The Nineteenth Byte

trichoplax

14:02

If n==3

L3viathan

that's what I mean, sorry

Leaky Nun

@L3viathan yes

trichoplax

I guessed but just making sure :)

Olivier Dulac

Hello world. I'm just discovering the chat features : is there some kind of "list of good chat rooms to start with" (for codegolf, or even more generally) ?

Mayube

for codegolf this is the only active one afaik

trichoplax

14:05

Site rooms shows the recently active rooms for Programming Puzzles & Code Golf. Which are more interesting you will have to decide for yourself though...

Olivier Dulac

thanks

Mayube

there are some programming language-specific golfing one

but most general ppcg discussion happens here

programmer5000

@OlivierDulac and some sand

trichoplax

There appear to be 18 PPCG rooms active in the past 24 hours

programmer5000

Let's Remove all old, abandoned, low-score posts to clean up the sandbox!

Olivier Dulac

14:07

I just wanted to find a way to thanks @Dennis ^^ I've been looking at ppcg for a while, but am incredibly frustrated with the amount of boring 'this is done by a builtin' answers (and the very few bash/awk/lisp/everyday langages answers), but Dennis in meta said he is browsing ppcg by "activity" instead of 'rank' : this simple advice help me enjoying ppcg tremendously :)

6

Shaggy

3

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

In The Jailhouse Now code-golf ascii-art Challenge Given an integer n (where 4<=n<=10**6) as input create an ASCII art "prison door" measuring n-1 characters wide and n characters high. Example ╔╦╗ ╠╬╣ ╠╬╣ ╚╩╝ The characters used are as follows: ┌───────────────┬─────────┬────────┬─────...

^ Last call for feedback.

Mayube

@OlivierDulac most of us browse by activity to be fair :P

Dennis

@OlivierDulac :)

Olivier Dulac

:)

Mayube

also protip, learn an esoteric language

doesn't have to be a golfing one, just any esoteric language

makes golfing way more fun

L3viathan

14:09

Or make one

3

Dada

I don't agree at all with @Mayube

Olivier Dulac

I may one day, but I'l right now looking at lisp and python on top of my "todo" list ^^ (I'm a bit lagging in the langage department... even tough i did a bit of lisp 20 years back)

programmer5000

@Shaggy Go ahead and post.

Olivier Dulac

I prefer a beautiful trick over a short one.... I'm looking for those in ppcg (ie, I'm not interessted in the number of bytes of a solution, but in he cleverness in it)

Mayube

@Dada not saying you should only golf in esolangs, or that you have to learn an esolang to have fun

but even just learning one lets you see things from a different perspective

Olivier Dulac

14:10

and Dennis seems unbeatable ^^

Dada

@Shaggy "last call for feedback" after 22h in the sandbox seems a bit early....

2

Mayube

@OlivierDulac that's because dennis made Jelly, which is one of 4 "unbeatable" golfing languages (the others being O5AB1E, CJam and Japt, all made by PPCG regulars)

Shaggy

@Dada I plan to give it another 2 hours before posting, at least - "last call" is my cheap ploy for inviting more feedback! ;)

Mayube

@L3viathan yes, or make one

trichoplax

Several days in the sandbox (at least some weekdays and some weekend days) gives more chance people will have had a chance to give feedback

Dada

14:13

@Mayube I think it really depends on the language you are using to golf... If you are golfing with a language with enough possibilities (Perl, Haskell, Python, JS, ...), then you don't need to learn a golfing language to enjoy golfing (imo)

L3viathan

It's not a fair competition to speak of "beating" when different languages are involved. Even a badly golfed Jelly answer will almost always "beat" even the most sophisticated Java answer.

Mayube

@Dada I never said anything about golfing languages, nor did I say you had to learn one to enjoy golfing

mınxomaτ

Oct 28 '16 at 1:31, by mınxomaτ

7

Mayube

accurate

L3viathan

I made my first useless programming language before I knew about PPCG

Mayube

14:14

I've created 2-3 useless languages since joining PPCG :D

Olivier Dulac

is there a "clever algorithm" subsection of ppcg ?

Business Cat

I think Mayube is referring to stuff like brainfuck, Befunge, ><>, etc, which aren't designed for golfing but work very differently from normal languages

trichoplax

@OlivierDulac Of the main site, or of chat?

Mayube

@BusinessCat exactly

L3viathan

I've updated my latest sandbox question with what I hope is better description, I'd be thankful for comments

1

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Print all matching leaves code-golf natural-language parsing In Natural Language Processing, we sometimes interpret sentences as being context-free languages, and therefore as having a certain tree structure, also called constituency trees, or parse trees. These trees are sometimes written down ...

