The Nineteenth Byte

Wasif

16:03

My another sandboxed challenge, please give feedback!

New Sandboxed Posts

16:14

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Largest Compatible Maze code-challengemazeoptimization Background Consider an \$n\times n\$ grid, where each cell is either empty (denoted by.) or a wall (denoted by #). We say that two cells are adjacent if they share an edge (a corner is not enough). A path is a sequence of empty cells \$s_0,s_...

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Matching to Homologous group code-golf, chemistry, string Homologous series, any of numerous groups of chemical compounds in each of which the difference between successive members is a simple structural unit. As an example, Alkane is a homologous group where the chemical compounds are in \$C_nH_...

pxeger

How does the sandbox user have 5 rep?

Redwolf Programs

pbly two suggesated edits

user

@pxeger Bots get 5 rep when they start out because they're superior to people and less likely to abuse their power.

caird coinheringaahing

@pxeger Likely the mods asked a CM to set it's rep at 5

pxeger

@cairdcoinheringaahing oh, so it's able to post on meta

caird coinheringaahing

16:26

@pxeger Yeah, before the rep requirement changed

Nope, it suggested 2 edits

pxeger

but:
> mini-edit to gain enough rep to participate on meta; don't mind me ~Doorknob

so we're both right

caird coinheringaahing

Hmm, there are 3 users with more meta gold badges than Sandbox (3): Dennis (5), Martin (11) and Alex A (4)

Redwolf Programs

Famous Question, Popular Question, and what else?

Oh Stellar Question

That badge name doesn't make as much sense with bookmarks as it did with stars

Wasif

16:48

who gives the bot 5 rep?

caird coinheringaahing

It just suggested 2 edits (got mod approved by Doorknow) and got awarded +4 (+2 for each edit)

Wasif

Also the bot dosen't seem to have the silver and gold badges anymore.....

Redwolf Programs

Are you on its main or meta account?

caird coinheringaahing

@Wasif It does on meta :P

Redwolf Programs

I wouldn't really call it a bot though, since it doesn't really do anything

Wasif

16:50

@RedwolfPrograms oh i was in the main account sorry

caird coinheringaahing

You have different badges on your main/meta account :)

Wasif

@RedwolfPrograms its hosting our sandbox questions...

Also is the PPCG sandbox the question with most answers all through the Stack exchange?

caird coinheringaahing

Yeah, but it hasn't logged into Stack Exchange for 7 years:

> Last seen Sep 22 '14 at 21:14

@Wasif Almost definitely

Wasif

@cairdcoinheringaahing I am feeling proud

Redwolf Programs

We've definitely got a history of taking SE's features way beyond their intended limits :p

caird coinheringaahing

16:53

You could probably make an SEDE query to search every site for the question with the most answers

Wasif

Anyone who can give me a question which has more answers than Sandbox I'll give him/her a +200 bounty (seriously)

Redwolf Programs

I am seriously impressed by the golfing in this question. I am 100% nominating at least one user for Best of 2021 from there.

caird coinheringaahing

@RedwolfPrograms Delfad0r's tanh trick is definitely worth a nomination for Best Mathematical Insight

Wasif

Yes, he (Delfad0r) has also other very impressive answers recently

pxeger

That questions shows why I love @Arnauld because he puts the most interesting, not the shortest, solutions at the top of his answers

Wasif

16:59

Is there have been any meta thread for best of 2021?

Adám

@Wasif A bit early, no?

caird coinheringaahing

@Wasif Wait until Jan 2022 :P

Wasif

Jan 22?

caird coinheringaahing

January 2022, when the nomination post will go up

pxeger

because Best Of threads are for the year that's just passed

caird coinheringaahing

17:00

Until then, bookmark the question with any impressive answers you might want to nominate :)

Wasif

I remember I was not active then :-(

caird coinheringaahing

Most controversial posts on the site (sorted by upvotes)

Wasif

@cairdcoinheringaahing Can <1k users see them?

