The Nineteenth Byte

Dennis

9:00 PM

I would have posted 3 of those 4 anyway. I probably wouldn't have posted the GolfScript answer.

trichoplax

Excellent :)

So from your point of view, you're likely to win the bounty for just one question...

Dennis

@flawr People vote for a number of reasons. There are some languages that are simply popular, and get a couple of upvotes even if the approach is straightforward and poorly golfed. Many do seem to like esoteric languages, whether they are suitable for golfing or not.

I do dislike challenges with artificial restrictions that would ban my language of choice. Otherwise, if it's not suitable for that languages, I just use another one.

flawr

I think it is just a pitty that regular languages do not appear as often anymore. It seems people care more about esoteric languages.

Thomas Kwa

It's natural for people to care about languages that win

TanMath

@flawr I will send always use python.. U saw my answers to the function challenge?

trichoplax

9:05 PM

People also care about esolangs that stand no chance of winning...

Thomas Kwa

Some of the spirit of code-golf is lost, though, when languages have so many useful builtins that there's no need for an ugly hack most of the time

Digital Trauma

personally I have little interest in spending the time needed to become a competitive golfer in the golf and esoteric languages

flawr

For me code-golf originally was a challenge to do something crazy with a language that quite often wasn't even intended to be used that way. But the esolangs somehow take a way that spirit.

SuperJedi224

@flawr I use java occasionally

flawr

@SuperJedi224 Me too, but usually as a joke.

Thomas Kwa

9:07 PM

@flawr that's exactly what I feel

Digital Trauma

in my experience, voters also seem to like good answers in (normal) languages that they are familiar with

Thomas Kwa

^

I've noticed the more Python I learn the more Python I vote for

trichoplax

Whatever the language, familiar or not, a good interesting explanation makes me more likely to upvote

2

Anonymous

^

Digital Trauma

@trichoplax yes

flawr

9:08 PM

But many people still post code without any explanation, and if it's short enough, people still upvote like crazy.

trichoplax

A caret, a yes and a star :)

2

Digital Trauma

^

flawr

We should introduce no-eso-stuff, but then most people would run away before they even read the question.

TanMath

@trichoplax oh, that is the yrick! I will add explanations now.. Hehehe.. But code golf is fun...

Thomas Kwa

I'm strongly against that @flawr

trichoplax

9:10 PM

@TanMath Yes seeing good explanations makes reading through the different approaches in different answers more interesting

flawr

I agree.

Anonymous

I like the use of ridiculous tricks to get a short answer in non-golfing languages. Those get upvotes from me. However, I like golfing languages as well (hell, I wrote one). I view that as being a different side of code-golf: authors of languages competing to see how short they can get their languages' submissions. We're competing in our own contest; rather than competing for the shortest answer on a single question, we're competing for the overall shortest answers.

trichoplax

@ThomasKwa Me too

Dennis

@flawr I would only run away after casting a downvote.

trichoplax

^

Anonymous

9:11 PM

And a language designed for golfing is not exempt from those crazy tricks - they tend to depend on them.

TanMath

BTW, I am going to write a python to pyth answer for the function challenge...

trichoplax

If golfing in a golflang was easy, it wouldn't be the same people winning most of the challenges...

flawr

For me the crazy tricks in regular languages are the interesting ones, I mean the golfing languages are almost like cheating anyway.

Anonymous

Golfing languages just make it easier to do the crazy stuff in less bytes. It just takes away some of the annoying long-windedness. Creativity is still needed to find the shortest solution.

Digital Trauma

@flawr the last two questions I wrote are both date-time related. I realise now that this implicitly excludes most popular golfing languages, though that was not my intention

VoteToClose

9:13 PM

@flawr Simple - ask them to use an object-oriented language that is not a shortened version of another. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anonymous

For example, on this challenge:

Anonymous

10

Q: Square side pinpointing

Welcome to my first code-golf challenge! :) Let's hop right into it. Challenge: Given two floating point vectors, O (origin) and T (target), you have to create a program to print the values L and R to STDOUT. O is one corner of the square T is one corner of the square that is located opposite...

