back from "Generic Holiday Name".

Do you want to know so you can use it as a username?

No. it's going in our testing documents

@Rainbolt "confusing"

decreasing range?

"Verify that you cannot enter a range where the end comes before the start."

"negative step range"

I believe "reverse range" is a used term.

@Rainbolt I'm not sure a technical term would help there... seems pretty clear to me as it is.

non-zero range?

But the way you have it worded would still be better than using an obcure term for a technical spec or testing step.

non-empty range?

But this is going to testing. I have to give them something to Google or they'll think I am plain.

ninja'd @Geobits

The end user doesn't get to see this

:D

(noooo, Mandelbrot is pulling away again)

Unless your testers already know the term up-front, I don't see the difference.

Clarity over conciseness, just like code.

after some internet research, the only thing I've found is exposure compensation

Nooooo! Must... golf... testing steps

lol

which isn't even close to what you're asking, so xD

"no-1step" <-- There, golfed (English: 8 chars)

If you just want a short word that doesn't really relate to what you mean, so the testers get confused and have to look it up online, try cthulhu

I could work this in there. "Log in as any user (for example, "cthulu")."

@githubphagocyte it's all good. when you changed it back I figured it had something to do with them Brits and their weird spellings :)

@Malachi as long as it's clear that I wasn't trying to impose my own preference, that's good.

I'd support a change from one correct spelling to another if the meaning was different - like changing taurus to torus

@Malachi how dare they make up their own English!

I have been trying to install my application all morning and just now realized that IIS wasn't even installed. I was on some weird witch hunt with only one thing to go on: error code 1603. Curse you error code 1603!

Error 1603: Insufficient hours wasted

it's like trying to find the cause of a segfault you have already fixed

(not that I'd know what that would be like........)

I bet there is a way to automatically turn Windows features on or off during an installation. Take that, user-who-randomly-disables-features-on-VMs-that-dont-belong-to-you!

@Rainbolt you can do unattended windows installations with arbitrary configurations

Skynet can handle that for you.

so many stars

(please don't star this)

bloody hell

Oh come on, you were asking for it :D

What on earth is going on in here? Nobody said XKCD, so why all the stars?

I was afraid the "so many stars" one would get a star... I had to prevent that

Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.

@Rainbolt so... when do we start on the KotH framework?

I think we should start simple - a list of tasks that need to be completed

I want to learn github

I think it would be a good repository

Does it hold regular docs?

About the framework.

This might be a terribly stupid question.

No stupid questions, just stupid users :D

But would meta programming be in any way helpful for creating a koth challenge?

@Geobits the upside-down is universe

@overactor That's what were going to write (I think)

@Geobits I know, and I'm trying to pretend I'm not one of them.

@Rainbolt It holds whatever you want it to. It just can't necessarily display arbitrary docs, but Markdown ftw. And yes, we should definitely use GitHub.

sneaks off to /r/edmproduction

@cjfaure that's not even a question

what framework are you guys talking about?

@Sparr A script that can gather entries, a script that can compile them, a "meta controller" that can run the scripts

@MartinBüttner in soviet russia, questions ask you

Trying to cut down on the time it takes to run a KotH contest

A big problem with trying to automate gather/compile of entries would be that nobody standardizes their answers. Code blocks all over the place, languages either not specified or specified in a non-standard way, etc.

standardized answers would Just Happen if there was an automated judge

anyone who didn't comply wouldn't get scored

@Geobits if you're using the framework you can ask the users to follow a certain format

You can ask, sure...

if not, it's still less work to edit their posts into that format than to do all the stuff manually

It's only less work if you have full edit privileges.

also, point to Martin, re editing their posts

sparr, I just pushed

I added your bots

and made it so you don't need pygame to run

Here's another idea - some sort of scoreboard refresh button. Click it, and if you got disqualified you'll know immediately that your post didn't follow the format.

@Geobits ah come on... people edit every single post in KotH to add syntax highlighting... don't tell me no one will go around getting them all in the right format

Of course that only works for KotH trials that run fast (not like my last one)

@NathanMerrill github doesn't see your push yet

@Rainbolt that button would necessarily have to start a test run... that's not something I'd want participants to be able to do, I think

oh, now it does

wait a sec

I just did a fix for my last push

its pushed now

if you get an import error, you need to pull again

Maybe the button could zip up the controller and download it to them with all the entries included so they can run the trial on their own machine?