Redwolf Programs

How are you measuring controversialness?

caird coinheringaahing

@Wasif The vote counts? I believe so but I'm not sure

Redwolf Programs

17:02

Yeah, anyone can see them

In SEDE at least

caird coinheringaahing

@RedwolfPrograms down > (up * 0.5)

It has more downvotes than half it's upvotes

Redwolf Programs

I'm going to make my own query, that uses my controversialness rating method :p

caird coinheringaahing

How many users on the site can do X?, where X are the site privileges

Lyxal will like the number of 20k+ users we have :P

Wasif

Then what's the need of 1k privilige

caird coinheringaahing

@Wasif Seeing vote counts? Nothing really, unfortunately

It's kinda one of the privileges they give you so you have a new "toy" to keep you interested until 2k (similar to "protect questions" at 15k (new toy between 10k and 20k, which are actual power privileges))

Wasif

17:09

hehe the SE mechanism is interesting

caird coinheringaahing

1k, 5k and 15k are sort of "nothing" privileges, as you can either do them already with a userscript (at 1k) or you won't really use the privilege (5k/15k)

Delfad0r

@cairdcoinheringaahing Say what?? I can't wait to be able to approve tag wiki edits

Whatever that means

Wasif

one thing bothers me that seeing the deleted question don't affect the author's privacy?

caird coinheringaahing

@Delfad0r Every tag has a tag wiki (using code-golf as an example) which has more detailed information on when to use them. Anyone can edit them (literally, this has no minimum rep requirement), but only 20k+ users can do so without approval

@Wasif When you upload a post to SE, you release it under the CC-BY-SA license (details) which means that, essentially, it is no longer your private work, but is now in the public. Because of that, you forfeit the right to "privacy" on anything you choose to post on SE

(Not a lawyer, take what I'm saying with a pinch of salt)

Redwolf Programs

The more I use SQL the more confused I get

user

17:16

@RedwolfPrograms Watch the prequel first, then

caird coinheringaahing

@user We will watch your career with great interest :P

user

Always sucks when you watch the third/sixth movie first and you have no idea why a bunch of people with glowing sticks are throwing each other into glowing marmalade.

CMP: Star Wars or Star Trek?

caird coinheringaahing

Yes

Most repeated comments on ~~SuperUser~~ CGCC

user

@cairdcoinheringaahing "Welcome to PPCG!"?

Redwolf Programs

Why does this work but this doesn't?!?!?!?!?!??!!??!?!!??!!??!?!?!?11?????

user

17:20

@cairdcoinheringaahing Oh wait, I didn't see it was for CGCC

Redwolf Programs

I hate SQL so much, in case this was not an obvious fact

caird coinheringaahing

@RedwolfPrograms And yet you like Javascript...

Redwolf Programs

I can look at JS and know what's going on

user

I would say SQL is even worse than JS

Isn't SQL barely TC?

Redwolf Programs

SQL is worse than JS in every way, and that includes the awful standardization

user

17:22

Even someone who doesn't know a lot of JS can hack a query together somehow, but SQL is so complicated

That said, JS sucks. Burn it to the last npm package.

Redwolf Programs

SQL can't even figure out how to be capitalized. At least anyone who knows a C-based language (probably 99% of developers) can roughly understand JS.

@user I really don't like NPM or Node

Node takes all the familiarity and wrecks it

NPM's just annoying

user

I've heard multithreaded Node is pretty fast

Redwolf Programs

So is falling off a cliff and they both make my head hurt

3

user

That's the only thing that happened when you fell off a cliff? What are you, Redwolf Programs?

I like that of the most repeated on CGCC, so many are "Welcome to..." The friendliness is one thing I love about this site

Redwolf Programs

Welcome to Code Golf! Nice first answer.

That's mine!

That's my comment!

I'm famous!

caird coinheringaahing

17:27

Unless it's one of mine :P

Redwolf Programs

I think you have an older version that uses a comma instead of a !

Welcome to the site, [and] nice first answer!

caird coinheringaahing

Nah, I updated it to use a ! (and to link to the Welcome Meta posts)

user

> How does this work?

Redwolf Programs

Also Welcome to Code Golf, nice first answer!

caird coinheringaahing

High rep users who don't upvote that much (basically "how close do your gained rep and your given rep match?")

user

17:33

There are users there with almost as many downvotes as upvotes, which is surprising for a site like CGCC

Redwolf Programs

Who is ceilingcat and why have 47 people said Thanks! or Thank you. to them?

