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12:04 AM
CMP: How many of you know i[array] works the same as array[i] in C?
 
raises hand
i feel like most people who know c know and most people who don't know c are horrified now
 
12:24 AM
@Bubbler i did, it's basically just pointer addition at that point right?
 
Yes, it desugars into *(i+array)
 
@Bubbler Unfortunately, I saw it in a cursed golf somewhere
 
Can that really save bytes under any circumstances?
 
idk, I'm pretty sure I saw it on CGCC somewhere
 
@cairdcoinheringaahing Theoretically yes
 
12:34 AM
tbh i[arr=foo] seems like the only case where it could be of any use, but that seems unlikely
 
Eh, maybe I saw it on SO then, idk
 
maybe if you have a ternary for deciding which array to index into
 
I;ve seen it before on SO and it made me never want to use C :P
Or pointer arithmetic :P
 
Or pointers in general :P
 
12:45 AM
My C teacher said it's mainly for obfuscation purposes, and then proudly made a series of test questions out of it
 
classic
 
i saw it a few days ago in this answer
 
1:08 AM
and the maintenance finally arrived, 1 hour later than announced
 
if we're talking weird C stuff, personally i didn't know you could use a character literal for base 256 numbers, e.g.
 
i... would definitely expect that to be illegal, rather than just discouraged
or not so much illegal as impossible
 
Apparently it is valid in C99(?) standard and implementation-defined
All of clang/gcc/tcc give the same value for same multichar const
 
1:39 AM
I found a usage for the SE app: if you dislike the new staff/mod badges, the app still has diamonds everywhere :P
Of course, it's still buggy as hell and has a very limited functionality, but it does have diamonds :P
 
1:50 AM
Oh is the maintainecenc now?
I'm not even going to try to fix that spelling lol
 
@cairdcoinheringaahing dismissing the sandbox flag is just a routine occurrence for me at this point :)
 
2:08 AM
Is meta in read only for anyone else?
* MM
 
@RedwolfPrograms ಠ_ಠ I cancelled the pin cause I thought it was done
Looks to be done for me tho, none of the sites are read-only
@hyper-neutrino Doesn't it mean that you basically get a new auto-flag every time someone posts a new challenge tho?
 
2:38 AM
i think it resets every time you dismiss the flag, so it's at most once a week
the history had something like 300 of those flags last time i checked
 
2:54 AM
IMHO the flag shouldn't be raised on a single question after it's dismissed 3 times or so
 
3:13 AM
0
A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Chas BrownKnapsack Paragraph, Format For A Phone There are several paragraph formatting questions already on the site, where a string of text is split on space or other boundaries in order to fit into a rectangle; but they usually involve specifying a particular width for the formatted paragraph in additio...

 
Speaking from zero experience with handling flags, it might be nice if we could get the auto-flag thresholds raised (changed to flag less) for the site
Not sure how useful that'd be in removing some workload from the mods, but could be worth it
 
well we can just ignore it and clearing the flag takes me like 10 seconds every once or twice max a week
 
@hyper-neutrino That's definitely shorter than the time I spend every Monday for weekly bookkeeping stuff at work :P
 
i personally don't really mind it, it takes little time to resolve, and i just complain about it for fun :p
 
we get to deny the dumb bot and laugh about it
 
3:29 AM
But how else will we get to complain to SE and ask for site-specific changes? :P
 
4:20 AM
Hi
@cairdcoinheringaahing I dislike
the mod badges
 
4:38 AM
i'm not a fan of them either
 
5:21 AM
 
 
2 hours later…
6:58 AM
aww man, my math lecture is going to get complex today
I'll have to use my imagination to help understand what's being taught
It's completely unreal
CMC: What am I learning about?
 
type(1j)
 
correctamundo
 
Is Vyxal ever going to have cinokex number support of some sort?
 
yes
once I learn more about them
 
7:23 AM
They're fun and useful, but you won't find much application of it in general golfing if you have vectorization as well
 