Digital Trauma

so far no answers and not enough upvotes to set the house on fire

TanMath

print "+ %d Q" %input

Digital Trauma

one I just posed today, but the other is now a week old

TanMath

9:13 PM

Is this correct?

Anonymous

For a while, I was leading with my not-so-clever Seriously answer. Then Thomas came in, and not only beat my Seriously answer with a clever solution in TI-BASIC, he then beat that by implementing the same clever solution in Seriously.

Anonymous

@TanMath print"+%dQ"%input()

Thomas Kwa

if you want to encourage conventional languages, post bounties! I'll gladly do the same if they produce interestjng results.

Calvin's Hobbies

@Geobits chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stack-exchange-deleted-an/…

Anonymous

You don't need a space between print and non-alphanumeric characters, spaces are pointless in Pyth, and you have to actually call input(), not just pass its reference.

Digital Trauma

9:15 PM

my long and rambling point is that it seems the exclusion of golfing languages, be it explicit or implicit is not very popular

flawr

frustrated-about-status-quo

Digital Trauma

either that or my questions are too boring

TanMath

@Mego thanks!

Geobits

@Calvin'sHobbies Thanks :D Will check it out later.

Dennis

@TanMath That's doesn't print a function; it prints a program.

Digital Trauma

9:16 PM

digitaltrauma-is-boring, if you will

flawr

^ mine too.

TanMath

@Dennis so it wouldn't work?

Anonymous

@DigitalTrauma The exclusion of any language is not very popular. That's why, in the Back Nine, I didn't exclude any - I just require that you use 9 different languages, and at least 4 of them must be from the TIOBE top 20 (which probably would've happened anyway).

xnor

@flawr I was scared off by the output formatting

or, rather, didn't want to golf it

I would have done it if it was purely mathematical

flawr

@xnor What other output format would you prefer?

Anonymous

9:18 PM

I was scared off with the math I didn't understand at 11 PM

xnor

@flawr float

Dennis

@TanMath It would work in the sense that it adds the numbers, but it wouldn't be a valid submission for the challenge.

flawr

That just defies the essence of number theory=)

xnor

a tuple would also be nicer

i could imagine recursing directly on that, without having to use a string format

if inputs were guaranteed positive

Bad Cat Eye

Academia.SE seems to be full of people asking about really terrible things happening to them... Is it really this bad when you get to university?

flawr

9:21 PM

@BadCatEye It can be.

Zgarb

@BadCatEye Nothing horrid has happened to me... yet.

Anonymous

Also, on the subject of pro-vs-anti-golflangs, I think we need to emphasize the fact that we want solutions from every valid language (those that meet our requirements and were not created for the sole purpose of winning the challenge) on every challenge, not just the catalog challenges.

2

Digital Trauma

@Mego yes - explicit language exclusion is discouraged for good reason. The community also seems to do a good job of quietly discouraging implicit language exclusion too

xnor

@Mego I'm actually not sold on the value on having lots of languages

TanMath

@Dennis wouldn't I just have to add a D or something?

xnor

9:22 PM

it dilutes the competition

Anonymous

@BadCatEye There was a paddle and a keg, and that's all I remember. 3 years later I walked out with a hand full of diploma, a head full of compsci and math, and a bank account full of debt.

flawr

@Mego But the attention certain answers do get and others do not imply otherwise.

Bad Cat Eye

@Mego A paddle and a keg?

Anonymous

@BadCatEye College is weird man

Bad Cat Eye

Sounds like some kind of violent party... :O

Anonymous

9:23 PM

Stay away from the honors students, they're the weirdest

xnor

@Mego also, I can't really judge the quality of a golf in a language I'm just seeing now, even if I took lots of time to study the esolangs page

Dennis

@TanMath The shortest solution would be to use L for a monadic, named lambda expression.

Bad Cat Eye

@Mego Haha what did you study at uni?

Anonymous

@xnor Diversity. Seeing how different approaches are taken in languages to solve problems is cool.

Anonymous

> compsci and math

Bad Cat Eye

9:24 PM

> Oh cool

Anonymous

@flawr Hence why we should emphasize that all languages are welcome

flawr

@Mego And how should we go about this? I do agree of course, but I do not see how=)

TanMath

@Dennis onh, correct.. so I just add an L to the beginning of my solution?

