The Nineteenth Byte

00:03

@DLosc California -> Oregon -> Washington -> Idaho -> Nevada -> California. Concatenating the names together gives 37 bytes :P

That could be an interesting question actually: what group of 5 states have the longest total name, under the constraint that you must be able to travel from one state to another in the group, and form a cycle where you return the original start?

4

Fmbalbuena

00:25

Why this was downvoted?

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

Well, you should probably explain why. It's a very absolute answer, when the correct number to add really could vary considerably. It's also not particularly helpful, as it's a super specific and rather obvious point.

Fmbalbuena

But for some reason, new users will do wrong everytime.

caird coinheringaahing

@cairdcoinheringaahing I'll offer at least an upvote on a post of your choosing if someone can solve this, and a +50 bounty on an answer of your choosing if you can prove your solution is the best

Unrelated String

:)

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

Huh. Do you have examples? That is a mistake I made when designing Ash.

@cairdcoinheringaahing Give me 10m

emanresu A

00:30

@cairdcoinheringaahing I have 51 - North Carolina -> South Carolina -> Georgia -> Tenessee -> Virginia

DLosc

@cairdcoinheringaahing I've found three different answers that all come in at 52 characters

Unrelated String

wow

caird coinheringaahing

Very nice :P

DLosc

@emanresuA That's 52, isn't it?

Fmbalbuena

@taRadvylfsriksushilani I said

caird coinheringaahing

00:31

I count 51

DLosc

Ah, because you've misspelled Tennessee

emanresu A

Oh.

caird coinheringaahing

That'd do it :P

emanresu A

53 - West Virginia -> Virginia -> North Carolina -> Tennessee -> Kentucky

caird coinheringaahing

I might post this on Puzzling, tbh

Maybe switch up the number of states involved for novelty

DLosc

00:32

@emanresuA ... That's also 52

emanresu A

Oops

Unrelated String

it seems like it shouldn't be too hard to find the longest loop(s) with some kind of pathfinding algorithm

DLosc

@UnrelatedString Might be a traveling salesman problem in disguise, though

Unrelated String

hmm

caird coinheringaahing

I mean, this is definitely a graph-theory based question :P

DLosc

00:35

It's got weights on the nodes rather than the edges, and we're trying to maximize the total rather than minimize it

caird coinheringaahing

Each node has a weight equal to the state name length, adjacent states are vertices. Find the highest weighted loop of 5 nodes

@DLosc If you take an edge's weight as the sum of the the nodes' weights

DLosc

@cairdcoinheringaahing Oh, good point

Unrelated String

yeah that should work since it's loops

you'll double-count every node uniformly

caird coinheringaahing

it'd be the same as doing the loop twice with node weights, yeah

DLosc

The third 52-character solution I found was Massachusetts -> New Hampshire -> Vermont -> New York -> Connecticut

emanresu A

00:37

This might be helpful

DLosc

Poor Alaska and Hawaii

Unrelated String

sad

granted their names are pretty short anyways

DLosc

Hm--does the answer change if we include Canadian provinces too?

(I mean, it wouldn't be the longest loop in 5 states anymore, but whatever)

caird coinheringaahing

Generalising the problem is very interesting :P n states, allowing more countries, changing location :P

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

I was trying to write a program to solve it but I ran out of memory lol

And I have to go now too :/

caird coinheringaahing

00:39

Using UK constituencies would be interesting, as we have 600+ and some have stupid long names

Unrelated String

oh yes

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

if this doesn't already have a name, how about travelling knapsack problem :p

caird coinheringaahing

"Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East" is 38 chars alone

DLosc

LOL

emanresu A

^

Unrelated String

00:40

lmao

caird coinheringaahing

If that borders any constituencies with 15 or more letters, then a solution for n=2 ties n=5 for the states :P

emanresu A

Nothing involving the dakotas is long enough

DLosc

Pennsylvania -> New Jersey -> Delaware -> Maryland -> West Virginia is honorable mention at 51 characters, and coincidentally nearly matches the itinerary for a trip I made once

emanresu A

I'm beginning to think 52 is optimal

But I know nothing about pathfinding

DLosc

@emanresuA Yeah, Dakotas/Minnesota was my original thought too, but len("Carolina") > len("Dakota")

However, if you include Canada...