Adám

Is it allowed to answer this in GolfScript, APL, J, K, etc.?

caird coinheringaahing

I've voted to close this question as unclear as "any programming languages that are known to produce short programs" is not properly specified — caird coinheringaahing 30 secs ago

Redwolf Programs

17:54

I love how even in 2012 people hated that restriction

I'd also challenge the notion that golfscript is known to produce short programs :p

Unrelated String

^

caird coinheringaahing

Yeah, that's definitely aged well :P

How quickly did you earn that badge? SEDE query

Tells you the number of days between you joining and you earning whatever badge you query

Redwolf Programs

My hobby: Taking other people's public API keys so I don't have to bother with registering my own

(kidding of course :p)

caird coinheringaahing

@RedwolfPrograms Personally, I prefer to take their private keys :P

hyper-neutrino

they should add @everyone to SE chat

caird coinheringaahing

18:00

God no

Redwolf Programs

I wonder how many requests it would take to scrape all of the data on the API

hyper-neutrino

i see nothing that could go wrong with this idea

caird coinheringaahing

Maybe if it was just room-based (i.e. ping everyone in that room)

Redwolf Programs

/me is halfway through registering an account named everyone just for the one joke

caird coinheringaahing

Just change your username :P

Redwolf Programs

18:06

Starting on my SEDE clone. It won't be able to handle comments or users, but it'll update four times per day and use a reasonable language instead of SQL

I'll call it RDPT (Redwolf's Data Processing Thing)

Oh wait

Getting all of the data on the site at a rate of one page every ten seconds would still take five hours

Maybe that's not a good idea

caird coinheringaahing

@RedwolfPrograms You do know that SEDE is hosted by StackExchange and so can literally just plug into their databases and search, right?

Redwolf Programs

Yes

Which is why this might not be as possible as I imagined

Except for small queries

caird coinheringaahing

Huh, never knew this existed. For <10k users, the question reads:

> Can you create a clever or unexpected Fibonacci generator?

Your code must print or return either the nth Fibonacci number or the first n Fibonacci numbers.

It's at +164 net, and has multiple answers scoring over 100

Redwolf Programs

I think for a popcon it's actually not that bad

The task is clear enough, it could just be edited a bit to add some explanation

I have nothing against popcons, when the task is clearly specified and interesting, and I think that fits both

caird coinheringaahing

It completely lacks an OWC tho

And when Shog brings up a question, you know something's up with it :P

Redwolf Programs

18:14

What do you mean? It's tagged as a popcon right?

If "cleverness" was the WC it's not objective, but if it was reworded a bit to make that the goal and votes the criterion, it'd be objective

caird coinheringaahing

@RedwolfPrograms Tagging a question popcon doesn't give it an OWC (at least IMO), which is one of the biggest problems with popcons: people think they can just slap popularity-contest onto any shit question and make it on-topic

Redwolf Programs

I think it should be closed or locked in its current state, but not deleted

caird coinheringaahing

TBH it got deleted by the Roomba (I'm guessing the ClosedMigratedQuestions roomba), not by a user

Have a look at the revisions though :P

> Code Chess: Fibonacci Sequence
Building upon the proven success of Code Golf, I would like to introduce Code Chess.

Unlike Code Golf, which strives for concision, Code Chess will strive for cleverness.

Can you create a clever or unexpected Fibonacci generator?

Your code must print or return either the nth Fibonacci number or the first n Fibonacci numbers

user

@RedwolfPrograms A very helpful user who suggests golfs on C and Java answers.