Anonymous

@xnor You're not required to vote on an answer, especially if you don't understand the language well enough to judge how well it has been golfed

2

xnor

@Mego but then who will vote on answers if there's tons of obscure languages?

flawr

9:26 PM

@xnor enough people will...

El'endia Starman

I myself am more likely to upvote an obscure language just to get it a bit more attention.

Anonymous

@flawr I think the catalogs are a step in the right direction. The recent meta post about multiple solutions in the same language is a good step as well - we also want to see a variety of approaches.

Anonymous

@xnor The people like me, who want to see more diversity in the answers

VoteToClose

@El'endiaStarman I agree to this.

Dennis

@TanMath That wouldn't work, since Q would still read from STDIN. You'd have to use b (the lambda's argument) instead.

flawr

9:28 PM

@mego what meta post are you referring to?

xnor

it seems that many obscure languages, people upvote simply for the coolness of the premise of the language or for the fact that the user took the time to do the task in a strange language, not for the quality of the golfing in that language, which I find is not in the spirit of a site about programming contests

2

Anonymous

I dislike seeing questions where a CJam/Pyth/Mathematica-with-a-builtin answer was posted early on, and then few other answers followed because people didn't bother answering because they couldn't win. That goes against the spirit of the site.

Anonymous

(granted, that's a symptom of the bigger FGITW issue, but one problem at a time)

Alex A.

@xnor I disagree to some extent. People don't have to have the absolutely shortest answer in the language to be deserving of an upvote. As long as they've made some attempt at golfing and have a creative solution.

Anonymous

14

Q: Why can't I post my answer after others use my language?

I've been getting a lot of grief lately about posting Python answers after other users have already posted a Python answer. Not only do I come up with these independently, they sometimes are shorter/different solutions. I'm getting really tired of this. Sources: http://chat.stackexchange.com/tr...

discussion fastest-gun-in-the-west

Anonymous

9:29 PM

@AlexA. alex-is-right-for-once

flawr

@AlexA. I just see a problem in the way many people try to post a shitty solution as fast as possible just to get the attention, and the (perhaps) improve it.

xnor

yes, but I honestly can't even judge whether the answer is even kind-of golfed, and i imagine neither can most voters on a super-obscure language

Dennis

@Mego I do think challenges should put a ban on one-step or lion-share built-ins. For example, using built-ins that store the required information in a kolmogorov-complexity challenge are completely against its spirit.

Alex A.

@xnor I usually reserve voting on things like that unless a thorough explanation of the code has been given.

Anonymous

@xnor If we followed the spirit of "only post a solution if it's shorter than the current ones", we'd see a whole lot of Perl/CJam/Pyth/Mathematica/Seriously answers, and nothing else. 5 languages dominating the site is not good.

VoteToClose

9:31 PM

@Mego This question has a -12 and a +25 answer. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

TanMath

@Dennis what is b?

VoteToClose

If only you got rep for meta questions. :c

Rainbolt

As I have said before, if there exists a built-in that solves your challenge, then your challenge probably wasn't very original.

^ No idea if that is relevant to the current discussion.

Dennis

@TanMath The lambda's implicit argument.

TanMath

@Dennis how does it work?

Dennis

9:32 PM

L essentially defines a function y(b).

Alex A.

@Rainbolt I disagree to some extent. I think a language that has a built-in to do a large part of the work shows its strength as the "right tool for the job" for that challenge.

xnor

i'm imagining the slippery-slope case where I make xnor-lang, the language where input values only combined with xnor gates, and nobody but me can really tell if 142 xnor gates is a good score or not, even if lay out what the gates are doing

Anonymous

@Dennis I think it depends on the question. For catalog questions, where the explicit purpose is to catalog the shortest way of doing something in every language, built-ins are fine. For other questions, it's up to the author. I agree with your point about kolmogrov challenges, though.

xnor

(i know xnor gates are not actually universal)

TanMath

@Dennis oh, so instead of Q, it becomes b?

Dennis

9:33 PM

Yes. You can call it with y to test.