@NathanMerrill you should tell your git to ignore *~

@Rainbolt hm, interesting idea... that would mean they'd also need all compilers though

@MartinBüttner We can't even agree on a common format for a single language/score line, and as Peter Taylor says, it's insane to try.

unless you can select which languages you want to include in your local copy

Hyphens, parentheses, colons, small headline, large headline, etc.

@Geobits I'm sure for an individual challenge it would work.

And the parser can be a bit lenient

I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm saying that part of it might be more than needs to be done.

It doesn't make sense site-wide... but if you say "if your markdown doesn't follow this template, you won't be included in the scoreboard" that should work

what does *~ mean @Sparr ?

your editor is making backups of files when you edit them

@Geobits it would also be the part that would make it most convenient

named foo~

@Geobits The difference here is that if you can get FAST results and see that you failed, you might be inclined to fix your format.

*~ is files that end with ~

...we don't have any ~ files?

@Rainbolt might have been me.... I like stars..... lol

github.com/thenameipicked/Pacman/blob/master/Pacman/bots/…

ah

emacs :P

Nobody cares about fixing their score line because nobody wrote a requirement that said "Follow this format or you get disqualified."

we don't have set-theory? o.O

Maybe my idea of a framework is different. My intent was mainly to help the OP, by eliminating common code from the controller itself.

This seems to be help the OP and answerers by not making them compile stuff.

that needs to be created

@Geobits I'd want to do both

Compiling/running has been the easiest part of both asking and answering koths for me, so I guess I didn't see it as a problem.

Except on Windows.

I don't even bother on my windows computer after battlebots.

I think Rainbolt has a different story to tell about that :D

^ It took me a few hour to write the controller. It took me far longer to compile stuff. Granted, I am better at it now than I was.

Check this out: codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/34618/18487

I guess my point was that gathering compilers is something you only really need to do once.

If you leave your machine "dirty" between challenges

I clear up my path variable, uninstall everything, etc., because my desktop is meant for gaming

Or if you're a programmer by nature :D

I'm super OCD about having free software I don't use

I'm not sure if this is what you are talking about right now, but I wish there were a "controller template" which would allow people to write controllers easily.

@PhiNotPi no, we're talking about Unicorns, Rainbows and Compilers

@Rainbolt With the assumption that you'll participate in future challenges, I don't see why that software is labeled "unused".

I don't know why I capitalised those things

but yes we are also remotely talking about a framework for controllers

You always capitalize Unicorns.

Unicorns deserve to be capitalized.

but Compilers?

Yea, not so much. Rainbows only in the context of Unicorns, obviously.

@PhiNotPi I think we started talking about that the other day. The variables were 1) How will you send information to an entry? 2) How will you receive information from an entry? 3) Single round or multiple rounds per trial? 4) Something I can't remember

@NathanMerrill also, if you aren't aware, "python -O" unsets the debug global

err, that's __debug__

Compilers should be capitalized because they can just as well capitalize themselves ;3

@MartinBüttner I'm also not a fan of your absurd comma usage in that list.

rainbow Unicorn compilers

If you enforced a strict way of communicating (like stdin stdout), then I imagine making a standardized controller is doable. Just plug in logic for "do this every round" and "score like this every round"

@Sparr, I wasn't but I had to look it up

@Rainbolt That was my original idea. Also, set options for tournament structure (round-robin, etc).

Oh, I remember number 4. Is communication realtime or in order?

@Geobits I can never understand English comma usage

I hadn't thought about eliminating entries via a tournament structure. That seems like something you would want to have

@MartinBüttner Yours isn't wrong, it's just "wrong" :D

why put a comma after a word if there's already an "and"

I think the meat of the controller is too difficult to capture in a framework honestly.

I'm mostly just using German punctuation rules and dropping two out of three commas. that tends to work...

@MartinBüttner People disagree

To my parents, Ayn Rand and God.

Seems like you are going to build another Online Judge?

