The Nineteenth Byte

emanresu A

19:14

@pxeger IMO the third answer's the best one

non-competing is (except for very rare cases) a thing of the past.

For example, this answer of mine uses a builtin that was updated to have infinite list support explicitly because of the challenge.

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Q: Shuffle an array, a little bit

Given some input array a = [a1, a2, ..., an] and a positive integer k, shuffle the input array a such that no entry is farther than k from its initial position. Example Given the array [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] and k = 1, this means the entry 3 can be at following positions: [*, 3, *, *, * ,*] [*, *, 3...

Radvylf Programs

19:32

Okay, so. I'm making a language which has 8 data types, and a constant loading operator for each of them (it's a bytecode sorta thing). Null is 0x02, int is 0x03, float is 0x04, etc. 0x00 and 0x01 are reserved for something else. Now, arrays are at 0x07, and the spec says that they consist of a number of constants, formatted the same as they would be for the constant loading operations, prefixed with a byte to indicate their type.

E.g., 0x07 [length 1] 0x01 [data] would be a 1-length array containing an int.

But I'm not sure if the byte, 0x01 in the example above, should be 0-indexed (so 0x00 for null, 0x01 for ints, etc.) or the same as the constant loading opcode (so 0x02 for null, 0x03 for ints, etc.)

Opinions?

The first one would be more sensible, but the second one would be more convenient

I guess a third option would be to move the constant loading operations to 0x00-0x07

And a fourth option would be to keep 0x00 as a no-op, make 0x01 the int loading operation, 0x02 for floats, etc. up to 0x07 for the 8th data type, then make 0x08 the null constant operator and make 0x09 do what 0x01 did

Y'know what, I'll do that. That makes it so that I can remove nulls almost everywhere in the source.

DLosc

I'm rather lost, but I'm happy to serve as your rubber duck

AncientSwordRage

Here's an idea for a challenge: Given a URL, Generate a multisoft offer:

Radvylf Programs

19:48

So like, you get the string a and a URL to append the answer to?

Unrelated String

took me a hot minute to realize that despite being pretty understandable that doesn't quite match any language i can think of
i take it that's a deliberate step to weed out anyone who'd try actually running it without being able to reason about it?

Radvylf Programs

I think it's just a C-style language, right?

Unrelated String

it's definitely meant to be broadly c-style

Radvylf Programs

I was just thinking the same thing as you, but aside from uninitialized variables I think it's perfectly compatible with...wait no length

Unrelated String

but it's clearly not c because single quotes around strings and + for concatenation

Radvylf Programs

19:50

And Python-style max

Unrelated String

yeah

Radvylf Programs

I initially was "thinking" it was Python until I actually looked at the syntax

emanresu A

idk but the result is 112358

Unrelated String

and it still has to be pretty close to c since the chars are a numeric type that you can mod

but also none of the variables are ever declare

d

emanresu A

Looks like they're coercing numeric chars to strings

o/

Unrelated String

19:51

also no semicolons

Radvylf Programs

@UnrelatedString or just a JS-style language that interprets them as numbers

Yeah, I guess it's meant to be a very C-style sort of pseudocode

With some definite JS and maybe Python inspiration thrown in

It's not Go or Rust or anything like that, because of parens around the if/for condition

DLosc

@RadvylfPrograms That's funny: I would never have thought it was Python, but I initially assumed it was JavaScript ;)

Radvylf Programs

The undeclared variabled and max stood out as Python-y until I noticed the for loop syntax and stuff (which I'm so used to looking at that I just skipped over)

Unrelated String

oh yeah wait how does js do max

is there an operator or is it like
in the Math object thing

Radvylf Programs

Math.max

Not a fan of how Python has all sorts of stuff as ordinary functions

DLosc

20:01

TBH I rather like this syntax. Maybe we should make it into an actual language. /hj

Radvylf Programs

For things like len, array.len() makes way more sense

Unrelated String

max is a good one though

Radvylf Programs

For the math ones I'm not as sure yeah

Unrelated String

i don't like len either considering it just calls a dunder anyways

DLosc

@RadvylfPrograms Don't try Julia, then. It puts a gajillion things in the top-level namespace.

Radvylf Programs

20:02

It'd be nice for some stuff if you had all the math stuff in the namespace or whatever, so you could just do sin(...) in math-heavy functions. import Math.* would be so nice in like, JS

DLosc

Does const sin = Math.sin work?