Redwolf Programs

Makes sense

caird coinheringaahing

18:20

@RedwolfPrograms ~~You could VTuD if you wanted to, now that you have 10k :P~~ Wait, no, it's locked, my bad

Redwolf Programs

Wait how? I don't see a button anywhere

user

Any feecback? (especially how to keep people from using brute force)

caird coinheringaahing

I suppose if you have a high enough \$n\$ then brute-force is impractical, but you'd need quite a high \$n\$

Redwolf Programs

For a 100 byte program and an n of 20 it's totally impractical, so it shouldn't be that hard to make it brute force resistant

user

Right, but you want to decrease n to make your score better, so if someone has n=1, it won't work :(

Redwolf Programs

18:31

Is the program's size part of the scoring criterion?

user

No, just n

And for robbers, how many answers you crack, I guess?

caird coinheringaahing

I'd suggest it should be, otherwise you could create a huge program (a la Lenguage but better) and have a very low n

Redwolf Programs

Maybe make it nCr

user

Hmm, maybe program size times n?

@RedwolfPrograms Get that pun/math out of here! :P

caird coinheringaahing

E.g. a Jelly program made up of just a whole bunch of compressed strings where if you remove 1 character and change the indexing slightly it works, for like n = 3 and length of 1000+

Redwolf Programs

18:32

@user It's not a pun, it's the number of combinations that you'd need to brute force

Oh wait unless they have to be adjacent

user

I meant the challenge is also a CnR

Redwolf Programs

Ohhhh looool

Unintentional pun

user

@RedwolfPrograms Oh I didn't know that, I just recognized weird math notation :P

@RedwolfPrograms They don't

caird coinheringaahing

Someone go suggest an edit, I'm 1 Suggested Edit review away from Reviewer :D

Redwolf Programs

Yeah, I'd just make the score nCr, with lower ones being better. That way the score scales directly with the difficulty of brute forcing.

caird coinheringaahing

18:35

(\$\binom n r\$ in Mathjax)

user

@RedwolfPrograms Um, how do you calculate that? Asking for a friend with the same challenge :P

caird coinheringaahing

@user $$\frac {n!} {r! (n-r)!}$$

Redwolf Programs

Review stalker broken for anyone else?

caird coinheringaahing

@RedwolfPrograms Working here

user

@cairdcoinheringaahing Thanks

I find it galling that no one clicked on the link I put in that draft.

Redwolf Programs

18:39

Restarting my laptop fixed it, nvm

Okay, for Hunter-Gatherer KotH, I'm trying to decide what different types of tools I should add

Originally I had spears (for fighting only), axes (for breaking stuff only), and shovels (for making farmland only)

However, shovels seem kind of useless currently and axes are weird because I feel like they shouldn't be able to break stone walls

user

Time machines to get past stone walls?

Redwolf Programs

Maybe I can have axes, pickaxes, and shovels, then axes can be used for combat as well and pickaxes can be required for mining bronze and iron ore?

user

Stones to throw over walls and fight people?

Redwolf Programs

But then I would be removing spears (which fit best with the theme) and not shovels (which are mostly pointless still)

user

Maybe add rams for breaking stone walls and keep axes for breaking other stuff only

John Dvorak

18:44

if you add different types of damage, then set stone walls to be resistant to slashing damage

but vulnerable to bludgeoning damage

Redwolf Programs

Maybe shovels could be useful for breaking stone things, like walls and ores?

user

I think that seems a bit unrealistic

Redwolf Programs

Maybe hammers?

user

Those sound good

I doubt people would try breaking stone walls irl, they might just go over them

Redwolf Programs

I guess I could just get rid of the concept of farmland and just have grain be planted on plain land

user

18:47

Hunter-gatherers didn't really farm, though, did they?

Redwolf Programs

No, but they didn't use iron tools either :p

It's kind of spanning from hunter gatherer all the way to iron age

Like they could sort of progress up to farming and building cities

user

Oh I see

Maybe add fire for wider damage to farmland?

Redwolf Programs

I don't know, seems like it could be kind of a complicated mechanic

user

Probably, yeah :\

Redwolf Programs

I think spears will be a weapon that is durable and does a reasonable amount of damage, and axes and hammers will break faster if used as weapons but do a lot more damage

Or maybe they'll use a lot more hunger

Either way I definitely like the distinction between axes and hammers for breaking different types of things

Anush

19:03

hello!

is anyone math clever enough to be able to help please. How many terms are in the sum for q_i at the bottom of math.stackexchange.com/a/4096918/678546 ?