Can be a useful input format for vectors / tuples / etc
 
Jelly has complex, but you can almost get away with pairs for similar byte count
 
7:43 AM
wrt complex numbers being useful in jelly, it helps that the linear algebra builtins aren't the best
and then depending on the context it can also just be directly helpful that complex numbers are scalars rather than arrays for when you're vectorizing stuff over them
in short they're good to have but far from essential
 
@cairdcoinheringaahing Intrigued by Yggdrasil, mind explaining the primitives? I can put together the wiki page on them!
Then . prints current node. The ' prints left node. The " prints right node.
The : prints left and then right node.
And all of the above print as char, whereas $ prints the code point of current node (like .).
The </> move current node down to child node on left/right.
The ` moves current node up one, to its parent
The ~ toggles value of current node using python's ~ builtin.
The @ sets current node to 0.
All % in the source code are replaced with NULL bytes
Each _ is replaced by the sequential command line arguments, with missing arguments filled with 0
All of +-*^&| set current node's value with current = left {op} right, where python's matching builtin is used for op
The / sets current node's value to current = left // right, included separately since it's not just left / right
Just missing =?#( which I'll let someone else do for now!
 
8:11 AM
0
A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

BubblerMaximal hexagonal dot pattern code-golf math ascii-art hexagonal-grid Challenge Imagine a hexagonal grid as shown below. Let's call such a grid has size \$n\$ if it has \$n\$ dots on one side. The following is one of size 3: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Then, pick as many dots as ...

 
8:26 AM
@SandboxPosts I thought finding the number of dots was an interesting problem, wrote a brute-force program, plugged into OEIS, wondered why it kept giving a trivial sequence, found a relevant image deep in the middle of the page, I thought ascii-art must be less trivial, so went with it
Also I love hexagonal grids
 
9:07 AM
(doesn't necessarily mean I love Hexagony)
 
lol thanks for the clarification
 
9:28 AM
CMC: Crash my computer
 
you can edit your messages
 
@pxeger yes but i wooden allow me to
 
@PyGamer0 Destructive challenges are off-topic.
 
@Adám ??
 
programs which cause system failure aren't encouraged
sometimes they can't be rerun
 
9:31 AM
@Razetime That's not the reason.
 
so they are off topic
 
@PyGamer0 CGCC does not allow posting challenges that ask to cause harm.
 
idk the meta consensus but it's pretty obvious that a program which does damage is not good
 
24
Q: Should asking for malicious code be on topic?

Martin EnderWe're occasionally getting questions which ask people to write harmful code. This used to be big when code trolling was a thing, but it's not limited to that. Every now and then there are underhanded challenges or popularity-contests which ask participants to write malicious code (which may or ma...

 
@cairdcoinheringaahing I try to throw in things like that in my screenshots, have a little fun.
 
9:40 AM
@YaakovEllis I also noticed your clone hanging around :P
 
CC: Entertain Me.
 
@PyGamer0 Learn APL!
 
@Adám might actually try that
CMC: Generate a random number between 1 and 1000
 
I'll be happy to assist in the APL Orchard
@PyGamer0 ?1e3 in APL
 
@AviFS This is done from memory (and rereading my code), so take it with a pinch of salt: ? moves to the left child if the current node is truthy, else it moves to the right child. # moves to the top of the tree if the current node is truthy. = gets all nodes that descend from the current node, and runs them all (or, is supposed to, it's currently broken).
 
9:46 AM
@Adám how does that work?
? is random?
1e3 is thousand
 
@PyGamer0 1e3 is 1000 and ? is called "roll" as in "roll a dice with this many sides".
 
( and ) are a bit weird. Essentially, Yggdrasil reads from the linear code between the two, then recursively runs the commands in the brackets on the memory tree. It gets slightly more complex than that depending on the tree, and nested brackets, but that's the gist of it
@PyGamer0 Jelly, 2 bytes: ȷX
 
CMC: Print 1 to 14 using a loop
 
@PyGamer0 Unobservable requirement.
 
@Adám ??
 
9:52 AM
@PyGamer0 How can you verify that a loop is being used, and what does the loop need to do?
 