Olivier Dulac

14:15

main or chat, I'd enjoy it

@trichoplax

L3viathan

I don't think that exists, @OlivierDulac. Try searching the comments for "clever" :D

Shaggy

@trichoplax I'll give it 'til Monday so, and hope it doesn't disappear into the ether like my first sandbox! :D

Olivier Dulac

tags for clever, and elegant too, would be nice ^^ I'll have a look

Leaky Nun

@mınxomaτ how did you even find that message?

trichoplax

@Shaggy Definitely worth mentioning in here again when you're about to post - lots more people will see it that way

Shaggy

14:17

@LeakyNun I'm gonna guess bookmarked!

Dada

@Shaggy You can make edits to your sandbox post to make them come back on top of the first page (don't do that too much though; like once per post should usually be enough)

unless you meant one of your post in the sandbox got deleted due to a bug?

programmer5000

I've made an awful language that only uses ASCII 0x0b and 0x0c.

trichoplax

@OlivierDulac On main there are other competitions besides code-golf, such as fastest-code, king-of-the-hill, code-challenge, and on chat there are chatrooms specifically about golfing, and also chatrooms specifically about interesting things other than golfing, so having a browse around should show up something that matches what you're looking for

Stephen S

@programmer5000 isn't that binary, just with different chars?

programmer5000

Exactly.

Only useful in polyglots with languages that ignore VT and FF, like JS.

Olivier Dulac

14:22

@trichoplax: thanks a lot

trichoplax

:)

L3viathan

@programmer5000 Now make a Whitespace-VTFF polyglot quine

Stephen S

@L3viathan you can output unprintables in Whitespace?

L3viathan

@StephenS Why not? (But no idea)

Stephen S

@L3viathan it's not a quine if you can't output the VTFF stuff

L3viathan

14:26

@StephenS Right, but why wouldn't whitespace be able to print VT and FF?

Stephen S

@L3viathan I don't know Whitespace, that's why I asked if it could print unprintables :)

programmer5000

I am bad a quines :(

Shaggy

@Dada I'm not a fan of editing just to bump, so that's OK.

And, while I'm trawling for feedback...!

2

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Alphabet Aerobics code-golf kolmogorov-complexity Ready? Begin. Given a single letter (a-z) as input, output the 2 lines of Blackalicious' Alphabet Aerobics that correspond to that letter, ignoring the intro & outro. Rules You may take input by any reasonable, convenient means as long as ...

Won't be posting that one until at least the middle of the week.

Olivier Dulac

@Shaggy: maybe a link to that 2-line alphabet definition?

oh, in the title... (youtube, can't see it right now)

maybe a text link somewhere in the text?

Shaggy

@OlivierDulac They're all covered in the test cases but the link in the title will be moved into the body when posting to main.

Is the "Vox Populi" badge bugged? I used all my votes yesterday but I just noticed I never got the badge.

Stephen S

14:35

@Shaggy no, you have to use a lot of votes on questions

@Shaggy if you vote on answers you get less votes, if you vote on questions you get more total (30 if only answers, up to 40 if only questions or a combination)

Shaggy

@StephenS Ah, that might be it, the majority of votes I cast were on answers to the challenge I posted yesterday.

Stephen S

79

Q: Cannot vote on question although 40 votes limit not reached

I've hit the 40 daily vote limit wall and yet can see on my profile I have 7 votes yet to give to actually reach that ceiling. The votes remain and I am unable to cast them. According to a recent blog posting: The daily vote limit used to be 30 votes per day; we’ve increased that to 40 votes...

Quote from meta post: "If 1 in 3 of your votes are on questions, you will get 40 votes.

If you vote on fewer questions than that you will get fewer votes (lowest is 30)"

Nathan Merrill

@MartinEnder is it possible for a mod to remove an obligatory tag?

Shaggy

@StephenS , thanks for the info :)

Martin Ender

@NathanMerrill no, at least not that I'm aware of. I believe SE's internal issue tracker is based on the mandatory meta tags, so it wouldn't make sense for mods to be allowed to remove them completely.

Nathan Merrill

14:47

ok. I had an idea (probably a terrible one), where we would post sandboxed posts to main, and make the sandbox tag obligatory. But that would only work if a subset of people could remove that sandbox tag :)

Olivier Dulac

@NathanMerrill: in other words, you propose we bypass the sandbox, or post in main while it still is "sandboxy" ? ^^ (not sure what you're trying to achieve with this idea?)

Nathan Merrill

oh, we've had several ideas to make the Sandbox more visible

a common one is to post it to Main

Adám

4

A: We need to talk about the Sandbox

Replace the sandbox with a Main site tag I think this suggestion is doable without any changes to SE. Introduce a special sandbox tag on the Main site which has a description along the lines of: A proposed challenge. This tag indicates that the challenge is not ready to receive answers, but...

