The Nineteenth Byte

Aiden Chow

4:00 AM

well i already know (albeit maybe only the very basics of some of them) desmos, python, haskell, piet, and tinylisp

still dont feel that momentum lol

user

@AidenChow jack of all trades ,mater of none :p

Unrelated String

yeahhh lmao

user

But really, most languages have common concepts

It’s the crazy esolangs that are hard to learn a lot of

Aiden Chow

:| i feel like all the langs i know have wildly different concepts

DLosc

@AidenChow I'm... not quite sure how to answer this. If the question is "where did you learn various languages," I can answer that; if it's "why did you learn so many languages," I have some thoughts...

@AidenChow To be fair, yeah, given that list of five, I'd say they're all very different from each other.

Aiden Chow

4:03 AM

@DLosc both, really

Unrelated String

that's an exceptionally diverse list

user

^

Unrelated String

~~now learn intercal next~~

user

The good news is the next language you learn will likely be simular to one of those five

Unrelated String

^

user

4:05 AM

Probably python

Unrelated String

or haskell

but more likely python

user

Haskell only If they’re lucky :p

Unrelated String

python's at least somewhat similar to most c-family-ish-inspired languages

DLosc

(For some value of similar. C has many similarities to Python and also some similarities to Haskell, but using it is still a rather different experience from either.)

user

If you learn js, you can build on python and unlock the family of c style languages

Syntax wise at least

Aiden Chow

4:07 AM

hmm ok, that sounds reassuring i suppose. tho i dont really have the motivation of learning another lang at the moment

btw what lang do u guys feel is most similar to desmos

user

Desmos is…unique

Unrelated String

yeahhhhhhhhhhhhh

most languages are not at their core traditional math notation for use on a graphing calculator

user

Maybe latex lol

Unrelated String

i9 feel like latex macros may not be the best place to start

user

Or mathematica?

Unrelated String

4:08 AM

not a bad idea actually

Aiden Chow

dont u need to pay for mathematica

also doesnt it have a shit ton of builtins

user

@UnrelatedString jump into the deep end with weights on like a real programmer

Unrelated String

hell yeah

user

For the best experience do all this in emacs in evil mode

Unrelated String

just learn c++ template metaprogramming without learning basic c++

DLosc

4:10 AM

@AidenChow I first learned a little BASIC from a game on a friend's ancient computer. I was enthusing to my dad about it on the way home, and he told me we had QBasic on our computer, so I learned that and wrote a lot of fun silly programs in it. He also had an old HP graphing calculator, so I learned RPL for that.

Aiden Chow

"metaprogramming" the hell is that

Unrelated String

...is evilmode emacs notoriously hard/counterproductive
because i think i have a friend who may have missed the memo

user

Very simple

You write code that takes in code and generates code

And sometimes it vomits pages of error messages

@UnrelatedString i mean i figured learning vim and emacs at the same time would be hard

Unrelated String

ah

yeah makes sense

user

If that’s not enough might i suggest sshing into a gentoo machine while you do this?

Unrelated String

4:13 AM

my friend's on it because he wants to get into emacs and is somewhat more familiar with vim bindings

user

That’s reasonable

DLosc

@DLosc Then in high school, I was interested in animation, so I did a couple courses in Flash MX, which meant I picked up ActionScript. Once I got to college, I learned C++ for Intro to Programming, C for Topics in C, Common Lisp and SWI-Prolog for Principles of Programming Languages, and Python for a programming internship.

user

@DLosc could you use qbasic to make simple games and stuff?

DLosc

@user Oh yes. :D

Unrelated String

nice

user

4:17 AM

Sounds cool

I kinda wish I was around then to see computers get better but then i remember there was no wolfram to cheat on homework with:p

DLosc

@AidenChow Why I learned QBasic: it was such a thrill that I could tell the computer what I wanted it to do and it would do it--I didn't have to be constrained by software that someone else had written. More recently, my "why" answer is usually one of A) I have to for school/work (C, Python), B) this language will let me do stuff I can't do with other languages (JavaScript), or C) this language works in an interesting way and using it for toy problems is fun (Brachylog, BQN).