That's my favorite example

@Geobits I like argument 1 for and against it

Yep, it's a ridiculous debate where both sides have good arguments, and people just end up using whatever they were taught in grade school.

hi

My favorite: 38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyuxmrLF0F1qgo9z1o1_500.jpg

@Geobits I'm so glad there's a standard for German language which no one questions :D

Oxford comma = best comma

(well... in Germany that is... I'm sure they've got their own madness in Austria and Switzerland)

I'm glad English is not standard. It takes wordplay to a new level.

if you want to use a balanced binary search tree, is there a go to library for speed?

well it's not like that standard doesn't leave some leeway in certain cases. but at least it's unambiguously clear whether there is leeway or whether just half the population has it wrong.

@user2179021 which language?

I am surprised that google doesn't point me to something obvious

C/C++ I suppose for speed . I may call it from another language of course :)

esolangs.org/wiki/English

A compiler of English (usually to some other high-level language) is called a 'programmer'. They are usually humans and they can be quite buggy at times. However, the 'programmer's are not able to compile English into another high-level language if the original source is uncomputable. Programmer compilers take more time than other compilers like 'gcc' or so, but they also have abilities to disassemble or decompile high-level language into English.

^ Best part

> This program reads a description of a program and executes it.

^ I like the self interpreter better.

On another topic, I'm well on my way to a Good Question badge for my latest question. Yet it has no answers. Odd.

It's now the highest voted question with zero answers.

It's a good question - got my upvote. I'd need to do some reading before attempting an answer though...

I'm surprised there haven't been answers by people already familiar with pathfinding

Me too. I swear if I don't get something in the next couple days I'm going to post an example in Java just to taunt people with a high byte count.

I love pathfinding

I'll do it later, I promise

oh, yes, I was horrified by how complicated the LOS was going to be

that was my concern when I first reviewed it

I'm focused on the tweetable art question for now - it's getting addictive

@NathanMerrill Why don't the controller program give the infomation of all objects in the map each round ? Then the problem become simpler and we could have more fun.

@VisualMelon Believe it or not, I tried to make the LOS as easy as possible. Rather than something like this, that is.

@Ray because that makes it too easy :p

@Geobits I've got an idea in my head for the algorithm to solve dont blink, and golfing that algorithm doesn't seem fun to me :(

@Geobits that is horrifying, I was mostly concerned about having to golf it, but as no-one else has contributed an answer I won't look as bad if I can't get it right down ;)

I don't think so. And don't you think the rules now is too complicated and weird ?

Humans see all the map when playing Pac-Man.

@Ray you've never played first person pacman?

@Ray too easy

@Sparr. Yes... never

Okay. Here comes my next question: If there are more than one object in the same grid, why don't the controller give them separatly?

kongregate.com/games/briderider/fps-man

...there's only 1 case for this, if there is a ghost

the ghost is much more important than anything else there

and I would prefer to keep the bot's output simple

its much easier to read exactly 2 characters, than a variable amount of them

depending on the language

You can do it like this: 20,20G 20,20G

This makes both the life of the controller and the players easier...

...do you care if there are 2 ghosts there?

actually, it would complicate my code

but I'm not against complicating my code

if it makes the player's easier

More ghosts, more delicious

I think this is all moot at this point (or almost so). The challenge is up, three answers are posted. What do we actually gain by changing the I/O spec at this point?

all three answers are mine

none of them would be broken by this change

Three answers are all written by one person.

I might suggest 20,20GG though

My point is, if something need to be change, we'd change it early.

GG would break shortsighted.py but I'd happily fix it

Right, but it's generally SOP here not to change challenge specs after posting and receiving answers, unless something's broken and needs to be changed.

@Geobits this is what we get for not using the sandbox thoroughly enough :p

Is it too late in the process to change it to asteroids instead of pacman?

lol

oooh

asteroids bots

the bots don't even have to be able to shoot each other

@Sparr The link you gave me won't work since I'm using a Linux box. What a pity...

that would be a neat challenge

@Ray which link?

fps-man

it uses Unity, which definitely runs on Linux

long live C#

Aye, it works fine for me.

Really? Here I see the unity webplayer only support Windows and Mac OSX

@NathanMerrill giving you the evil eye for putting windows newlines in a portable project on github... :|

oh, yeah, you'd have to download it, not play it on the website

That's... odd. Maybe I've done something I don't remember, but my linux box at home works for anything my son's ever clicked on Kongregate, and I'm sure that includes at least one Unity game.

@Geobits did you install pipelight to run unity web player through wine?

...that's odd