The Nineteenth Byte

Neil

00:24

@ASCII-only thanks for the tip, I knew I was overlooking something...

ngn

01:43

@LeakyNun k7: *?-1

MilkyWay90

02:34

You know you're bad at programming when a program in BF doesn't work the way you thought it would

PhiNotPi

03:05

I'm not sure if I agree with that statement... BF is a turing tarpit for a reason.

Jo King

03:19

@MilkyWay90 You're good if it does what you want, you're not necessarily bad if it doesn't

i recommend step by step debuggers like this one

MilkyWay90

Oh

I'm going to try making a KotH challenge

It's to play a tournament of 21

Like RandomBot vs. AiBot then EvilBot vs. Goodbot

and AIBot wins and EvilBot wins and they play each other

and EvilBot wins that match

And let's just say that AIBot made a bet of $1000 dollars on his first game

and $100 on his second

So AIBot made $900 dollars

But EvilBot made a bet of $100 on the first game and $200 on the second

So EvilBot made $300

So although EvilBot won the tournament, AIBot made the most money, so AIBot wins

PhiNotPi

21 is basically a solved game, though.

As in, given that you've made a certain bet, it's known exactly what moves to play to maximize your chance of winning that hand. All of the interesting strategy would be in the bet size selection.

ASCII-only

04:16

@JoKing step 1. make a program to increment the current cell. step 2. +. step 3. congratulations, you're good at BF now :P

Anush

08:06

hello all

New Main Posts

14:24

0

Q: java puzzle 2D grid and scanner

A farmer wants to reorganize the crops growing in his farm. The farm is in the form of an N X M grid with each cell in the grid being a square plot. Each plot has to be planted with a variety of crop. The farmer has 26 varieties of crops that he can plant. The plant varieties are represented by l...

MilkyWay90

14:54

Oh no!

The New Main Posts removed their post!

How will the bot get money?

@ASCII-only Um...

no

That is not how coding in BF works

primo

15:06

most of my "coding" in BF is done by script

MilkyWay90

15:30

@primo Ah, I see

Anybody have an idea for a programming language?

I am going to make one based off of the youtube channel pamtri due to demand of my friend

primo

i'd like to make a stack based version of ferNANDo

MilkyWay90

@primo Esolangs is taking a long time to load

nevermind, it loaded

Just my internet connection

primo

where every variable is a stack, accessing it pops from the stack (or zero if empty), and assigning pushes to the stack

MilkyWay90

@primo Wow

That'd be hard to program in

Aka a good esoteric programming language

How did this get 10 stars

primo

one of my favorite solutions: codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/11240/4098

inquiring minds want to know? ;)

MilkyWay90

15:35

o_shi- i'm_paper i'm_scissors
o_shi- o_shi-
o_shi-

?

Okay, I'll try programming in FernNANDo

Don't spoil anything for me

primo

o_shi- = NAND(i'm_paper, i'm_scissors)

MilkyWay90

@primo Yeah, I saw the esolangs page

primo

in short, if it rolled a q, reroll

(from p, q, r, s)

MilkyWay90

I'll make a cat program

Is this on TIO

primo

pretty sure

MilkyWay90

15:37

Okay

I found it

primo

uses my hello world too :D

MilkyWay90

Okay

Okay wow that is hard

youtube.com/channel/UCYBP_TtboAYP28U3ZVNM9Ig

I am ready to suffer by making a programming language out of this

Okay I got one part of it done

Every program must end with "s a n, t i a g o"

primo

o.O

MilkyWay90

Oh god

How does my friend watch all the videos that pamtri has made

New Sandboxed Posts

16:04

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

This is a post to pre-test for a duplicate question before I spend the time to finish the full post and add test cases. So, have we ever had a question for a "snake rotation" of a matrix? For example, snake rotate this matrix: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 by 3: 13 14 15 1 ...

xnor

Is there a C-style language where c+++++c will parse as (c++)+(++c)? I vaguely remember a StackOverflow question about this that I can't find.

MilkyWay90

@xnor I saw an SO question about while(x --> 0)

Where it was actually x-- > 0

As in "decrement x is greater than zero"

MilkyWay90

16:30

https://tio.run/##bZLBbtswDIbP9lMQukQGUmPFLkOAHXcfsGNbBLLF2loUUqDkeumwZ89oN9u6tIBsS/zFj/QvpVMZmT5@SnI@h2NiKZBPua49PkISHoqEvUxkl7m4Y7Orq/Ci6Oru5vahjTyj2Ia4QKA7kx2V4AY2W5PBAYGG9TvAGnG0hRf5QUmVuJARvoiwWPPVScZ1voNvFwrIFDFDGREmCk@oO1rT1BXGV118uG6irozWPK5pkcX9AEde28gJD/DIsgpFMGtLAeYQI/RTAc8zgdPFf/KFM0Tu9BlcN7joOrPVIt7d/BmaLNcvs4UFz1P0EMNBmQwsHgWYEPoRMeOyp9PaM2oKbdR9lCeEFJ6f1/x5dMXU1Ru3NpvNa7@I63VoWN3xoS@ByckJPsNPbTQnpgE77vYuqotmB2Y54KuwbXa5uP7QupSQvNVerV6GNhcfqBV03t42TbP@@r/Uw361@C3zIig1SaBi7829ab9zINuPYkOzHETQ44K16Dtcph4jynvki/SXvRBXzHIlFfXrfP4N