5

Even though I did technically learn Python for work, I also love programming in it. I use it for most of my personal projects because it's (currently) the language that gets me to that thrill of "the computer's doing what I imagined it doing" the fastest.

@user What do you mean? Real mathematicians do polynomial long division by hand and like it. :D

user

Dlosc’s speaking like a math teacher, kinda sus. I say we eject him :p

DLosc

@user The thing QBasic still does better than any other language I know is that it has pixel graphics and sound built into the language. I'm sure Python has libraries for those things (I've messed around with pygame a bit), but there's a higher barrier to entry. In QBasic, you just type SCREEN 9 and boom, you're in graphics mode.

@user Not far off, I worked as an online math tutor for about a year

user

@DLosc my main gripe about python is that you can get to a prototype fast but it starts falling apart when the project gets bigger

@DLosc oh nice

DLosc

(I'm not sure I can honestly say I've done polynomial long division just for fun, but I have done integration by parts just for fun. And when I was a kid, I liked to multiply a number by 2 over and over by hand. The digits make cool patterns.)

user

4:31 AM

I find it mildly infuriating that every statically typed language I’ve come across has some extra stuff to do before you can get started while scripting languages just go

@DLosc you must’ve been a weird kid /s

DLosc

Weren't we all :D

user

Fair enough

DLosc

@user Hm, that is interesting. I suppose there's no intrinsic reason why that has to be the case just because a language is statically typed.

emanresu A

@DLosc There's PICO-8 I guess?

user

Statically typed languages are like chauffeurs that drive up in bulletproof limos, ask you how everything is, make sure you have the seatbelt on first, then drive off, staying below the speed limit. Dynamically typed languages are like getaway drivers. You hop in and they’re off at 100mph before you can close the door

@DLosc now that i think about it, nim does come pretty close

You just write a script and run it at the command line with an extra flag

Wish nim became more mainstream though

It’s hard to match the batteries included ness of python

DLosc

4:39 AM

@user This definitely sounds like the philosophy behind Perl. X^D The three chief virtues of the programmer, according to Larry Wall, are laziness, impatience, and hubris. The impatient programmer doesn't have time to set things up properly--they've got stuff to accomplish!

Unrelated String

i feel like python interoperability could be a colossal asset for any attempts at next gen scripting languages

Aiden Chow

where can i access and learn this qbasic lang

sounds pretty interesting

Unrelated String

@user i don't feel like that's generally the case with functional languages, but functional languages are also not the most convenient for general use anyhow

DLosc

@AidenChow A couple of good options for access: there's a copy you can run online at Archive.org, and you can download an updated reimplementation, QB64.

Aiden Chow

do u need admin to download

DLosc

4:50 AM

I'm not sure--maybe not. You don't have to install anything, just extract files from a zip archive.

Aiden Chow

resources to learn it??

DLosc

That's a bit tricky to answer, because the way I learned was from a physical book. :P There might be some decent tutorials out there. The editor has a built-in help system that's quite useful if you have some idea of what you're looking for (put your cursor on a keyword and press F1 to bring up the help page for that keyword, or go to the Help menu and select Index or Contents).

I'm happy to answer questions or give a brief crash course.

@emanresuA Hm, looks interesting, but the colors are in the wrong order =P

Aaand it costs money. Oh well.

Unrelated String

f

pxeger

6:49 AM

@Steffan languages of the month?

languages ofs thes months?

Unrelated String

7:02 AM

lsostsms

emanresu A

7:20 AM

CMC: Make this is Sparta valid TypeScript. Code should compile with no warnings, and it shouldn't be in a string / comment / regexp literal / whatever

ophact

7:35 AM

Looks like you returned

emanresu A

I've been back for a while

ophact

I haven't really seen you too much recently. (at least not under the username emanresu A)

> username emanresu

palindrome

pxeger

7:51 AM

@emanresuA with tsc --jsx react --jsxFactory console.log:

<div this is Sparta />

emanresu A

Lol not at all what I had in mind, but nice

Try with no compilation flags / tsx

pxeger

type Sparta = null;
class _ {
    isSparta(): this is Sparta {
        return true;
    }
}

emanresu A

9:05 AM

@pxeger Pretty much :P

emanresu A

9:29 AM

Python fstrings are so cursed

Ginger

11:08 AM

trydew3524

jesus I'm tired, I tried to type King of the Hill and got Kong fO The Hlii

lyxal

Ah yes, KfTH, my favourite kind of CG challenge

I do love watching bits compete with each other in those challenges

Ginger

time to set up OAuth, oh boy

lyxal

*oh auth

Ftfy

Ginger

:|

that is an unamused face

lyxal

(ﾉ･o･)ﾉ

That is me when trolling you

Because I do a little trolling of you

Ginger

11:21 AM

I'm imagining you sitting there looking like that and it is very amusing

how would you type?

why is your arm inside your face?

where exactly is your mouth relative to your eyes?

lyxal

@Ginger *lying

It's bed hours for this Lyxal

Not sleep

Just bed

Ginger

this Lyxal?

oh no

oh NO

lyxal

We've been over this already

I'm from an intergalactic alien species

How tf don't you know this

It's bookmarked and everything!

Smh not knowing TNB lore

The truth about Lyxal kind

Jul 28, 2021 at 0:07, 34 minutes total – 68 messages, 8 users, 11 stars

Bookmarked Jul 28, 2021 at 3:22 by lyxal

Ginger

I did know that, I just didn't realize they were breeding so quickly

oh god my LIDAR is beeping

pxeger

11:51 AM

> Wouldn't any dweeb wannabe in an insecure late Victorian family, with plenty of money and no religion to make up for it (and a remarkably good command of the spoken word) have done more or less what he did...?

Remarkably good literature

graffe

1:02 PM

Has anyone used voice synthesis? As in text to speech

user

Yes, with Google Translate and Siri . Doesn't work terribly

lyxal

I've used my fair share of tts services

heck, they were the backbone of scratch animation back in the day

ophact

and they incorrectly pronounced your name IIRC?

lyxal

some do

who am I kidding they all do

also, forget the noise conversations lately this screenshot is just too perfect to not share here

several things just make this coincidence too funny

user

@lyxal Ah, good old speak "gg-gas-d;ijwqa"

10-year old me thought it was absolutely hilarious mashing the keyboard and listening to the guy say that

lyxal

1:17 PM

I used to use TTS for voicing things I didn't want to

nowadays I do things myself

like screaming into my phone for 5 minutes

because that's a thing I did

pxeger

@lyxal I can only see one

lyxal

I see three

a) the computer name, b) 69 and c) the fact that my github + onedrive config is so screwed up it makes that many files

pxeger

oh, the -69 means it's the 69th copy of the file?

yes, I see three funnies

lyxal

@pxeger it does

and honestly idk how this happens

github doesn't play nice with onedrive for some reason

pxeger

You don't seriously expect Microsoft's products to work properly, do you?

lyxal

1:24 PM

well...uh...maybe...

I would at least hope they would work somewhat properly

Ginger

*laughs in linux*

*cries in linux*

lyxal

@lyxal it'd be concerning if microsoft products didn't work properly on a laptop made by microsoft

Ginger

[insert Windows 8 joke here]

lyxal

Nov 17, 2021 at 0:49, by lyxal

@user hey I don't simp for microso... okay yeah fine I do own a surface and I did opt for a Microsoft phone for my first smartphone so maybe you're right.

user

~~Use KDE on your Windows computer, it's basically Windows 12~~

lyxal

1:33 PM

~~but then I might have to wait even longer for a relevant DDG desktop browser private beta~~

pxeger

@user I use KDE on Arch Linux btw

(btw I use arch (I am being ironic (but not really)))

user

Steps to using DDG browser on desktop:
- Install Android Studio
- Start emulator
- Install DDG in that
- ???
- Profit

lyxal

alternatively get a mac and apply for the private beta for their actual desktop browser

user

Alternatively do this:

Jan 8 at 19:12, by pxeger

lyxal

hey wait what do you mean it isn't Monday?

how is it still Sunday?

pxeger

1:43 PM

you've got 17 minutes

user

Oh no, did your timezone slow down again?