Hi, I'm Troy Mcclure. You Might Remember Me From Such Public Service Videos As Designated Drivers: The Lifesaving Nerds and Phony Tornado Alarms Reduce Readiness. — Troy McClure yesterday
 
@Adám errr
ok CMC: Print 1 to 16
 
@PyGamer0 ⍳16
 
> Actually I'm just pxeger pretending to be Troy McClure
 
@PyGamer0 Ruby: p [*1..16]
 
9:55 AM
What other lies have the Jedi Council told me?
 
yeah lol, I just didn't want to get done for impersonation
 
@PyGamer0 Jelly, 2 bytes: ⁴R
 
@cairdcoinheringaahing i just see a single R
 
@PyGamer0 You don't see a superscript 4?
 
@PyGamer0 There's a superscript 4 in front of it
 
9:57 AM
@Adám no
 
What kind of device?
 
yes i dont see the four
 
What do you see here: ⁰¹²³⁴⁵
 
@Adám android
@Adám everything till ⁵
 
What do you see here: ⁰¹²³⁴⁵
 
10:06 AM
8
Q: Chess Squad March

Valentin BrassoFind the moves that bring a chess squad to a given destination. You control a chess squad consisting of a king and several other pieces, on a larger chess board. Your army is placed so that no piece is further than K=8 squares away (horizontally and vertically) from your king. You will receive a ...

 
@Adám 0123 5
 
How many fingers am I holding up :p
 
@AviFS 0
 
Wrong. Four.
@cairdcoinheringaahing Thanks! It’d be nice to have some minimal docs on it, no? I can write this bit up tmrw, or at least plan on it!
It’s your most interesting lang that I’ve looked at on Github so far… or is there another lang I’m supposed to like better?
 
CC: Rickroll lyxal
 
10:11 AM
@PyGamer0 Wow, that's really interesting. Is your phone Chinese, by any chance?
 
@SandboxPosts I like this a lot!!
 
@Adám no
i d t s
i think the font is messed up
 
@AviFS Yeah, docs are nice, I just never bother to do them :P
 
Wait, we have two diamonds among us? What did I miss?!
 
> among us
 
10:14 AM
@cairdcoinheringaahing Which langs are you most partial to, of yours?
 
@AviFS I don't find it especially interesting tbh, given just how basic the builtin set is and how buggy it can be, but each to their own
 
… i conjugated that weird, i think, of mine
 
@AviFS I quite like Add++ because it's the most usable; I wrote Adjust in Add++ so that's a pretty cool one for me; Rutger's quite nice, I'd just prefer it if I could be bothered to add more builtins :P
 
@cairdcoinheringaahing the built-in set isn’t particularly anything, true. but conceptually I find it really intriguing
 
@AviFS Yeah, it's for sure a nice proof-of-concept lang
 
10:18 AM
@cairdcoinheringaahing This keeps happening to us, haha. I think I’m drawn towards conceptual langs with a minimalist core, and I think being usable is a higher priority for you
though not entirely, since you’re still esolanging :p
CMC: How would you describe your taste in (eso)langs?
 
@AviFS The new mod/staff markers on metas. Yaakov was testing them on our meta yesterday and was hanging around here to see if anyone noticed (we didn't). Not sure why he's still here, might be getting a bit addicted to TNB :P
 
@cairdcoinheringaahing TNB is dangerous stuff!!
 
@AviFS I typically discover a concept I like/find interesting, then design a language around that. I then get annoyed when I go to use that language and it requires a significant amount of effort to use because the builtin set is so limited
 
@AviFS i cant taste esolangs
 
@AviFS Strawberry, with a hint of lemon
 
10:21 AM
Haha, that’s fair. After a while of “conceptualness” I could definitely see myself starting to like the ones that were more usable, haha
What are the concepts behind Add++ & Whispers? They seem to be the most developed and ones that you’re partial to
But it wasn’t immediately obvious to me what distinguishes them
 
@AviFS Add++ was the first (usable) programming language I made, so it's sort of a hot mess that has a place in my heart :P
 
No way!! That’s more than I can say
 
It's so buggy as soon as you look under the hood, so I'm currently rewriting it for v6
 
To have a first programming language I made, I mean :p
Still more than I can say, even after you edit :p
And Whispers?
 