Radvylf Programs

I guess you could do with (Math) but IIRC with is strongly discouraged and kinda jank

Unrelated String

i'm reminded of that one r post on that one cnr about getting infant mortality from el(names(swiss),6)

Radvylf Programs

@DLosc Yeah, but you need like ten of those if you want lots of trig functions and stuff

DLosc

Sure

Unrelated String

20:03

@RadvylfPrograms yeah that seems like a terrible idea

DLosc

~~just use Pip, it has operators for all of them~~

Unrelated String

true

Radvylf Programs

We could make a package installer for pip and call it...err...pip

Unrelated String

pipip

Radvylf Programs

Until someone comes along and makes a golfing language called pipip

DLosc

20:05

@RadvylfPrograms Havisham

Or, hm. Pip package installer -> pippi -> Longstocking?

pxeger

@UnrelatedString and no semicolons at ends of lines

if you defined the functions length, max, and goto_url, it would be perfect JS

Radvylf Programs

@DLosc Gotta shorten it though, dnf style. lsk or lst or something.

@RadvylfPrograms So in this language, the program is formatted as a list of (unnamed) functions. Should the first or last function be the one that's run (the rest are called by it)?

flawr

@WheatWizard Could you elaborate your comment on the challenge I posted?

I feel like I completely misunderstand what you're saying

Wheat Wizard

7

A: Things to avoid when writing challenges

Consider if your challenge really needs random output Challenges that require random output require extra clarifications that challenges with deterministic output do not, and additionally exclude languages with no source of non-determinism. Often times randomness only acts as a cumbersome outpu...

pxeger

@flawr ninja'd lol

I think this summarises it pretty well

Radvylf Programs

20:13

I think the randomness is a core part of the challenge

Taking away the randomness is just "filter the permutations of an array:

flawr

@pxeger I disagree with this point: Generating a all permutations of this kind is quite a different challenge (and one that gets quite impractical soon), and excludes many approaches.

Right!

Radvylf Programs

^

pxeger

@RadvylfPrograms I wouldn't say "just", because I think that's not trivial

Radvylf Programs

@pxeger In golfing languages it is though

So you're making it unnecessarily annoying for practical languages compared to golfing ones

pxeger

the filtering is the interesting part, not the generating permutations

flawr

20:15

I mean in certain languages it will be easier than in others, but I think that is true from all languages.

Radvylf Programs

But in praclangs, generating permutations is what you spend the most bytes on

@pxeger Exactly!

pxeger

but the randomness is not the filtering

Radvylf Programs

You don't need to do the permutation stuff at all though if it's random

DLosc

@RadvylfPrograms I made the last function be the main function in HBL, for whatever that's worth. I believe Brachylog goes the other direction.

pxeger

@RadvylfPrograms does the same logic of "So you're making it unnecessarily annoying for practical languages compared to golfing ones" not apply to randomness?

Unrelated String

20:17

brachylog does do main first yeah

jelly does main last

Radvylf Programs

I think we've got plenty of "do this deterministic operation to an array" challenges. This challenge is different from those because of the shuffling aspect.

2

pxeger

Using randomness makes it unnecessarily annoying for languages without randomness

Wheat Wizard

In the languages I'm familiar with the best way to do this is to generate all the perms filter and select randomly. And the randomness makes up like half the byte count.

pxeger

or without easy access to it, like Haskell

Wheat Wizard

It's just annoying.

Radvylf Programs

20:17

Sure, but the randomness is a core part of the challenge IMO

Unrelated String

i feel like permitting both random and deterministically-everything might be the way to go

open up the most interesting options

Radvylf Programs

And these would've been great points to bring up while it was sandboxed for weeks

pxeger

@UnrelatedString I don't see anything wrong with that

Radvylf Programs

@UnrelatedString That's a cool option

flawr

I guess if it is easy or annoying depends on the specific choice of language, but that holds for every challenge, right?

Radvylf Programs

20:19

Well, to a degree.

flawr

@UnrelatedString didn't we have one of the stdios that allow tapping an "external" random source?

Radvylf Programs

But there's not a binary "it's easy or it's hard"

^^

flawr

or are these no longer in service? (I haven't been active in a while)

Radvylf Programs

The standard IO rules are still used, yeah, although I don't think many people have them memorized

Wheat Wizard

the external randomness source solutions are also quite burdensome.

Radvylf Programs

20:21

In, e.g., Haskell, couldn't you just take an infinite list of random floats as an additional input or something?

Wheat Wizard

It just feels like a fine enough challenge with randomness jammed in there for no real reason. I guess we will see.

flawr

right, but luckily you may choose the languages you use (or so I hope:)

@WheatWizard well in this point it seems we have different opinions, I really see a deterministic version of this challenge as quite a different task

Wheat Wizard

I don't think so.

flawr

yes I know, thats the thing about different opinions:P

Radvylf Programs

I think they'd be very different, at least in the language I primarily golf in

In JS, permutations is like 100+ bytes

So a non-permutation solution is the more obvious one

Wheat Wizard

20:23

Permutations then filter is not the only deterministic way to generate them.