Nathan Merrill

yep, that one :)

caird coinheringaahing

@NathanMerrill Personally, I agree with @Adám's post (that one) out of all the posts there. The highest voted doesn't actually offer a solution to the problem.

Nathan Merrill

14:56

I've actually had another idea rolling around in my head

It might be useful if all sandbox posts had a "This challenge is ready" comment that people would upvote if they thought it was ready

caird coinheringaahing

@NathanMerrill post that as an answer

Nathan Merrill

it doesn't solve your visibility problem

L3viathan

Awesome, the guy who found the counterexample to one of John Conways $1000 problems 5 days ago posted an answer on the related challenge :D

Nathan Merrill

@L3viathan are you sure its the same guy?

when did he post it? If it was after the numberphile video, I doubt its him

caird coinheringaahing

@NathanMerrill its better than "Lets just leave it as it is"

L3viathan

15:00

@NathanMerrill I want to believe! He also has an old profile on the Physics SE; James Davis is a physicist.

Nathan Merrill

@L3viathan that is a bit more promising :)

New Sandboxed Posts

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Color the Grayscale code-golf image-processing Given an image containing only grayscale colors (for RGB, R==G==B), and a RGB value (that is not grayscale), color the image with your given color. //Is there a formula that does this? If so this can definitely have objective input and output. Sh...

programmer5000

If anyone wants a challenge to post, there are three here

Stephen S

RE Sandbox, I was thinking of adding a comment along the lines of "Someone was here" that people would upvote if they saw the post, so that you know how many people have at least glanced at it

Nathan Merrill

@cairdcoinheringaahing there are still some details I'm not sure about, and I think I'd make it its own meta post (since it would be a change in rules): Do we include a "this challenge is not ready" comment? SE isn't very friendly to changing comment votes, so how do we deal with that?

programmer5000

15:10

Has something like this already been posted?

New Main Posts

0

Q: Minimal Fresh Substrings

Thanks @NathanMerrill for allowing me to post this! The following is entirely his wording from this sandbox post (deleted): We define a "Fresh" substring is a substring that cannot be found earlier in the string. For example, if I take the string "abababc" and split it: ["ab","ab","a","bc"], ...

code-golf string

MD XF

Is this ready to post?

3

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Read a password code-golf string Your challenge is to read a "password" from standard input. Challenge: Read a string s invisibly. For each of the characters in s, print a character c. In realtime (as the user enters s character by character). Rules: You must print c in realtime. As soon ...

Stephen S

@programmer5000 it's not abandoned, I can promise you that, the OP commented on it four days ago

Shaggy

15:27

@StephenS If they're only glancing at it, they probably aren't reading the comments.

programmer5000

What should we do with old, positive-voted, yet unclear or not on topic sandboxed challenges like this one?

MD XF

@programmer5000 Ask the owner

Leave a comment saying "Due to community guidelines, if you don't respond to this comment in 7 days I have permission to post this"

I've seen it very frequently

programmer5000

@MDXF What about bad, not on-topic but upvoted?

MD XF

@programmer5000 Nothing?

If it's bad and hasn't been posted then the OP (sandboxer) knows it's bad

Generally they'd delete them

programmer5000

example

MD XF

15:36

but when they're upvoted I think it discourages them from deleting

programmer5000

I don't have enough rep to delete

MD XF

Me neither

But I mean, in general, if one sandboxes a post and the post is bad, they'll probably delete it, but upvotes discourage them from deleting

so the post doesn't go either way - it doesn't get deleted because of votes, doesn't get posted because it's bad

And speaking of the sandbox: Is this clear enough?

L3viathan

I think it is

@MDXF Can my character be a space?

MD XF

@L3viathan Hm, good point, no it can't

L3viathan

Entering the password would still be visible, as the cursor still moves

MD XF

15:43

Nah. Fixed

c can be any visible character (i.e. it cannot be a newline, space, tab, or unprintable).

Kritixi Lithos

@MDXF Can we take input from keypresses?

from a graphical window?

MD XF

@KritixiLithos You may only take input from keypresses.

You must print c in realtime. As soon as the user enters a character of s you must display c.

Kritixi Lithos

but what about the "from a graphical window" part?

it's not STDIN

MD XF

Hm... I'll clarify

caird coinheringaahing

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

How long is your program? As this site is all about making code as short as possible, you should write a program that tells you exactly how long the program is, in bytes, in your language's native encoding. There is just one catch. Adding a no-op to the code should change the output. Therefore,...

This has been ignored for a while. Any feedback?