10:25 AM
Hi
 
Hi
 
@AviFS Whispers (and then Uno and No) is based on the concept of "line programming" where each line in the program does a single thing, and programs are made by referencing other line's and their results. Whispers is the one with all the mathematical builtins, so I use it more than either No or Uno
I think it's a form of tacit programming
 
Woah, that’s pretty neat, I def have to go take another look now
Is that made explicit in the docs (which I remember Whispers does have)?
 
Whispers was LotM in Feb, so that's probably the best place to look for good example programs
 
Holy moly! Congrats! I totally missed thay
 
10:27 AM
@AviFS Yes and no. I think I roughly explain the execution model, but it could be better
 
Holy moly! Congrats! I totally missed that
I’ll go give it a whirl
 
Also, I need to finish the docs :P
 
@cairdcoinheringaahing Having its raison d’etre somewhere painfully obvious and explicit can only be a good thing, methinks
If you’re doing more work on the docs anyway, I mean
@cairdcoinheringaahing Also, what’s a JHT rating?
I feel like I’ve asked before…
 
@cairdcoinheringaahing I think I might have noticed yesterday, but I can't remember if it would have been before or after the change went live on all other metas
 
@AviFS that's a bit sus. Have you seen any of them vent?
 
10:32 AM
@AviFS Jelly Hypertraining (the room for learning Jelly) has a list of exercises for people to try to learn Jelly on. The JHT rating a-b: a is number of those exercises I've managed to do in that lang, b is the length. Maximise a, minimise b` for a usable golfy lang
@AviFS It's on my todo list for all my langs
 
@cairdcoinheringaahing That’s a neat way of doing it! I like that a lot; think I might adopt it
 
@cairdcoinheringaahing protip: actually plan/create somewhat formal specs for each part of the language
 
Have you been able to evaluate Jelly code in any of them :P
@lyxal Making a spec is just about the only thing they do sometimes (cough cough Mixology)
 
@AviFS well obviously the next step is to actually implement the spec :P
 
Who makes interpreters? I run code in my head.
 
10:40 AM
@AviFS No, there are a couple of the exercises that I don't count :P
@AviFS That's currently in dev on my laptop:P
@lyxal But then I can't just pass off that thing I said I'd do, but it's harder than I expected so I won't bother as "unexpected behaviour" or a "feature, not a bug" :P
 
@cairdcoinheringaahing Fine… how about evaluating Python though?
 
@cairdcoinheringaahing I am also not sure why I am still here
 
@YaakovEllis TNB is good at triggering existential crises :P
 
I have somehow got more rep on meta from one answer than here today.
 
@YaakovEllis Catija's been saying the same thing for months now :P
@AviFS I think a couple of them have that builtin, but not all, so I don't really count that either :P
 
10:55 AM
Well, it's fairly obvious
 
So the typical activity of TNB is the opposite of Charcoal HQ
Very interesting
 
Clearly we stop chatting here and start posting spam every 12 hours :P
 
hm
and Vyxal's the opposite of the second monitor
 
11:12 AM
Clearly you all discuss Vyxal and do some dev on it, then move into the 2nd Monitor and start doing some code review on it :P
2
 
11:56 AM
Apparently you also go back and forth between Physics and English :P
 
12:59 PM
@lyxal hah i didnt fall for it
 
@lyxal Aaahhh
@Adám 0 1 2 3 4 5 (superscripts)
@cairdcoinheringaahing If only we reviewed our code when working on vyxal…
So many fires could’ve prevented by us not being messy
 
@PyGamer0 I promise you that it is not a link to a video where Rick Astley sings "Never gonna give you up".
5
 
1:26 PM
@Adám is there an online APL tutorial? (not a video)
 
@PyGamer0 Plenty. I suggest you choose something that isn't marked "video" from apl.wiki/Learning_resources.
@cairdcoinheringaahing Once support gets a bit better, you can write 🪵(😅) = 💧🪵(😄)
3
Can someone post a screenshot of that? Doesn't render by me.
 