Montana -> British Colombia -> Northwest Territory -> Saskatchewan -> North Dakota is a whopping 66 characters

emanresu A

00:45

But sticking to the original problem:

- Nothing to the left of new york can do any better than 52

- Anything including both carolinas must include georgia, tenessee and virginia/alabama

- You have to use delaware and maryland if you want pennsylvania and west virginia

caird coinheringaahing

I wonder if the answer changes if you allow "doubling back" e.g. "New York -> New Jersey -> Connecticut -> Massachusetts -> Vermont -> New York" is allowed, doubling back through NY to get from NJ to Connecticut

emanresu A

- Nothing on the west half is >10.2 characters

@cairdcoinheringaahing Possibly

caird coinheringaahing

@cairdcoinheringaahing Fun fact, this is a journey I did when I was looking at colleges in the US :P

*kinda, we technically went via New Hamshire, but you don't have to for the purposes if this question

DLosc

@emanresuA You don't have to use Delaware, you can also do Kentucky-Virginia-Maryland (it's a bit shorter, tho)

emanresu A

@cairdcoinheringaahing 62 - Connecticut -> Massachusetts -> New Hampshire -> Massachusetts -> Rhode Island

caird coinheringaahing

00:51

@emanresuA You wouldn't count the second Mass there

So doubling back is allowed, but still needs 5 distinct states

DLosc

~~Replace the first Mass. with New York, probably~~ wait, does that even work?

emanresu A

Oh. Replacing it with new york is still longer

ninjad

caird coinheringaahing

I think allowing doubling back would mean that shorter states with lots of borders would become much more powerful, as you can effectively star-fish

@DLosc Yes, NH -> Mass -> New York -> Mass -> RI

emanresu A

Don't forget you need on average >10.6 chars per state

DLosc

Connecticut -> Rhode Island -> Massachusetts -> New Hampshire -> (MA ->) New York

emanresu A

00:54

NH is longer than pennsylvania

caird coinheringaahing

NC -> SC -> NC -> TN -> MS -> TN -> VA -> WV -> VA -> NC gives 68 characters

Wait, that's 6

emanresu A

You can essentially cut off half the country

Relevant xkcd

caird coinheringaahing

So anything west of the Mississippi is useless? :P

emanresu A

Think of it in terms of average letter count

DLosc

U.S. states with 9 or more letters in descending order of length

emanresu A

00:59

Nothing west of missisipi has more than ten letters except the dakotas, which are useless

DLosc

@emanresuA Lol! Somehow I'd never seen that one before.

emanresu A

Also relevant xkcd

DLosc

Black Hat is clearly one of those coastal elites who think America's Heartland is "flyover country" :P

caird coinheringaahing

I've loved the Heartland whenever I've been, because it's stunningly beautiful (and other reasons). But, a) man it's empty, and b) there's basically no cities, and I thrive in cities :P

DLosc

@cairdcoinheringaahing a) You're not wrong, but b) I live in a city :P

caird coinheringaahing

01:06

@DLosc I know this is rich coming from someone who'se country only has 2, but I only really consider somewhere a "city" if it has >1m people :P

emanresu A

I live in a country with 5m people so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

caird coinheringaahing

Kansas City has a few thousand people more than Bristol, and Bristol's always felt like a small place to me :P

DLosc

Well, it also depends on how you count "Kansas City." Kansas City proper only has 500,000, but there are a lot of other smaller cities and towns right next to it that are basically part of the same urban area. If you count all those, it's more like 2 million.

But yeah, I'm sure KC would feel a lot different from New York.

caird coinheringaahing

Salt Lake's greater population is around 2.6 million, and whenever I'm there, yeah, it feels very different from NYC

Before Covid hit, I was actually planning a 49 state roadtrip :P

user

01:28

@emanresuA Do you have 5 cities? :P

> coastal elites

DLosc

@user Come to think of it, that also describes Randall Munroe... Hmm...

user

Hey, stop stereotyping us!

