The Nineteenth Byte

Helka Homba

22:00

@Downgoat Ooh I have the most questions there too

Adnan

@HelkaHomba with 8 duplicates.

New Sandboxed Posts

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A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Gasket Weaving code-golf graphical-output geometry fractal Challenge Given an integer N >= 2, produce an image of a Sierpinski knot of degree N, to the specification described below. Stack snippet judge [ SNIPPET THAT ACCEPTS A SOLUTION IMAGE AND IDENTIFIES ANY INVALID PIXELS ] Spec...

ArtOfCode

Stars applied.

Downgoat

@ArtOfCode you did it to the wrong Downgoat :|

ArtOfCode

Heh.

this does not surprise

Downgoat

22:08

;_; who downvot downgoat best goat

@ArtOfCode :/

ArtOfCode

stars re-applied

Downgoat

:D

El'endia Starman

@KennyLau I'm astounded that you're calling a challenge "trivial" based on a 15-byte Pyth solution.

Yes, it's easy and straightforward, but not trivial.

Helka Homba

Very few things are actually too trivial for a challenge imo

El'endia Starman

22:23

Yeah, that's true. People still spot them though. :P

Geobits

Sometimes trivial is pursued, in fact >_>

<_<

mınxomaτ

BTW, if any of you are C# programmers on platforms other than Windows, you now can have R#, too, since JetBrain's "Project Rider" has got public alpha builds for OS X, Windows and Linux: jetbrains.com/rider

Nathan Merrill

oooh, when did rider come out (for windows)?

last time I did C#, I used Resharper, but its nice there's a standalone IDE

mınxomaτ

@NathanMerrill If you signed up for the early builds, you most likely got an email.

Nathan Merrill

I didn't

I didn't know it existed

Helka Homba

22:27

@Geobits trivial things are good for esolangs, just boring otherwise

Geobits

Oh, sorry. I really don't have much opinion on that. I said that solely for the obscenely bad pun.

mınxomaτ

@NathanMerrill Yeah, and it's not over 13GB like a full VS installation. :D

Helka Homba

@Geobits >_>

<_o

El'endia Starman

@Sp3000 Yeah, I kinda want to add a bonus for solving it in less than O(n).

Nathan Merrill

@El'endiaStarman why not just add a time-complexity restriction?

Helka Homba

22:33

That's a turn off

Nathan Merrill

why? It totally depends on the problem, but it frequently turns a trivial problem into an interesting one

El'endia Starman

I think it's a perfectly fine problem to do in O(n). It's about the same difficulty as my Calculate Phi (Not Pi) challenge.

@Sp3000 1071

Helka Homba

@NathanMerrill It can, but the problem becomes less accessible to the masses

El'endia Starman

The question I really have is if it's possible to do in O(1).

I think that's really more of a Math.SE question.

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

ohai

drinkbai!

Adnan

22:39

drinkbai

Nathan Merrill

@HelkaHomba Java string comparison questions are accessible to the masses, but the real value of SO lies in its breadth of "more difficult" questions

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

@NathanMerrill yeah

quartata

That's an apples to oranges comparison

Nathan Merrill

I think the same holds true for PPCG: while easier questions get lots more answers, I think the value of our site lies in the harder questions

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

^

Nathan Merrill

22:43

@quartata I think the principle I'm describing is true outside of the entire SE network. Us not being a QA site is irrelevant

quartata

Define "value." If you mean in terms of site traffic and image, no. An easy challenge with a small twist and/or sometjing amusing garners far more attention. Highly technical questions, whie more enjoyable for us, are a turnoff for your average joe.

Nathan Merrill

Information has value. I can't measure it, but some information is relatively simple, while other is more complex

despite the fact that simpler information is more accessible to the masses, its the more complex stuff that's more valuable

quartata

Our most upvoted question is produce 2014 without any numbers. nuff said

@NathanMerrill Sure but what is that value? Why is it valuable in general?

Nathan Merrill

its valuable based on how much it helps people in day to day life

quartata

Which doesn't apply to us at all

Nathan Merrill

22:47

not true. PPCG absolutely has value.

I've learned so much on this site

quartata

Right, but that isn't really our goal. Is it? Hmm.

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

^

Nathan Merrill

even from an "entertainment" standpoint, entertainment still has value

otherwise, people wouldn't pay to watch a movie

quartata

You have a point, but it is still an eye of the beholder thing. I think the one value system all visitora have in common is fun really.

semi ninjad

Nathan Merrill

true. What really matters is where the community wants to go. If we want to attract users that enjoy tough algorithm challenges, then we need more challenges that have restrictions on algorithms.

on the flip side, if we prefer a larger community, then we should have more trivial challenges

quartata

22:54

I think the community want to see algorithms that value shortness over speed coming back to the more specific. It's tough though since time restrictions encourage creativity but also cause frustration with slow languages.

