The Nineteenth Byte

1:02 AM

I stumbled upon the Christianity stack exchange just now, and it's making me sick. Some guy asked "What happens to people who have never heard of Jesus?", and the top voted answer is something like "At the heart of your question is this other unrelated question: Is God fair?"

Seriously, how do they ever get anything done?

And it was closed as not constructive :(

Guys I think we need to invade the Christianity stack exchange and start answering questions with logic and research.

Synthetica

5:56 AM

@Rusher I agree.

Trimsty

6:47 AM

@Rusher woooo

undergroundmonorail

@Trimsty what are you doing up at this time of night

Trimsty

@undergroundmonorail it's 8:50 am :P

undergroundmonorail

huh

it's 2:50 here

am

sleep is for the weak

Trimsty

or the afflicted

;_;

Quincunx

Every computer, at the unreachable memory address 0x-1, stores a secret. I found it, and it is that all humans ar-- SEGMENTATION FAULT.

Trimsty

6:59 AM

@Quincunx ;3

Quincunx

@Gareth Welcome! Been a while since you were active on codegolf (last was May 15th; no, I don't watch your every move and have a photographic memory, I used your profile)

Gareth

@Quincunx I still pop in every day, but no questions have tickled my fancy, and I've not had anything to add to the conversation in chat.

Quincunx

@Gareth That's when I start dreaming up with questions, then writing and posting them.

Needs close vote (I have no idea how this could be made into a good challenge): codegolf.stackexchange.com/q/31544/9498

Trimsty

7:16 AM

how I feel when I answer a question and miss one of the criteria

Quincunx

8:07 AM

I found myself watching my rep closely as it inches closer...

luser droog

8:54 AM

APL competition.

groups.google.com/d/topic/comp.lang.apl/Nkm54pbDTKQ/discussion

user2179021

hi

Synthetica

9:24 AM

0

A: Player with the Stinkiest Armpits

The most truly objective method may be to conduct a scientifically rigorous poll. You will need a random sampling of people from the world, we'll limit it to native English speakers to ensure that translation doesn't become a concern. Each will need to be kidnapped to prevent self-selection bias,...

It got downvoted...

user2179021

10:13 AM

shame

still no answers to codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/30313/… :(

I am surprised given there is so much minimax code available online

Rusher

1:01 PM

@Synthetica Cmon cmon you can make it! You got past the tough part!

Doorknob

2:04 PM

Quick poll: Delete invalid answers (unintentionally breaking the rules) or not?

Ventero

@Doorknob Leave a comment first, if they don't react after a reasonable amount of time, then delete.

Rusher

I retracted my no. Before I vote, I want to draw a corollary to other stack exchanges. If possible, we follow suit. If not (because our format doesn't allow it) then we vote based on what is right.

What would Stack Overflow do to an answer that doesn't address the question being asked?

Ventero

I'm not sure if that situation is comparable, given how often the specs to a question here change after answers have already been posted.

Doorknob

The answer in question:

2

A: DISARM THE B.O.M.B.!

Brainfuck (553) [invalid] So here we go, coded in Brainfuck using this interpreter. I additionally used the '+' key, so thats 543+10 = 553 characters, still room for improvement: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++.>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++...

Rusher

Well, users on Stack Overflow also change their question in a way that invalidates answers. It's not unique to us.

It's a corner case that should be handled though (after the author is given a good whoopin' for being rude)

If everyone else here is of the mind that everything we do is incomparable to other Stack Exchange sites, I'll just stop (because I know where that road goes)

Geobits

2:17 PM

@Doorknob I gave my opinion of that kind of deletion on meta a while back. It hasn't changed.

New Meta Posts

0

Q: Why don't users vote on my question?

Two days ago number of views on my question hit 1,000. Today it is already 1,510 but it was up voted only once since (it happened today). They vote only on answers. Strange, I didn't face this on other sites. Usually users upvote or downvote my popular questions. Some my questions receive low vie...

discussion

Rusher

@Geobits The italics in that answer are killing me. Every single sentence reads in an annoying voice, where your voice goes up near the end. It just doesn't flow.