I want to write code to compute it but I am having problems understanding exactly how the sum works

Adám

19:15

@cairdcoinheringaahing Can we not simply remove the restriction? "Please" isn't a hard-and-fast rule, but more akin to those asking to "please explain your solution" etc.

caird coinheringaahing

@Adám We could, but the challenge itself isn't all that great either. We'd be better off posting an updated version and dupe-closing the older one IMO

Adám

Well, at least I outgolfed all the existing answers ― in APL.

rak1507

using ⌂kt is boring

doing it for real isn't very hard anyway

Adám

I just thought it'd be a nice closure to the challenge ;-)

Lyxal

22:25

Does anyone else have difficulties remembering what day of the week it is? I'm seriously thinking today is Saturday when it's actually Monday.

caird coinheringaahing

Feb 28 at 1:17, by caird coinheringaahing

idk the physics behind it, but time has been on some hardcore drugs for the past 18 months

Especially with the pandemic, days just blur into one another

rak1507

@Lyxal yep

Lyxal

@cairdcoinheringaahing now how did I know that was going to be what you replied with? :p

user

22:40

Gotta love it when you're trying to find the source of a quote and this happens :\

@Lyxal It's the fifth time someone's said that.

caird coinheringaahing

23:33

The site has got a few well-known, prominent "issues" (e.g. voting, Sandbox, new users to name a few). Multiple people have labelled pretty much all of these as the "biggest issue facing our site" over the years. So, an (informal) poll:

CMP: what do you think is the single biggest issue/problem/etc. with the site at the moment? How should we go about fixing it?

Personally, I think it's the failure to properly introduce new users to the site, and I've been posting fairly often on meta trying to find ways to fix this

rak1507

@cairdcoinheringaahing golf langs, we can't

Lyxal

@cairdcoinheringaahing honestly (and this is serious), the lack of items in the review queues. Like we get moderation tools and we can't actually use them.

caird coinheringaahing

@Lyxal How would you suggest we fix that? And, is it something that should be fixed? Surely, fewer things to review is a good thing?

user

@Lyxal Do you mean that people aren't flagging stuff enough, there aren't enough First Posts and Late Answers, or you just want SO levels of spam? :P

Lyxal

@user I'm saying the moderation tools here feel underwhelming, probably due to a larger problem of not enough activity happening.

user

23:37

@rak1507 Is that Yoda-speak? "We can't golf languages" (with golf being a verb)

rak1507

lol

user

@Lyxal Oh ok, so you want the community to grow?

Lyxal

@user I think that's more what I want, yes.

user

@rak1507 Seriously though, what did you mean? It sounds very cryptic

rak1507

that's a very weird take

user

23:38

A very weird take, that is

caird coinheringaahing

@Lyxal That's definitely a problem (and also more general): the site basically just has "bursts" of activity when you do things, otherwise it's just hanging around TNB and the front page

rak1507

@user the biggest problem is the use of golf langs, and also lax io somewhat, and it can't be fixed

user

@rak1507 I don't see how it's a problem

Lyxal

@cairdcoinheringaahing so how do we bring more people in?

rak1507

that's because you're ok with it, which is fine, but a lot of people aren't, see the 1000 meta posts by new users for evidence

caird coinheringaahing

23:39

@Lyxal Advertising is probably the most effective way

Lyxal

but where?

where do we advertise?

user

@rak1507 I'd say their objection is unjustified, although the ridiculous number of votes trivial builtin-only answers get is a problem.

caird coinheringaahing

@user A lot of people dislike golfing languages, thinking they "dilute" the point of golf. It's a matter of opinion though, and so is just as valid as the opposite. The site policy of "Just ignore them" is probably the best compromise

user

So I guess that goes back to welcoming new users

caird coinheringaahing

@Lyxal NGL if we could set up an ad on SO that directed people here via some kind of welcome page (e.g. the one I posted a couple of months back), we'd probably increase user activity by a lot

Twitter and Reddit are filled with bored coders, if we could attract them to the site, we'd explode

user

23:41

@cairdcoinheringaahing Someone put it rather nicely once: golfing languages let you work on a problem at a more abstract level without worrying about boilerplate. I'd say they purify golf more