@Adám That only works on my phone for me :P
 
Noice.
 
I thought the new mod and staff labels were a bit distracting, so I made a userscript to change them. However, if I expand comments, the comments have the new labels. Is there a way to make it also work on the comments, or have it run again when the comments are expanded, or something like that?
 
1:35 PM
Btw, APL actually uses a stylised cross-section of a tree log as the symbol for log:
 
1:48 PM
Me: Learns APL and uses the notation in my math exam.
My Teacher: What on Earth is this?
 
@PyGamer0 Did that. Got highest marks.
 
@Adám whaaat
 
Well, not really exam, but my final paper in high school was titled "Can our mathematical notation be improved?"
 
did you write: Using APL notation at the top of your answer sheet?
@Adám oh
 
@PyGamer0 Actually, I made a mistake on a test in 8th grade, evaluating something from left to right (rather than abiding by classical precedence rules), possibly by trying to counteract my natural tendency towards APL's right-to-left rule.
 
1:53 PM
@Adám when did you start learning apl? 3 yrs?
 
2:34 PM
@cairdcoinheringaahing 'ello 'ello 'ello what 'ave we 'ere? twitter.com/gloupin/status/1420285217256902656
who copied whom?
 
> Something went wrong. Try reloading.
 
@cairdcoinheringaahing ​i.stack.imgur.com/F0Vs6.png
 
from the replies there are other accounts this has been posted on
this is not and will not be the last twitter account to copy this joke
 
But also, that joke has been making the rounds on math related areas of the internet, I wasn't the first person to think of it :P
 
you thought of it yourself, independently?
 
2:36 PM
> I wasn't the first person to think of it :P
didn't one of redwolf's jokes here get stolen by one of the accounts that copied the log joke as well?
 
Kind of, I saw a comment saying "😅 kind of looks like 😄 to the power 💧", then I thought of the log bit independantly
Then like an hour later saw a tweet making the same joke and was like "Yeah, that tracks" :P
 
@hyper-neutrino but that implies they did think of it, just not first
@hyper-neutrino I blame @NewPosts
 
content thief!
 
This is the internet, nothing is new or original :P
 
2:39 PM
17 hours ago, by Redwolf Programs
user image
the thing is this joke does not make any sense anywhere other than in this chat room in context
 
@hyper-neutrino That was edited by Redwolf :P
 
@cairdcoinheringaahing false. this is an entirely original joke: Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side
 
oh :(
i thought it was just a bot lol
wouldn't be surprising
 
17 hours ago, by Redwolf Programs
@user DOM manipulation
 
too many messages later
can't be bothered to read that much :p
 
2:41 PM
There's a feed for starred messages, we should set up a twitter bot masquerading as a real person who just posts those :P
 
@cairdcoinheringaahing false: tHiS iS aN oRiGiNaL jOkE
 
(I couldn't find the real tweet, so I continued using Paint)
 
CMC: Sort the input
 
Scala, 8 bytes: _.sorted
 
2:51 PM
Which language is that?
 
CMC: Implement quick sort
 
fiiine, |_|[]
 
Rust?
 
yes
 
lol, I thought it actually sorted the input
 
2:53 PM
😔
 
3:29 PM
@PyGamer0 with random pivots?
 
3:57 PM
CMC: implement Timsort. No builtins.
 
"TIMMMM!!!! I got a list for you to sort! Get me a cup of coffee before you do that, you lazy idiot. And make sure you sort them in ASCENDING ORDER this time, numbskull. Another mistake and I'll fire you this time. You hear that? NO MISTAKES!!! Now get your ugly face out of here and get to work!"
 
i guess sorted in python counts as a builtin lol
 
indeed it does lol
 
Dyalog APL uses Timsort too.
 