Must be getting a bit old, gotta wind it back up

pxeger

(psst: go to bed!)

lyxal

my point is more that it feels like it should be midnight

@pxeger I'm getting there I'm getting there!

pxeger

@lyxal I mean, it is very close

user

I mean, it's pretty close to midnight (for you), so that's not very surprising

lyxal

1:45 PM

but also I mean after midnight too

like usually I'll look at the computer time and see 12:2x

so 11:45 looks real weird

user

You might want to consider the fact that you're probably very sleepy right now

Ginger

yes, go slepp

lyxal

I will in a bit

Ginger

"a bit" is relative

as you have proven

lyxal

I don't need y'all doing my job of pressuring others into sleeping for me

just 6 more minutes okay

user

1:47 PM

idk about you but whenever I'm sleepy, I have all these weird thoughts and have "deep" philosophical conversations with myself about things like whether or not water is a drug

Ginger

*starts timer* ok

user

And when I wake up I realize it was just me being sleepy

lyxal

@Ginger it's the length of the video I'm watching lol

Ginger

clock is ticking

(not really but it's a metaphor)

lyxal

yes

user

1:48 PM

@lyxal Set SMART goals for yourself, Lyxal. "a bit" is pretty vague and lets you stay up until 2:00. Say "I will be in the REM stage of sleep in 15 minutes and 4 nanoseconds"

lyxal

that's how video progress timers work

@Ginger congratulations on discovering how the youtube progress bar works ;p

Ginger

you're... a bit delayed

lyxal

no u

Ginger

10 secs ago, by lyxal

no u

lyxal

in the sake of not creating noise I ain't quoting that anymore. but let it be known that no u

Ginger

1:50 PM

^

...why do I have an accelerometer on my desk

lyxal

you tell me

Ginger

uh

user

@pxeger How is it btw? Any significant effect on performance compared to other DEs?

Ginger

dunno

lyxal

@Ginger (that's a trick question)

(I placed it there)

user

1:51 PM

@Ginger You mean your phone?

Ginger

no, an accelerometer

it's small and on a blue circuit board

user

Like, the accelerometer that's part of your phone or one specifically for that robot you were making?

Ginger

just an accelerometer

photo available upon request

user

What's the brand?

Ginger

uhh

user

1:52 PM

@Ginger Is it one of those fancy thingies that combine a gyro, accelerometer, magnetometer, and a compass?

Ginger

one sec, lemme get my magnifier

use mine

:|

(ﾉ･o･)ﾉ

@lyxal That's genius

1:53 PM

it's a VENSENSE MPU-6050

according to the chip label

user

Take a picture, view it on your computer, use Magnifier, and "Enhance!" if it's pixelated

Ginger

oop, there goes my timer

lyxal

okay well that's 6 minutes now

o/

Ginger

bedtime for lyxal

mathcat

7*

6*

Ginger

1:54 PM

gAH

user

@Ginger May I ask for a favor?

Ginger

sure

user

Could you move the accelerometer around, integrate the acceleration twice to approximate position, and see the actual position?

Ginger

no

user

I kinda want to see how accurate those could be for position tracking but don't have my own

Ginger

1:55 PM

I see what is happening heeeeere

user

:(

Ginger

you tried to trick me into revealing my location

mathcat

@Ginger that was a rhetorical question

user

lmao no

pxeger

@user I have no performance problems, apart from an occasional memory leak which makes me have to force-restart the system

And before I upgraded GPU, I had a lot of driver instability

but I think that's an X11 problem, not a KDE problem

user

1:56 PM

Oh that's nice

Ginger

the accelerometer in question:

user

@Ginger By position, I meant displacement

Ginger

user

That won't tell me anything about your position in the world because accelerometers can't even measure that

pxeger

@user cars do this when they lose GPS signal

user

1:58 PM

Looks like a navX

Ginger

h

user

@pxeger Cars don't need very precise tracking though

Their precision only goes up to a few feet or something afaik

pxeger

cars also know their current speed

for whatever ginger is doing, it might be a safe assumption that the device starts from rest, but it might not

user

Yeah, encoders to determine speed are probably the best way to do it

Would be very cool if you could do away with that and just accelerometers though

pxeger

How do planes know their ground speed? They don't have anything physical against which to track their relative speed

Do they just use GPS? Do they track the ground, like a mouse does?