Here's what I've got so far

Anonymous

@MilkyWay90 The classic goes-to operator

New Sandboxed Posts

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Evaluate C−− expression parsing Your goal is to a evaluate an expression in "C−−" (not this one) which uses only the characters are C and -. C is an variable holding an integer whose initial value you're given, and the - symbol is used in many ways including as a decrement operator: C-- decrem...

MilkyWay90

17:03

@Mego oh, that's what it's called

flawr

17:50

@Riker I'm glad this wouldn't happen with you because you have laser eyes: reddit.com/r/FindTheSniper/comments/bci5b8/find_the_big_cat

PhiNotPi

19:19

Idea for a KOTH, based on the St. Petersburg paradox.

St. Petersburg paradox

The St. Petersburg paradox or St. Petersburg lottery is a paradox related to probability and decision theory in economics. It is based on a particular (theoretical) lottery game that leads to a random variable with infinite expected value (i.e., infinite expected payoff) but nevertheless seems to be worth only a very small amount to the participants. The St. Petersburg paradox is a situation where a naive decision criterion which takes only the expected value into account predicts a course of action that presumably no actual person would be willing to take. Several resolutions are possible. The...

Imagine a game where you have a 50% chance of winning $2, a 25% chance of winning $4, a 12.5% chance of winning $8, etc. What is the fair price for the playing game? The expected value is infinite but in reality most people would only be willing to bet a few dollars to play it.

Erik the Outgolfer

what do you bet?

PhiNotPi

So maybe what we can do is have a bunch of bots play this game, except there's an auction process. Whoever is willing to pay the most money gets to play the game. And so each round you have to decide how much you want to bet.

@EriktheOutgolfer The "paradox" is in the question of, given this payout table, how much should someone be willing to bet?

Erik the Outgolfer

I guess "bid" would be a better term

PhiNotPi

Sure.

Erik the Outgolfer

@PhiNotPi so, you have a 1 / 2 ^ n chance to win 2 ^ n dollars, with n ≥ 1?

PhiNotPi

19:30

No, a 1/ (2^n) chance to win 2^n dollars.

Erik the Outgolfer

ninja

well... will the currently highest bid be available to every bot?

and how many ticks of the highest bid remaining unchanged until the auction closes?

also, how many $ does each bot have to start with?

I feel like a strategy of bidding the maximum amount plus one if your own bid isn't the maximum already will always win

and this will always end up with all bots bidding the same amount, so then the lucky bot gets the cash

I don't think the probabilities will really matter that much, especially if the starting amount is <$2

PhiNotPi

I could give bots like $20 to start out.

Erik the Outgolfer

hm...

that kinda changes the game

PhiNotPi

I'm not sure what you mean by "will always win"

Erik the Outgolfer

I guess that depends on the <$2 starting amount case

PhiNotPi

19:41

The "lucky bot" might end up bidding the full $20, to have a 50% chance of winning $2 (losing $18).

Erik the Outgolfer

so this is really a bravery test

PhiNotPi

Yeah. When you bet high amounts you have an extremely low chance of making money (losing = nerfing your ability to place future bets). But you want to bet high enough that you will actually get to play the game.

Erik the Outgolfer

> you want to bet high enough that you will actually get to play the game

PhiNotPi

?

Erik the Outgolfer

actually, as a bot, if you are at a high enough position already, you might want to "keep safe" until the other bots catch up, so you bid just $1

or even $0

PhiNotPi

19:49

I'm talking more about the case where there isn't a runaway winner already.

Erik the Outgolfer

hm, what happens if two bids are tying? I feel like that's possible, two bots bidding at the same tick

PhiNotPi

I wonder if I could use a Vickrey auction... just to make the auctioning process easier. A Vickrey auction is when everyone submits a sealed bid, and the winner pays the price of the second-highest bid.

Erik the Outgolfer

doesn't resolve the tying bids issue

PhiNotPi

Regardless, there is still the question of resolving ties. There will definitely be ties, resolving them randomly is probably the only way to go.

MilkyWay90

Is King of the Hill KotH, KOtH, KoTH, KH, KOH, or KTH?

PhiNotPi

19:58

I always write KOTH but most people write KotH.