that might be worth adding to the wikipedia article
 
4:05 PM
I think most languages use it these days
 
4:18 PM
@pxeger Jelly, 2 bytes Ụị. is the builtin :P
 
4:42 PM
Feel free to make edits with your concepts or ideas for a better sandboxing system
I really feel like this is something that not only CGCC, but a few other oddball sites (like worldbuilding or puzzling) could massively benefit from
Wish I hadn't been so busy last night, I didn't manage to finish writing this until now so I've probably missed a lot of casual passerby to give this upvotes :p
 
Oh no, if only you had 2 of the highest upvoted answers to that question :P
 
specifically, the two most highly upvoted answers :P and by a pretty wide margin
 
To be clear I want the upvotes so my suggestion is visible, not for the rep :p
 
4:58 PM
TIL HTTP/3 does not use TCP
 
yes, it's QUICK so it needs QUIC
 
I can't believe I just learned about QUIC yesterday, given that it's been around for like 8 years now and it's used pretty widely
 
5:34 PM
A stack overflow broke Stack Overflow :P
 
5:50 PM
I wanted to practice JS, so I made a couple of userscripts, if anyone wants to check them out and tell me how bad they are :p
 
> I wanted to practice JS
a grave mistake
the simple badges is quite nice
although the blue diamond looks a bit out of place cuz i'm used to it being the same as the text color lol
 
@hyper-neutrino Well, I'm learning JS and TypeScript since I'm using them to implement Cursed
 
@hyper-neutrino I wasn't really sure how to make it the same color as the text
 
a potentially hacky and unreliable solution is to take the mod badge, remove it, find the username element relative to it, and then just append a diamond to it
alternatively, turn the badge into a diamond and give it whatever HTML class normal names have, but that doesn't work if the username is different colors in different places
 
5:57 PM
@hyper-neutrino It looks like the color of the name comes from it being a link, so I suppose I could either do like you said and append the diamond to the person's name, or I could make the diamond a link to nowhere, which sounds really cursed in my head, but I think I might actually be a good solution.
 
if you make it a link pointing to # and set cursor: default or cursor: inherit or whatever it is, it should work
but that does sound quite cursed lol
 
6:20 PM
oh they killed the custom 404 pages, which also means "post not found" (whether self-removed or "for reasons of moderation") are now just the same network-wide and look boring :/
 
Maybe they could combine every single one of the old 404 pages into some wacky collage
That way, it'd be the same for everyone and still not be boring :P
 
6:47 PM
0
Q: The Roly-Poly, Square-Wheeled Quine

DjinTonicCode-Golf caddy Eddie Brackets was getting tired of quine challenges, which appeared to be much too easy for the grand poobahs. He has this idea to spice up things and is sending quines to the car crusher. Challenge: Write a quine of that prints itself "squeezed" for output purposes into an n x n...

 
6:58 PM
damn, it annoys me when users delete their sandbox posts, because I can't tell they've used it
(cc: @hyper-neutrino)
 
Sorry -- Lesson learned.
 
It's generally a preference thing tbh. Some people prefer you delete them, others that you just edit them to a stub
Editing down, then linking to the Sandbox post when posted to main is the best way to a) show that you did use the Sandbox and stop comments like pxegers, and b) allow people to see what feedback what given, and if you actually paid attention to that
 
Roger
I just undeleted my sandbox version, if that helps.
Unfortunately, I edited the sandbox version from what it was when the comments were made, so it's the same as the version I posted today.
 
7:16 PM
Posts have revision histories that show basically all edits / versions of the post, don't worry :)
This is a good "stub" format to use IMO. You replace the entire body with # <link to main challenge> (it autoformats the title, so # https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/q/2329421 is enough)
 
OK, thank you. I'll look for comments in both places
 
@cairdcoinheringaahing oh I didn't know it gets autoformatted
neat
 
It's pretty cursed, but I updated the simple badges userscript to have the right colors by doing the "link to nowhere" thing that HN and I were talking about.
 
7:32 PM
My laptop got here this morning...and I wasn't there to sign for it >:|
Time to reforge the sword of my ancestors
 
sod's law lol
 
@RedwolfPrograms (did anyone get that XKCD reference?)
 
No :(
Actually, I don't know
 
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