Do they find the air speed and just guess the ground speed based on the weather?

user

2:12 PM

I'd assume they use GPS, the other ways to do it sound too unreliable

What I think mice do is take lots of pictures, determine features in that, and use that to tell when they've moved. That sounds really hard to do when you're up in the sky

24

Q: How did planes measure their speed relative to the ground before GPS?

How did planes measure their ground speed before GPS? If they used some sort of anemometer to measure speed, that would only measure the speed of the plane relative to the air through which it is passing. Therefore, I'm wondering how speed relative to the ground was measured before GPS. I'd b...

ophact

2:25 PM

so now you have 18.3k rep

user

I started 3 bounties just now

How'd you notice the change?

ophact

what change? in rep?

I meant that the system says that you have double the rep that you actually have

user

@ophact Yeah

@ophact It's network-wide rep. I have some on SO and CR too

ophact

But when I click on that, it only shows your CG profile.

user

Yeah, I've hidden all my accounts

ophact

2:28 PM

Wait you can do that?

user

@ophact I thought you noted my rep because it changed just now. What made you notice it? Or was it just a coincidence?

ophact

I clicked randomly on your profile and I saw it said 18.3k rep. It was about double your current rep so I thought the system might have duplicated your rep

But I did notice the bountjes

user

Huh, okay, just a coincidence then

pxeger

Why do you have exactly 1000 more rep on meta than on main?

I didn't even know it was possible to have different rep

user

Meta just hasn't updated, I guess

I just started exactly 1k in bounties

pxeger

2:31 PM

ah

shouldiblamecaching.com is right as always

Newly Featured Posts

13

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code-golf

11

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Given a regular N-gon with all diagonals drawn, how many regions do the diagonals form? For example, a regular triangle has exactly 1, a square has exactly 4, pentagon has exactly 11, and a hexagon has 24. score is inversely proportional to number of bytes in solution small fudge factors may b...

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12

Q: Build a nine-level word guessing game

The basics: You'll need to provide a nine-level word guessing game in the fewest characters possible (in your language of choice). The metrics: Provide a word-list (one word per line, seperated by a newline) (e.g. /usr/share/dict/words or similar could do). It's fine to pipe a filename or the wo...

code-golf game

Ginger

cat is scraming

pxeger

my cat bites me when I pet him

but he still wants to be pet

user

Or maybe he just wants to bite

You may have a man-eater on your hands

My cat just yells random nonsense

pxeger

2:50 PM

@user watch out or he'll chew you up!

Ginger

@user My cat says zero over and over again

user

You must discipline it, then

Ginger

@pxeger does ATO have any easter eggs?

pxeger

other than the tomatoes thing in the TOS, no

Ginger

darn

pxeger

2:53 PM

My cat doesn't let me pet him

user

The tomatoes thing hardly counts as an easter egg, I would expect more sites to have strong moral rules like that

mathcat

@pxeger :/

Ginger

I can't kill my cat

pxeger

@Ginger wrong url?

you got too comfortable with ATO's automatic URL updating

Ginger

fixed

pxeger

2:56 PM

I got my cat from the bin

user

@pxeger Tar and feather it if it doesn't obey you

pxeger

Let's stop now before it becomes just noise

Ginger

excuse me why is @ATO located in pxeger's socks

Ginger

3:38 PM

oh dear

Pyautogui

3:55 PM

@pexeger, I just noticed the tomatoes thing. Is that serious? What if someone posts a challenge in which the goal is to print "Yay tomatoes"? Would ATO be legally unusable for that cgallenge?

user

It most definitely would. pxeger would forever ban you from using ATO after such an egregious violation of the terms and conditions