I wanted to come up with some Heartland-related insult but I have no idea what stereotypes are associated with it :(

DLosc

@user I kid, I kid. I don't have anything against east- or west-coasters. :)

@user Cows and cornfields are the usual fare

user

Good, good, so you won't mind when we split America in half, right? :P

DLosc

Hey, if that did happen, the surviving midwesterners could be called middle-coasters!

user

01:34

But you'd have to distinguish between west-middle-coasters, who'd be in the east, and east-middle-coasters, who'd be in the west :P

DLosc

@user I came up with a response for that, but rather than posting it I decided that now's probably a good time to quit with the stereotype jokes X^D

lyxal

So if you live on the eastern most part of a country on its water side, and you prank someone by redirecting them to Never Gonna Give You up, does that make you an east-rick-roller-coaster?

And then if so, can I find you at an amusement park? :p

DLosc

BRB, founding an amusement park called Eastrick

emanresu A

@user Yes

Simply swap the west and east halves

emanresu A

02:16

Challenge idea: Bugle but it's simplified Vyxal and you can add challenges as well so it doesn't get overoptimised

New Bounties With No Deadlines

02:38

0

A: List of bounties with no deadline

500 rep for answering Morse the New Year in Fugue Because it's fitting.

emanresu A

^ And because Fugue's so hard to program in

DialFrost

03:14

2

A: Reversed Multiple Pair

Python 2, 33 bytes lambda a,b:`a*b`==`(a-1)*b`[::-1] Using the logic that $$ ab = \operatorname{rev}( (a-1)b ) $$ Try it online! Other solutions: Python 2, 33 bytes lambda a,b:`a*b`[::-1]==`(a-1)*b` Using the logic that $$ \operatorname{rev}(ab) = (a-1)b $$ Try it online! Python 2, 34 bytes lam...

i always like these challenges

:)

*had to copy @ovs 's equations tho

i didnt know how to form equations in stackexchange

thx ovs!

att

you can also use \$ \$ instead of $$ $$

DialFrost

does it change the equation in any way or issit js another wa

way*

hyper-neutrino

\$ \$ will be inline

DialFrost

oooooh

but i think it nicer on its own :)

hi superbyte

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

03:40

I just wrote a pretty cool esolang

Here's the program to double an inputted number:

s+n[s-]s[n-?+[n-s-]s[o;]]n[-o++]

As you can see it's not going to be an easy esolang to use lol

Razetime

clearly lol

so n and s and o are contextual variables?

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

Yeah

Well, not sure about the "contextual" part, too tired to remember what that word means in this context lol

Razetime

like they're limited by [] scope or something

dunno i'll just see your github

lyxal

@Razetime doesn't look like it - s and n are used outside structures

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

Nope, it's something a lot more interesting. They're global, and there's one variable that has "focus". So n+ puts n in focus, and +s it. So you can do something like n++++, and n stays in focus the whole time so you don't have to keep saying which variable you're referring to

lyxal

03:46

That sounds like add++ with extra steps

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

Oh, does add++ do that?

lyxal

Pretty much

You can set the active variable and everything happens to it

Everything in vanilla mode that is

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

The name of the esolang is In Floop

lyxal

Isn't that what you do with pigs?

Unrelated String

what

lyxal

03:50

urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Floop%20the%20Pig

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

It also has an infinite array of memory, and you can focus a pointer to an index in it

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

04:15

Introducing In Floop!

It's an idea I'd been thinking about for a while. The only control flow is if blocks, but the program is run in an infinite loop, making control flow possible.

You'd have to use a complicated set of state variables to do any non-trivial stuff like the equivalent of nested loops, but I believe it's possible to do so for any arrangement of normal control flow structures

Razetime

04:35

@taRadvylfsriksushilani it does but not quite the same i think

emanresu A

@taRadvylfsriksushilani you're horrible

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

I think this might be my best esolang yet (which isn't saying much)

It's actually going to be nontrivial to figure out if it's TC, I think

Razetime

better than dotcomma? impossible

@taRadvylfsriksushilani looks tc if the variables are unbounded

emanresu A

Keep a variable as the tape pointer and it should be transpilable to picofuck

Picofuck

Yep pretty much

Hmm hard to write in though

I'm trying to golf your doubling program

thejonymyster

floop the red wolf

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

04:50

The logging has some hidden options you can make use of

DialFrost

guys

wats the shortest way to find the abs diff between uppercase chars and lowercase chars in a string

helps more if its in python thx

emanresu A

You can't not a variable because they're unbound

DialFrost

my current code is

s=input()
print(abs(sum(i.isupper()for i in s)-sum(i.islower()for i in s)))

thejonymyster

@DialFrost difference between what? between their amounts? their charcodes?