A complexity restriction would be the ideal solution

ArtOfCode

Absolute time, sure. Time complexity, not so.

Geobits

Alternatively, even people that enjoy tough challenges might be lured in by something trivial, or otherwise "popular". Some of the image-based popcons showcase that well, no matter what your personal opinion of popcons are.

Once they've answered one, they might get hooked ;)

Nathan Merrill

yeah, I much prefer complexity restrictions to time restrictions

quartata

but complexity restrictions add a barrier to entry for new users who arent into theoretical CS

Geobits

Yea, most complexity restrictions attract debate about the restriction more than they attract answers.

Nathan Merrill

22:56

@Geobits they'd only stay if they later find a challenge that is actually tough

not saying we don't have tough challenges, but we need to be cautious of our trivial/tough challenge ratio

quartata

I'm not worried about the site not getting enough tough chllenges, at least at the moment

Geobits

Sure. I'm saying you need a healthy mix of both. But it's inherent that you'll have more trivial problems than tough ones, simply because they're trivial.

El'endia Starman

...I gotta say, I didn't expect my proposed challenge to start this discussion... :P

Nathan Merrill

lol

Geobits

As long as people don't stop posting tough ones entirely, I don't see a real problem.

Nathan Merrill

22:58

@quartata I agree, but given a choice, I'd always post the tougher version of a challenge

@Geobits debate about what specifically? do you have an example?

El'endia Starman

You can pretty much always make a challenge harder, right?

Nathan Merrill

@El'endiaStarman sure but often times that involves adding arbitrary restrictions (that have little to solving the actual problem)

Geobits

@NathanMerrill In a rush, but the first I found was this one. It may not be the best example, though.

Nathan Merrill

so it looks like the debate is about whether the complexity is a good thing on the challenge

El'endia Starman

....uhhh guys, simplest code to determine if two squares overlap? Given are coordinates of the upper left corners and their sizes.

Nathan Merrill

23:03

not whether or not an answer actually meets the complexity

El'endia Starman

Would that be suitable for a challenge?

Nathan Merrill

oooh, its an interesting challenge

Geobits

@NathanMerrill I'd thought that one had some debate about that also, but I don't see it now. Maybe they got purged, or I'm thinking of a different one. No idea, but I gotta go for now :/

Nathan Merrill

see ya!

Cᴏɴᴏʀ O'Bʀɪᴇɴ

fun fact: the next minecraft update is the 10 (20?) top suggestions by users.

Nathan Merrill

23:05

@El'endiaStarman make sure you have a test case where Square B covers only the top edge of Square A (and no corners)

(or the right edge)

El'endia Starman

Yeah. And I just figured it out myself, by analogy with determining if two circles overlap.

Alright, I'll Sandbox it at least before I go to bed.

Nathan Merrill

there are lots of interesting edge cases with that problem

@El'endiaStarman does (0,0), 4 over lap with (4,4), 2?

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

@quartata you said you had comic ideas?

a while ago

do you still have them?

Agawa001

@El'endiaStarman tha would be simple, try to do it with circles

oh u did already thought about it :D

Nathan Merrill

circles are actually easier. Find the distance between the two points, and see if it is bigger than the sum of the radii

Agawa001

23:12

yes

what about two distant isocele triangles, moving the summit of the lower one and given as input, and the highest y coordinate of the base of the upper triangle that makes it collide with the other is outputted

well, why not making them non-congruent !

not the base lets make it the upsidedown peak

nvm

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

23:41

TIL you didn't realize that it was hard enough to have it's own SE site, Game Development.

Mars Ultor

@QPaysTaxes TIWMBH?

@QPaysTaxes You can use LLVM

But you can use LLVM

@QPaysTaxes Why do you want an interpreted language?

@QPaysTaxes 1. wat how did you forget 2. what does that change?

or why did you even realize that C++ wasn't interpreted now and not sometime before?

@QPaysTaxes Oh, well you can set up automated builds, but compilation gets really slow later on.

@QPaysTaxes O.o how do you keep forgetting?

@QPaysTaxes Can't you just have make install && ./a.out on one line?

Or something

Oh, right.

@Everyone Does Dart > ES6?

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

23:58

@MarsUltor no

Mars Ultor

@EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ Why?

Maltysen

@MarsUltor no

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

@MarsUltor because es6 is cool

Mars Ultor

@QPaysTaxes Very similar, plus it compiles to ES5.

@Everyone but it has operator overloading

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