MD XF

15:46

@KritixiLithos Clarified

L3viathan

@cairdcoinheringaahing In most languages this will just be the equivalent of print(len(open(__file__.read())))

Kritixi Lithos

the reason for me asking is that I don't think Processing can take input from STDIN. I may be wrong though

user8469759

Hi guys

out of curiosity

caird coinheringaahing

@L3viathan ideally i want to disallow the read source code but i'm not sure if its possible

user8469759

how does it work this exchange community?

caird coinheringaahing

15:48

@user8469759 run. run fast

user8469759

do I have to provide puzzles or programming puzzles as questions?

programmer5000

@user8469759 Hello, and welcome!

L3viathan

@cairdcoinheringaahing In most (real-world) languages, it won't be possible

user8469759

=)

thank you!

MD XF

@KritixiLithos Hm okay

programmer5000

15:48

Actually, we tend to favor code golf.

caird coinheringaahing

@user8469759 don't ask questions to start with. Look for some good challenges to answer first

MD XF

Aargh I'm so close to getting my code-golf silver badge!

caird coinheringaahing

Questions are harder here than every other site

programmer5000

@user8469759 Code Golf = Shortest code to do something

Kritixi Lithos

Aargh I'm so close to getting my legendary badge, only 145 more rep caps to go

Nathan Merrill

15:49

@programmer5000 you've messed up the test cases

caird coinheringaahing

Aargh I'm so close to getting 100k rep!

Nathan Merrill

AAAAAAA does not expand to A,AA,AAA,AAAA,,,

programmer5000

@user8469759 If you do decide to post a challenge, first put it in the sandbox

user8469759

how do I use the sandbox?

programmer5000

@NathanMerrill Anything else?

Nathan Merrill

15:50

I'm not a huge fan of allowing empty strings, but that's up to you

caird coinheringaahing

@user8469759 just accepting the winner (depending on the winning criteria)

programmer5000

@user8469759 No, you don't need a reward, but you can set a bounty if you want.

And usually, the challenge isn't hard

But getting the shortest program to do that is

caird coinheringaahing

@programmer5000 fully writing a question is quite difficult when you're used to Q&A

programmer5000

True.

user8469759

shall I just post my challenge there and waiting for feedback?

programmer5000

15:51

@user8469759 I reccommend starting with answering a challenge.

MD XF

@KritixiLithos Is that all?? Wow, nice job! :P

programmer5000

@user8469759 But if you want to, you can do that.

user8469759

ok

I'll have a look through the challenges

Nathan Merrill

ACABCACBDDABADD should expand to A,C,AB,B,CAC,ACB,CBD,BD,D,DA,ABA,BA,AD,,

programmer5000

@user8469759 When answering, avoid the standard loopholes

caird coinheringaahing

15:53

@user8469759 if you want, you can take any of my challenges here

programmer5000

@cairdcoinheringaahing Can I put them up for adoption here?

user8469759

I'm having a look, I have the feeling there could be some nice trick in the answers

Nathan Merrill

@programmer5000 do you care if I edit the test cases?

programmer5000

@NathanMerrill go ahead, please

Shaggy

What's going on with the Sandbox? Why are so many old posts getting bumped at the same time?

MD XF

15:56

@Shaggy I think we're looking for abandoned ones

caird coinheringaahing

@programmer5000 I've deleted all the ones up for adoption so i can see the ones I want to keep

user8469759

is there anyway to classify the challenges in easy/medium/hard etc

basically sorting them by difficulties

assuming that could be possible of course

MD XF

@user8469759 Nope

That's subjective

caird coinheringaahing

@user8469759 no as thats subjective

we hate subjective here

programmer5000

Do we have a vanilla URL to QR-code challenge?

caird coinheringaahing

15:57

@programmer5000 i dont think so

programmer5000

@cairdcoinheringaahing Could you post them here?

Business Cat

I think there's the reverse

Mayube

Subjectivity is the devil's lettuce

programmer5000

There is one in the sandbox from a few years ago: here

Stephen S

@user8469759 the best way to sort them by easy/medium/hard? Some ratio of the views to answers

caird coinheringaahing

15:58

@programmer5000 I'll post the Secret Santa Sandbox post

Business Cat

9

Q: QR code decoder

Your mission is not so simple. You have to write a program that decodes QR-codes. There are some things that are not permitted: Making web requests (except https://i.sstatic.net/sCUJT.png or http://imgur.com/JUQbo8M) Using any QR code processing library (Or using any external library to do...

code-golf

Nathan Merrill

I've said this before: Even though ratings are subjective, it doesn't matter

question upvotes are subjective too

Stephen S

@user8469759 compare some challenges, the ones with more answers compared to views are more trivial, the ones with less answers compared to views are usually harder / more of a pain to code

MD XF

@BusinessCat How does that not have any answers?

Nathan Merrill

it's really because SE doesn't support it :)

Shaggy

15:59

@MDXF It's making it very difficult to review new posts.

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