Anonymous

@Rainbolt I agree with Alex, with the additional note that, if we followed that, we'd lose out on a lot of good questions with interesting answers because Mathematica has builtins for everything

Rainbolt

"Mathematica has builtins for everything." <- Opposite of true

Anonymous

almost everything

TanMath

print"L+%db"%input()

xnor

i've given up on trying to ban out mathematica in specs, they can just have their built-in solution

and everyone can feel free to ignore it

Anonymous

9:35 PM

It has a huge library of builtins that would prevent interesting challenges from being posted if we had that rule in place

Dennis

@TanMath That works.

Rainbolt

I don't know what rule you think I was proposing. I just said that your challenge is not original if it can be solved by a builtin.

TanMath

@Dennis thanks ...

Anonymous

@Rainbolt That is a rule - not a "you get banned if you break this" rule, but a "this is how it is" rule

Rainbolt

So everything I say is a rule?

Alex A.

9:37 PM

@xnor Personally I don't think any language should ever be banned unless it doesn't meet our criteria for qualifying as a language. Mathematica will never be the shortest so it's not like it will win anyway, but why does it matter if there's a Mathematica answer in there? It means someone who knows Mathematica gets to participate and have fun. :)

Dennis

@Mego With the exceptions of catalogs, I usually ban all one-step built-ins from my challenges. It basically robs the users of some languages from the fun of implementing the solution in that language.

Anonymous

@Rainbolt That was a rule-of-thumb, if you prefer that wording

Rainbolt

Can I just state my opinion without it being a rule?

Anonymous

It's a rule to you

VoteToClose

@Rainbolt I agree with this.

xnor

9:38 PM

@AlexA. i agree, by "ban out Mathematica", I meant to say "built-ins that do X, Y, and Z are not allowed cough cough Mathematica"

Anonymous

Regardless of this semantical argument

Rainbolt

How does "a rule in my head" prevent interesting challenges?

Clearly you were giving this "rule" some sort of authority.

Anonymous

> Regardless of this semantical argument

Dennis

16

A: Element names above 118

Mathematica 10.1, indium (49) cadmium (48) This solution uses a built-in library of element properties, including IUPAC names and abbreviations. (I haven't seen this as a technique to be avoided in Golf. It seems to be encouraged. But this might be on (perhaps over) the edge of acceptable -- ...

VoteToClose

@Rainbolt What he is saying is that you are giving a rule of thumb to which you subscribe (i.e. an opinion on how things work); he is not saying that you are building the foundational rules for the site by stating this.

Alex A.

9:39 PM

@Dennis ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Right tool for the job

Anonymous

There are plenty of interesting challenges that you would deem unoriginal because Mathematica has a builtin for them. I think that's unfair that one language entirely dictates originality.

Bad Cat Eye

Recently, I've started trying to come up with question that encourage Mathematica builtins

I find it quite interesting when Mathematica does have a single function to complete a task

Alex A.

Wolfram tries to make Mathematica a go-to tool for any kind of computation. So in practice, it's a very powerful tool.

Rainbolt

I don't understand why it's unfair to anyone if I think their challenge is unoriginal.

TanMath

0

A: Write a Program that Writes a function BUT in a different language!

Python to Python, 20 bytes print"L+%db"%input() Basically, it prints out a lambda function (L) that takes in the argument (b, implicit variable) and adds the input from the Python program.

Alex A.

9:41 PM

@Rainbolt I don't think it's unfair to think anything is unoriginal. Your opinion is your opinion.

TanMath

@trichoplax iaddeda description option of how it works!

Alex A.

People may or may not agree. Whatevs.

Dennis

@TanMath You forgot to golf the on.

Rainbolt

Okay, so lets stop projecting my opinion as something larger than my opinion.

Anonymous

@TanMath python to pyth, not python to python

TanMath

9:42 PM

@Mego oops!

Alex A.

@Rainbolt I didn't realize anyone had been trying to do that.

Rainbolt

@AlexA. Someone said that if "my rule" were in place, a lot of interesting stuff would be blocked from the site.

Calvin's Hobbies

@Dennis And forgot to thank you for the help

TanMath

@Dennis golf what?