@cairdcoinheringaahing We hit HNQ regularly already, but it doesn't seem to help :\

caird coinheringaahing

@user HNQ only exposes us to regulars on the SE network

user

Axtell looked cool, but it seems to be dead :(

Lyxal

@cairdcoinheringaahing so how best would an ad be worded for a place like reddit?

rak1507

@user probably bc all the normal people who expect to see python java js etc see 9 bytes of unicode rubbish and decide never to visit again

caird coinheringaahing

Well, there is r/codegolf

user

23:43

@cairdcoinheringaahing Ooh, finally a sub I'm not going to hate!

caird coinheringaahing

Advertising there, on the language specific subreddits, on r/ProgrammerHumor and r/programming would promote the site

@user It's not very good, unfortunately

user

@cairdcoinheringaahing :(

Lyxal

@cairdcoinheringaahing I'll see if I can think of ways to make efficient posts

user

I recognize chunes (the Factor user)!

Lyxal

I know that programmerhumor sees kindly to code golf - my 18 byte fizzbuzz got 25 upvotes

(on reddit that is)

rak1507

23:45

link

caird coinheringaahing

Honestly, the biggest problem with expanding the userbase is that we have to do it properly, or else people will just post shitty challenges, then complain that we aren't a welcoming site

user

Like SO

Which is why there need to be edits to the Tour page and stuff, ig

Lyxal

@rak1507 give me a second to find it

caird coinheringaahing

Introducing people to the site through impressive answers, or through questions that they reckon they could answer. Don't encourage people to ask first, encourage answering, as every programmer under the sun reckons they can code something "easy" to whatever challenges we show them

Bubbler

people will just post shitty challenges, then complain that we aren't a welcoming site It's... pretty much true as is

rak1507

23:46

there's the other potential uncomfortable reality that code golf is a niche activity for strange people and there's not much expansion even possible

user

@rak1507 :(

That hurt

caird coinheringaahing

@rak1507 The fact that we haven't died out as a site after 10 years suggests otherwise :P

user

@Bubbler It's not as bad as more active sites, though

caird coinheringaahing

@Bubbler Yeah, how do we change that though?

rak1507

@cairdcoinheringaahing well yeah, there will always be people who want to do it, but how many will there be really?

Lyxal

23:48

@rak1507 old.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/jbv7c9/…

caird coinheringaahing

Take a look at Why are you here? It's a surprisingly good insight into why other people joined the site

rak1507

lol

user

Imagine not using the redesign

caird coinheringaahing

> I noticed a post called Most common number on the Hot Network Questions sidebar, from some site called "Programming Puzzles & Code Golf." So I took a look at the question. "I know how to do this," I thought to myself, "this is just asking to find the mode of a list. Easy peasy, lemon sqeezy." So I made an account on the site and posted my answer. "Alright, that was fun," I thought. "Well, back to Stack Overflow."

Bubbler

@cairdcoinheringaahing Random idea: make "ask question" privilege unlock at 100 rep

caird coinheringaahing

23:49

That's how Alex A, once one of the most active users and an ex-mod, found the site

user

@cairdcoinheringaahing That's kinda what happened to me too :P

Bubbler

It's a good thing if a new user posts an answer first. Bad things usually happen when a new user tries to post a challenge first

user

@Bubbler 50 rep may be more fair, although we shouldn't count association bonuses.

caird coinheringaahing

FYI Alex's answer is one of the best posts I've read on the site for "Why does this place even exist?" It perfectly demonstrates exactly the kind of users who will contribute to the site in a positive way, and it distils the essence of the site so perfectly

@Bubbler Honestly, I think even as low as 5 rep would do

You either answer a question or you provide 2 helpful edits. Either way, it shows some understanding of the site at a level most new users won't have

Bubbler

Makes sense

Btw, my first activity on the site was an answer to an unanswered question :)

caird coinheringaahing

23:59

Year	# of 100+ Qs
2021	0
2020	1
2019	2
2018	4
2017	17
2016	17
2015	26
2014	39
2013	4
2012	3
2011	9

user

This is an interesting site

caird coinheringaahing

So I did a bit of counting, and got those results

user

I expected older questions to have more upvotes

Transcript for