DialFrost

their amounts

sry

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

04:52

b+a[b-]b[...] is the best substitute for a not I've figured out so far

DialFrost

like count basically

emanresu A

@taRadvylfsriksushilani That only works once though

Because you're always incrementing b

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

You can put b- in the block

emanresu A

Oh true

DialFrost

nvrm got it down to 60 bytes

s=input()
print(abs(sum(i.isupper()-i.islower()for i in s)))

thejonymyster

04:54

ah clever

DialFrost

i didnt realise u can do this

how is this possible tho?

thejonymyster

bools are 1 and 0

in many a lang

so if its upper, itll do 1 - 0 = 1

if its lower, itll be 0 - 1 = -1

DialFrost

oooooh

ic

thx jonymster

emanresu A

It's quite slow on TIO

'cos logging

thejonymyster

and the sum of that is the net and blah blah etc yea

DialFrost

04:55

:)

thejonymyster

its a pretty neat golf, i will try to adopt that sort of logic into my brain

DialFrost

lol

thejonymyster

i wonder if theres any way to make it even shorter

by using the fact that one will always be the opposite of the other

unless youre allowing chars that dont have an uppercase/lowercase

does this work?
print(abs(sum(i.isupper()*2-1 for i in s)))

DialFrost

hmmmmm

idts

PyGamer0

i think WWLD is interesting

DialFrost

04:58

CMQ or however u say it:output the first letter that is not in alphabetical order

PyGamer0

@DialFrost what?

DialFrost

hm?

thejonymyster

a b c f h f
output f

well wait

is abcec output e or output c

DialFrost

e

wait no c

sry

thejonymyster

last question: abccb, b or c

DialFrost

05:01

b

:)

thejonymyster

so given a string of letters, output the first letter which appears after a letter in the string which is alphabetically before it

the phrasing there is rough but idk how to fix it gkfjdsg

DialFrost

lol

output the first letter that is not alphabetically in order with the rest of the string

so basically once u find a char the acsii value that is lowre (this is for example) then the previous then output that char

cuz its not in oder

order

thejonymyster

@DialFrost looks like its working to me

DialFrost

well ill be damned how th hell does that work sheeeeeeee

lyxal

@thejonymyster finally someone of culture.

Razetime

05:05

@DialFrost BQN

thejonymyster

@DialFrost it relies on the fact that, for letters, whenever isupper is 1, islower will be 0, and vice versa

DialFrost

oh

thejonymyster

so i just need f(1)=1, f(0)=-1

x*2-1 does the trick

hence i.isupper()*2-1

emanresu A

@taRadvylfsriksushilani 19 bytes on your doubling program

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

r- isn't needed before o;, so -2

Oh good idea, relying on ? not affecting n

DialFrost

05:11

well i gtg rn bai guys

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

o/

emanresu A

@taRadvylfsriksushilani How do you get it to output?

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

It's an async function, so await in_floop(...) should work

emanresu A

Ok, thanks

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

Or, if await won't work, .then(console.log)

emanresu A

05:14

TIO's archaic JS disallows top-level await

Thanks!

hyper-neutrino

so IIRC <center> is deprecated (and i think removed from html5 altogether) in favor of using flexbox with justify-content center?

are tables also deprecated in favor of flexboxes or are they still fine

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

Tables are still fine but I'd only use them for actual tables, rather than any sort of formatting

emanresu A

Tables are for tables.