Dennis

7 mins ago, by TanMath

@Dennis thanks ...

Anonymous

9:43 PM

@Rainbolt Nobody is doing that. All I'm saying is, that's an unfair way to judge originality, because one massive language will essentially dictate originality.

3

Dennis

Ah, whatever.

TanMath

@Dennis oh..I did it

Anonymous

@Rainbolt That's not what I meant. I meant, if we all followed that rule, we'd have a problem.

sweerpotato

Question: is Pyth like compressed Python?

Anonymous

@sweerpotato Yep

sweerpotato

9:44 PM

That's the impression I have

Bad Cat Eye

It's pretty much exactly that

Alex A.

Not anymore

It started as that

But it's grown into something else entirely.

Bad Cat Eye

That's why I say pretty much

sweerpotato

Now Pyth is actually Mathematica :S

Alex A.

@BadCatEye You said "pretty much exactly." ;)

Bad Cat Eye

9:45 PM

@AlexA. Shhh ;)

Dennis

@sweerpotato Minus the 500 dollar fee.

Thomas Kwa

@xnor Case in point: codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/62777/39328

Calvin's Hobbies

@AlexA. I remember when isaacg put the entire Pyth Python interpreter in answers for testing

sweerpotato

:D

Thomas Kwa

Which I'm not ashamed to say I downvoted

flawr

9:45 PM

@Dennis Buy a rapsberry pi

sweerpotato

I think I should learn some Pyth..

Tried CJam once, couldn't even write a simple 1-10 output

Stack-based languages aren't my forte

trichoplax

@TanMath Was that intended for someone else? Or do you mean because I mentioned upvoting good explanations? It's not quite enough explanation for my limited understanding...

Dennis

@flawr Why exactly?

Alex A.

> Not really competitive, but for the fun of it.

Anonymous

@ThomasKwa I wanted to upvote that for the sheer ridiculousness of it, and the fact that I've seen maybe one other Arnold C answer on the site

Bad Cat Eye

9:47 PM

@sweerpotato You should. Pyth is a great language and easier to use than Python

Alex A.

@Dennis You could get student Mathematica. It's "only" $200 with $90 for each version upgrade. :P

Thomas Kwa

@AlexA. There wasn't even an attempt at golfing.

Alex A.

I know.

sweerpotato

I'm biased toward the "bad" languages though

Dennis

@AlexA. Oh, where do I sign up???

sweerpotato

9:47 PM

C++ etc

Anonymous

@ThomasKwa That exact reason is why I didn't upvote it

TanMath

@trichoplax n ffor you...

flawr

@Dennis To avoid the 500$ fee=)

TanMath

@trichoplax why.. What don't you get?

Alex A.

@sweerpotato There's nothing "bad" about C++ et al., even for golfing. Some pretty nice solutions have been made in those languages. They rarely win, but since they're generally verbose it's easy to tell when significant effort has been put into golfing.

trichoplax

9:49 PM

@TanMath Pyth...

TanMath

@trichoplax codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/63575/34421

Bad Cat Eye

@flawr Still costs $25 ;)

Which isn't good enough for cheapskates like me

Alex A.

I'd say $25 counts as avoiding the $500 fee

TanMath

@trichoplax oh..you don't know pyth?

flawr

@AlexA. It is avoiding 475$ fee then.

sweerpotato

9:50 PM

@AlexA. That's true. I do like golfing in C++ - I never win challenges but it's fun :~)!

Alex A.

I'm glad you have fun. Fun is the point of this site in my opinion. :)

TimmyD

@DigitalTrauma Your 100-year birthday problem is a lot more difficult than it seems on the surface. Good job.

flawr

Lets creat another SE, like true-golf where we ban all the esolangs.

Bad Cat Eye

That'd be terrible

Alex A.

^

status-declined

flawr

9:51 PM

Why?

Bad Cat Eye

Without esolangs, PPCG would never be as successful and fun as it is now

TimmyD

What's defined as an esolang?

ninja'd

Calvin's Hobbies

@TimmyD Damn :P

Anonymous

@flawr no-true-golfer

Alex A.