MilkyWay90

@PhiNotPi I see

Erik the Outgolfer

chat.stackexchange.com/search?q=koth&room=240

MilkyWay90

@EriktheOutgolfer Oh

Erik the Outgolfer

you can see a few usage samples over there, but the exact capitalization isn't really a strict matter

MilkyWay90

I think it's KotH

Erik the Outgolfer

20:00

@PhiNotPi hm... so a game might not be able to be reproduced exactly

MilkyWay90

Articles, F.A.N.B.O.Y.S. (coordinating conjunctions), and prepositions aren't capitalized

PhiNotPi

It can if a random seed is used... it's pretty normal for there to be some element of randomness. I'd be wanting to run a bunch of games anyways.

MilkyWay90

And I normally don't see lowercase words in acronyms

Erik the Outgolfer

@PhiNotPi make sure to print (and accept as input) the seed then ;)

MilkyWay90

Therefore, King of the Hill should be abbreviated as K.H.

PhiNotPi

20:04

Speaking of running a bunch of games... there's the question of long each game should be and how the results should be merged.

Erik the Outgolfer

I guess the game ends when everyone except one bot is at $0?

PhiNotPi

There's no way to ever force anyone to lose money.

Erik the Outgolfer

then when does the game end?

MilkyWay90

I think the winner should be the bot with the most money

At a fixed number of iterations

Erik the Outgolfer

I'm talking about the end condition, not the winner here... a "fixed number of iterations" might restrict some approaches, but it doesn't sound terribly bad

MilkyWay90

20:07

@EriktheOutgolfer But the fixed number of iterations is completely arbitrary

if there is one

PhiNotPi

When it comes to determining the overall tournament winner, I could either (1) average the finishing place of the bot across the many games, or (2) average the bot's ending cash across the many games.

Erik the Outgolfer

or add up the finishing places, and the lowest (or highest, depends on how the winning places are ordered) sum wins (no need to average, as the order will be the same as summing up)

PhiNotPi

I'm thinking (1) because it will do things like encourage losing bots to take bigger risks and encourage rich bots to "play it safe" and not bet much during the final rounds.

Erik the Outgolfer

wait, do the bots know about the previous rounds?

MilkyWay90

@PhiNotPi I see

Erik the Outgolfer

20:11

that's not usually how KotHs work...

PhiNotPi

I'm referring to "rounds within a game"

Erik the Outgolfer

theoretically, a $5 bot can win over a $3T bot in one turn

so yeah, it does make sense to play only one game

PhiNotPi

The $5 bot will probably not win in an auction against a $3T bot.

Erik the Outgolfer

if the $3T one bids $2 and the $5 one bids $4 and n = 100, well... :P (yeah, too rare)

New Main Posts

20:36

-2

Q: Delete a node in the link list

I am doing my assignment where I was asked to create a menu driven dictionary in which a user can enter or remove the word. I have created the method however, for removing method it checks for the word until it removes something. Then every time it's removing even though the element is not in the...

string

Riker

21:17

@flawr so am I lol

good thing I have thomas ward approved™ lazers

Erik the Outgolfer

21:45

1) they're "borg implants", not "lazers" 2) he removed them... :P

pppery

If I come across a question that is literally impossible to answer, what should I do?

Erik the Outgolfer

which one?

pppery

14

Q: MacGyver's Second Toolbox

In this question each answer will get a "toolbox" that can be used to construct a program/function. The toolbox will consist of two things: a list of programming languages a list of valid characters You must write a valid program/function in one of the languages provided using only the chara...

restricted-source answer-chaining

I explained why it's unanswerable in a comment a few months ago

Anonymous

25

Q: Is a proof of impossibility allowed as an answer?

I was thinking of a proof of impossibility for a long-running unanswered question on this site. By a proof of impossibility, what I mean is a proof that no possible answer can solve the challenge. When I polled chat for other interested fellows, one response was this: unfortunately, I don't t...

discussion answers unanswered-questions

New Sandboxed Posts

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

An Auction in St. Petersburg king-of-the-hill Setup Mysterious packages are up for auction today. These boxes are unique in that their values are not known until they are opened, and when they are opened, their values follow a unique distribution: probability value 0.5 $2 0.2...

pppery

22:17

@Mego Does that apply even to answer-chaining questions that had several valid answers but managed to end up in a provably unanswerable state

Anonymous

@pppery I would think so. If a challenge can't be answered, then it's acceptable for an answer to be posted that proves impossibility. Then it can be locked with the wiki answer lock, so no more answers can be posted.

pppery

22:41

0

A: MacGyver's Second Toolbox

This is impossible Going through all of the languages in the langbox: The tcl programming language consists of words separated by spaces. The space character is not in the toolbox, so no valid programs can be written. Str programs by default transform input. In order for them to do anything wh...

OK, I posted a "this is impossible" answer

New Sandboxed Posts

22:55

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

code-golfmath Challenge You will be given an input represented by x, which is a string containing at least 3 characters. It will consist only of the standard numeric characters, 0 through 9. Your job is to find how many right triangles can be formed with the given numbers. Rules Numbers must...

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