^^

hyper-neutrino

ah, aight. yeah in the past i've used tables to align things and

it was always painful lol

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

Back in like, the 90s people would build their entire sites with nested tables lol

I think there was even a name for it, like Table Hell or something

hyper-neutrino

05:20

at least 50% of cs professors still do that

(then again their sites were probably built in the 90s)

emanresu A

0

A: Add two numbers

in floop, 17 bytes r+o?+n?-[r-]r[o;] Try it online! in floop is a language created by Redwolf Programs which runs in an infinite loop. It's a true tarpit, and incredibly hard to program in. It also has four variables (n, o, r, s), three of which we use here, and a tape. o?+ Take a...

@taRadvylfsriksushilani And/or images

I'll see if I can get it to multiply

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

Wait wait wait...Python's default arguments stay as references the same object across multiple calls?

emanresu A

Or for that matter, do hyperoperations

@taRadvylfsriksushilani ... what

lyxal

@taRadvylfsriksushilani that sounds about right

Try it online!

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

I could imagine using that as a really cursed way to keep track of global state

emanresu A

05:24

Vyxal has a single global state variable which gets passed between all the functions

(Because python scoping sucks)

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

Sounds like a good opportunity to add lots of pure functions instead

If that'd be possible

emanresu A

I just had an idea for doing multiplication in in floop

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

Like, I'd imagine most of the elements don't require any global state aside from the arguments they take from the stack right

hyper-neutrino

@taRadvylfsriksushilani yeah, it's something you have to be careful with when submitting on code golf

f=lambda a=[]:... is probably invalid because function submissions need to be reusable

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

05:36

C++ seems incredibly cursed

Maybe more than JS

Unrelated String

maybe not more

ta Radvylf srik su shilani

The standard library is so big, too

Unrelated String

but it's close

Razetime

06:07

PHP > JS> C++

pxeger

07:17

I had a dream that I fixed a bug which had been annoying me for ages, and when I woke up I thought it through and realised the fix actually worked, so I dreamt an actual working fix. Unfortunately a few minutes later when I woke up I realised the bug didn't exist in the first place...

PyGamer0

07:45

@Razetime so php is more cursed than js which is more cursed than c++?

pxeger

@taRadvylfsriksushilani C++ in general is a way too big language

Every time they think of a feature to add, it takes 3 attempts to get it right, and the previous 2 attempts never get removed and the 3rd never gets implemented by compilers

PyGamer0

oh, C++ should really refactor itself

lyxal

08:03

I suppose the only real good use of C++ is using it to teach uni students about the basics of data structures

emanresu A

08:22

Use Haskell for that

Wait actually don’t

lyxal

Not for first year students

And also, C++ allows for teaching of memory management too

emanresu A

08:44

Memory management is a pain

Manually allocating memory is a pain, and dynamically allocating it is worse

I have learnt the ways of functional programming

Sort of

let vectorise = func => inner = (left, right) => { ..

PyGamer0

@lyxal C++ is still widely used though

and C is better at that

I wonder if the Linux kernel will be 100% Rust in the future.

emanresu A

CMQ: what should an overload that sets variables do dyadically?

pxeger

set variable [lhs] to rhs?

So then you can have as many variables as you want?

emanresu A

Variables don’t work like that, there are no strings.

pxeger

I mean like integer numbered variables

I actually wasn't thinking of strings

emanresu A

08:57

Oh. Ok, that works :)

PyGamer0

@emanresuA what are you doing there?

emanresu A

It’s a JS function vectorise that takes a dyadic function and returns a dyadic function that vectorises the first function over lists

PyGamer0

oh

Neil

@hyper-neutrino I'd imagine you'd use grids if anything

hyper-neutrino

ah, right. i've never actually used grids before to my memory

emanresu A

09:03

It’s 4am hyper, go to sleep

PyGamer0

@emanresuA ERROR: Unknown label sleep

emanresu A

Syntax error: what kind pf language treats go to as a single keyword

PyGamer0

@emanresuA LOLASMGOBRRR

^ that

^ a theoretical assembly

or maybe its just english

emanresu A

Assembly is Wednesday

2

Dammit autocorrect

emanresu A

09:51

o/

PyGamer0

o/

BQN: how to golf this?