Society would also ostracize you for shamelessly promoting raw tomatoes

@Pyautogui Actually, never mind, "Yay tomatoes" promotes tomatoes, not raw tomatoes. It'll be fine

ophact

4:27 PM

Just for fun, I'm gonna make a challenge focusing on emulating the splat of a raw tomato

no seriously I'm serious

And I bet someone is gonna post an answer that is hosted on ATO

Pyautogui

That would be quite funny @ophact. Thanks for the comprehensive answer @user.

ophact

I'm thinking about how to craft an appropriate challenge about it

Pyautogui

[kolgomorov-complexity]: ASCII art of a splashing raw tomato, maybe? Beefsteak variety, perhaps.

pxeger

[tag:kolmogorov-complexity] kolmogorov-complexity

ophact

graphical output!

dark red for where the tomato hit the ground, and slowly red spraying everywhere

Pyautogui

4:31 PM

Thanks for the tip @pxeger.

ophact

is gross now I think of it

Pyautogui

Still, would be funny.

ophact

give me some time to consider it more

and it will appear in the sandbox soon

that was not how I wanted to get a starred message

user

@ophact That'd be fine because it wouldn't involve promoting, processing, consuming, etc. raw tomatoes

Nice idea, though, could be fun

@Pyautogui I was kidding lol, I doubt pxeger would care

Pyautogui

Of course. I am merely thinking of the theoretical legal implications, not what would actually happen.

user

4:37 PM

@pxeger Suck on this

Now we'll see what the legal implications could be

ophact

the judge would laugh so hard if you were to be sued

and you would end up on LegalEagle's "most frivolous lawsuits ever" video

user

tbh I don't think it's a great idea to put a joke into a legal thing, even if ATO isn't a proper company. Kinda makes the rest of it seem less serious

Pyautogui

I would love to read the transcript.

Yeah, you have a point @user. But it is rather funny.

user

That it is, and it's always nice to have Easter eggs

ophact

another suggestion I have is to either remove the part about business and government users or implement a version tailored to business and government users.

business users can manage code hosted on ATO by other employees

user

4:43 PM

I can't speak for pxeger but I doubt he'd want to actually mess with the legal language. iirc the entire thing is something he copied from elsewhere and then made some small modifications to make it specific to ATO

pxeger

4:54 PM

@user Please send me the name and address of your legal representative in the United Kingdom. If you don't have one, I will file an extradition order and you will spend the next years of your life in an Ecuadorian embassy

ophact

why Ecuadorian?

should send them to Mars

where there are no tomatoes but there is red all around

so they can suffer in the absence of tomatoes

pxeger

Julian Assange

Julian Paul Assange (; né Hawkins; born 3 July 1971) is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. WikiLeaks came to international attention in 2010 when it published a series of leaks provided by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. These leaks included the Baghdad airstrike Collateral Murder video (April 2010), the Afghanistan war logs (July 2010), the Iraq war logs (October 2010), and Cablegate (November 2010). After the 2010 leaks, the United States government launched a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks.In November 2010, Sweden issued an...

ophact

I see

user

5:27 PM

Oh dear. Ecuador, here I come

pxeger

5:57 PM

Not Ecuador, that would be too nice

the Ecuadorian embassy

Aiden Chow

hyper neutrino any news on this

yesterday, by hyper-neutrino

I'll escalate it for you; I do not have the power to disassociate posts. I can't guarantee when/if it'll happen; I will just forward it to a CM.

user

6:22 PM

@pxeger Embassies are tiny, why stay there when I can go to Ecuador and live anywhere in the country?

hyper-neutrino

6:36 PM

@AidenChow not yet

Steffan

6:47 PM

@pxeger Language of the months. It's only one language per month lol

user

But "language of the months" implies one language for multiple months

Sandbox Posts

7:15 PM

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Implement A Three Valued Logic Conjunction Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to take two input values \$a\$ and \$b\$ out of the set \$\{T, F, U\}\$, in whatever format is most convenient. If \$a=T\$ and \$b=T\$ then output \$T\$. If \$a=F\$ or \$b=F\$, output \$F\$. If \$a=U\$ or \...