Radvylf Programs

I guess in a golfing language or one with a better stdlib getting permutations is shorter and so that's already a part of the answers

Wheat Wizard

A branching approach is also just fine.

Which is going to look a lot like the random approach just with generally less boilerplate.

Radvylf Programs

My hobby: Shifting the color schemes of peoples' IDEs a little bit every few days and seeing how long it takes them to notice (not really but someday I wanna do this)

pxeger

For any given random-based approach which doesn't involve generating permutations, you can replace all instances of "if [some random condition], then do this, otherwise do that" with "do both this and that and output both results" to get an answer which outputs all possibilities

Radvylf Programs

I think allowing either random or all possibilities is the best option, like unrelated said

flawr

20:26

Would it be too late to change that?

Radvylf Programs

I don't think so

Since it doesn't invalidate any existing answers

And there's only like two

flawr

@WheatWizard @pxeger What's your opinion on adding this option?

I guess I'll go with that then.

Wheat Wizard

I think it would improve it without invalidating existing answers.

flawr

Ok great.

@Everyone: Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions

@RadvylfPrograms what languages do you like to use?

DLosc

@RadvylfPrograms Okay Jim :P

Radvylf Programs

20:40

@flawr JS

flawr

D:

Radvylf Programs

Well, "like" in the sense that it could be worse

I'm mostly just stuck with it because that's what I'm used to and I do lots of browser-based stuff

allxy

22:08

@SegFaultPlus4 You realise this pings me?

Radvylf Programs

lol

allxy

22:18

@RadvylfPrograms Can I convince you to host my r/place clone? (demo at canvas1209.surge.sh, feedback welcome)

Radvylf Programs

Sure

Just the back end presumably? Or all of it?

allxy

Can you set up the backend so CORS requests work?

Radvylf Programs

Sure

allxy

Thanks :)

Radvylf Programs

Which of my domains should it be under?

allxy

22:22

Don't mind

Radvylf Programs

I can do radvylfprograms.com, or rto.run

allxy

Whichever's easier for you

Radvylf Programs

So it's called canvas?

If so I'll do canvas.rto.run

allxy

Okay :)

Woah, you got the frontend working? Thanks! You'll need to change the websocket endpoint from localhost:8010 lol

Radvylf Programs

Just did

allxy

22:33

Oh, oops I've been doing some kinda janky stuff

You'll need to make a copy of the data-utils.js file, yeet it into the frontend folder and change the path in the HTML file

Radvylf Programs

Y'know, it'd be cool if I had a thing on RTO that let you run backends for sites in its sandbox

I'd have to have some manual moderation to prevent crypto miners and stuff, but that could be a really neat use for the sandboxing stuff I'll already have set up

allxy

That could be pretty cool

Although, doesn't the sandboxing block internet access?

Radvylf Programs

Yeah, but Docker lets you do cool stuff with networking so I could work around that

allxy

It was probably a bad idea to have both the frontend and backend using data-utils.js but oh well

Radvylf Programs

I think it's working

I didn't check to see what I was hosting first, but whatever it does it looks like it does it :p

allxy

22:40

Thanks for doing this :)

Now to see just what people will do

Announcing canvas, a r/place clone for us to mess with: canvas.rto.run

8

Radvylf Programs

Is there any way for it to save its state across reboots? I only need to do one every few weeks/months, but it'd probably be a good idea to make it support that before we do lots of stuff

allxy

State's stored in the data array in main.js

So you could just set it up to save/load that

lyxal

@allxy it isn't very mobile friendly

And I can't see where I'm placing

allxy

Oh, DLosc.

@lyxal Sorry about that, it's not really designed for mobile

lyxal

Smh place works well on mobile

allxy

22:46

I'm not making a complicated zoom system for now

DLosc

@allxy (ツ)/

Not very creative, but yanno

lyxal

Code golfers these days, always making things not designed for mobile smh

hyper-neutrino

woo the redwolf symbol is complete

Radvylf Programs

Yay pawprint in canvas :D

lyxal

Oop looks like r/place is finishing

hyper-neutrino

22:51

btw do you plan on this being temporary and freezing it after a few days or will you keep it up

wait i thought r/place had like 5 hours left

lyxal

People are reporting they can only place white on r/place

hyper-neutrino

ah

yep

lyxal

I know this from the multiple @everyone pings I'm getting

Radvylf Programs

Find someone who loves you like red amogus loves green amogus

allxy

hyper you can go there

hyper-neutrino

22:55

should we make chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/135246/r-place for discussions about this lol

to avoid clutter here

allxy

Sure

When the radvylf is sus

Radvylf Programs

pog, now there's a hyper symbol too

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