Razetime

@PyGamer0 •BQN evaluates a BQN string

PyGamer0

ahah

Razetime

{(𝕨×𝕩)=⟜•BQN⌽•Fmt𝕩×𝕨-1} maybe

might be shorterin tacit

PyGamer0

done

emanresu A

10:05

PyGamer0

wow it ties with apl

@emanresuA that, i have seen that somewhere

lyxal

Nov 23 '21 at 4:11, by lyxal

Adám

@PyGamer0 You were saying?

0

A: Reversed Multiple Pair

APL (Dyalog Unicode), 9 bytes Anonymous tacit infix function, taking \$a\$ as left argument and \$b\$ as right argument. ×≡∘⌽⍥⍕×-⊢ Try it online! (Uses Extended because TIO hasn't updated to 18.0) × [Does] the product ≡∘ match the… ⌽⍥ reversed, when both are… ⍕ stringified × product - minus ...

Razetime

10:21

@PyGamer0 APL has ⍕ and ⍎ which are significantly better here.

×=·•BQN·⌽·•Fmt×-⊢ is a tacit version

Adám

@Razetime ×≡⟜⌽○•Fmt×-⊢ would be a direct translation of mine.

Razetime

ah that is better

PyGamer0

@Adám how does that work?

Razetime

the fun of combinators

Adám

@PyGamer0 Read the explanation of my APL answer.

Razetime

10:25

BQN primitives page has some graphs explaining them

PyGamer0

@Adám oh so you convert both to strings

Adám

Yes.

PyGamer0

smart

DialFrost

CMQ: given a list of integers, XOR the elements 2 by 2

i saw this in codingame.com

Adám

What does XOR on an integer mean? Isn't XOR only defined on Booleans?

DialFrost

10:29

sry i didnt specify

the list only contains 1 and 0's

Adám

So pair-wise XOR, returning a list that is 1 element shorter?

DialFrost

no

PyGamer0

@Adám i was about to say that BQN is not very golfy

DialFrost

u have to continously do this

till therees 1 element left

so 1 0 1 becomes 0

lyxal

Some test cases might help clarify things

DialFrost

10:31

0 0 0 0 1 becomes 1

1 1 1 1 1 becomes 1

1 0 1 0 1 1 becomes 0

Adám

Isn't that just the even/odd-ness of the count of ones, i.e. the parity?

DialFrost

ye lol

so u will see ppl doing this

*x,=map(int,input().split())
r=x[0]
for n in x[1:]:r^=n
print(r)

instead of this

Adám

I think this is just ≠/ in APL.

DialFrost

print(0if sum(map(int,input().split()))%2<1else 1)

python3 btw^

i think im right unless i accidentally flipped the 0 and 1

lyxal

@DialFrost either ƒ꘍ or ∑∷ in Vyxal

The first is reduce by xor, the second is the party of the sum of the list

Adám

10:35

꘍ is XOR‽

DialFrost

^ is xor yes

lyxal

@Adám Bitwise xor

DialFrost

lxyal how do u understand vxyal tho

Unrelated String

he kind of made it

and yeah wait why is ꘍ xor

DialFrost

its js like that

Unrelated String

10:36

like i guess it visually resembles ^

lyxal

Because ^ is bitwise xor in python, and ^ reverses stack

Unrelated String

but it also suggests and

Adám

꘍ is a Vai comma!

lyxal

@UnrelatedString there's a bigger symbol for and: ∧

Unrelated String

wonderful

Adám

10:38

So Vyxal has ꘍ ∧ ^ as 3 distinct built-ins. Uh...

PyGamer0

i can steal ꘍ for flax

lyxal

@Adám and they all do different things

Adám

I don't think Vyxal will ever become popular as a handwritten notation.

PyGamer0

vyxal is a golflang, not meant for handwritten notation

lyxal

@Adám Well luckily that's not my goal then :p

Besides, as if you'd use stack mechanics as handwritten notation

Adám

10:42

True. APL is used handwritten, and though it has both ∧ and ^ they do the same, except in regex.

lyxal

In golfing languages though, commands doing the same thing aren't that useful

PyGamer0

^ (hey look i used ^)

CMQ: What grouping builtins are useful for golflangs?

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