Does it have a Wikipedia page? If not, it's probably an esolang.

idk

sweerpotato

9:52 PM

Speaking of esolangs, how do you determine if a language is turing complete or not?

Alex A.

Turing test it

Anonymous

Does it have an esolang page? It's probably an esolang.

Bad Cat Eye

Can it simulate a Turing machine or not

sweerpotato

Yes..

Dennis

@sweerpotato Implement Brainfuck.

Calvin's Hobbies

9:52 PM

Or rule 110

El'endia Starman

Or a 2-counter machine.

Anonymous

Speaking of, @El'endiaStarman did you ever figure out Pancake Stack?

sweerpotato

I'll have a hard time with this :X

Bad Cat Eye

@El'endiaStarman Try Drive-in Window next

flawr

Bad Cat Eye

9:54 PM

What a mess

El'endia Starman

@Mego @grc and I ultimately came to the conclusion that you can't even multiply the top two elements of the stack. It is Turing complete, but there's a caveat that means it can't actually compute anything and everything.

Anonymous

@sweerpotato Brainfuck is, imo, the easiest to implement. It's simple, and if you don't understand it, it's easy to transpile BF into C

sweerpotato

"My pancakes are done, better put them in the oven for three hours"

Anonymous

@El'endiaStarman That caveat means it's not TC

flawr

@sweerpotato You need to keep them warm. This pile took almost an hour I think.

TimmyD

9:54 PM

Besides, if you do try to do something like that, then every challenge will be "won" in something like APL, so then APL will get banned. And then everything will be "won" in something else ... etc.

Thomas Kwa

By the way, I disagree with our current consensus as to what should be a programming language.

sweerpotato

I understand Brainfuck, but I don't have a clear idea of how to implement it in my language

El'endia Starman

@Mego And yet, it's considered to be in the same computational class.

Bad Cat Eye

@ThomasKwa What should be a programming language then?

sweerpotato

Probably need an input instruction and an if operator

Thomas Kwa

9:55 PM

The restriction only causes people who write new joke languages to do something like esolangs.org/wiki/Bubblegum

Anonymous

@El'endiaStarman If it's in the same computational class and thus is TC, the caveat must be wrong.

Thomas Kwa

@BadCatEye Anything that transforms input and code to output

And yes, that includes HQ9+

El'endia Starman

12 hours ago, by grc

*turing complete with a caveat

Bad Cat Eye

Night peeps

sweerpotato

nn

Thomas Kwa

9:56 PM

I think we should disallow languages as they cease to be funny, not use this arbitrary restriction to make people add "add two numbers" and "check primality" functions to their new joke languages

flawr

@BadCatEye N8

Good night/afternoon/what-ever-time-the-f***-it-is-where-ever-the-f***-you-live everyone.

Alex A.

@ThomasKwa I don't think we should disallow any language unless it doesn't meet our criteria to qualify as a language.

TimmyD

@ThomasKwa That opens a slew of one-byte answers in "languages" specifically designed for that challenge, like HQ9+

flawr

I suggest new criterion: It has to have the substring "atlab" in it's name.

TimmyD

@flawr PoweratlabShell has a ring to it ...

Thomas Kwa

9:58 PM

@TimmyD What's the problem if they were created before the challenge?

El'endia Starman

@flawr Pythonatlab? Catlab? :P

Alex A.

@TimmyD Such languages typically do not meet our criteria. An example of a non-language for our purposes is HQ9+.

Dennis

@flawr Writing up an Esolang page for CJatlab as we speak.

Alex A.

@Dennis I think I missed what this is. I must know.

Rainbolt

If a joke language that already exists solves your problem in one character, your challenge wasn't very original anyway.

Thomas Kwa

9:59 PM

The only thing the restriction accomplishes is replacing HQ9+ with Help, WarDoq!.

El'endia Starman

Catlab: a language that has nothing but "meow"s and needles.

Anonymous

@El'endiaStarman Turing equivalent does not mean turing complete. There's a distinction between being in the same computational class as a TM (turing-equivalent) and being TC, which I forgot about until reading that. If I'm remembering my theory class correctly, the difference is that a TE language can solve all but a finite set of computable problems.

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