Geobits

@Rusher I was in an interesting mood that day. Not much point in going back and editing it out, though.

Rusher

3:11 PM

Can room owners kick other users from a public room?

Doorknob

No, only mods

Rusher

@Doorknob Can you kick a user out of a room I created?

Doorknob

Link?

Rusher

You'll know as soon as you start reading which user I am talking about. He's not being constructive. chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/15032/…

Doorknob

For future reference, use "other" flags to alert moderators to a situation in chat

Rusher

3:25 PM

I thought you would be more understanding than most.

Doorknob

... any context for this? What is EDH and WotC?

Rusher

Just read what MikeCon has been saying. He pulled a quote that I never said. He said something like "Let me process this and get back to you."

Then asked me to get out of the room I just created.

EDH = elder dragon highlander, a mtg format also known as commander

wotc = wizards of the coast, the owners of magic the gathering

ProgramFOX

@Rusher As an alternative, you can make your room a gallery room and only allow specific users to talk.

Doorknob

As far as I can see, the user is just trying to contribute to the discussion (albeit slightly rudely), and not intentionally trolling or being nonconstructive.

Rusher

If you feel that he isn't intentionally trolling then I respect that.

(there is no else to that if)

Madara Uchiha

3:29 PM

@Rusher if you have 1k reputation you can make the room a Gallery, which only allows specific users to talk.

Rusher

So I heard.

Geobits

3:55 PM

Does anyone have opinions on which is a better first introduction to programming? I'm mainly considering either Scratch or Squeakland, and it's for a 7 year old.

I've looked over the intros to both, but it's hard to see how it would look with "fresh" eyes.

Trimsty

@Geobits I started with Scratch back in '08. You learn quickly from it but people tend to stay there longer than they should, because of the community being so nice and there being little incentive/help to learn a "real" language

never heard of squeakland

Geobits

It's also called "eToys", but it's similar to Scratch on first glance. Draw stuff, add logic, based on smalltalk, etc.

Trimsty

@Geobits Meh. I'd suggest you get them introduced to the whole determinism and logical thing with Scratch and then move on to something like Clojure/Rust ASAP (visual programming is a deadly trap if you stay too long)

object-orientedness in these things is severely limited, and types aren't mentioned anywhere

Rusher

Am I interpreting this answer correctly? My undertsanding is that if I wrote a bot that returned to view a page every 15.1 minutes, it would add a view to the question.

Geobits

I could just hand him this book and have him go to town. That's what worked for me, but it might be sliiiightly dated :)

Trimsty

4:06 PM

@Geobits "get things done" books take a lot of patience to do, making somebody else's game isn't fun at all

it'd work if you're genuinely interested as it immediately introduces good practice and correct use of the language's functionality but it isn't very engaging

Geobits

Oh, I agree. Typing crap in wasn't the fun part. Changing the variables around to see what happened was. I probably would not use that book today, but it's all I had then.

@Rusher It looks that way. I guess you could get badges out of it, but meh. Not much point in actively monitoring it IMO.

Trimsty

i like "from the ground up" approaches more, start with registers and explain all the hardware and then immediately tell them to ignore it but remember it and to consider how it all works in the larger abstraction system, that's what I would have done, but Google wasn't being very specific

lisps (especially concurrent lisps) sound like a nice entry point in retrospect

Geobits

For an older kid, I could see that. I don't know how well my son would follow a talk about registers at this point.

Lispy stuff sounds like a good choice, though.

Trimsty

I don't remember anything from before Scratch (like at all) and I don't hang around kids, so I do overestimate a bit ;3

Rusher

@Geobits Not after badges. Trying to help this guy understand site mechanics.

Trimsty

4:12 PM

All I remember is being super-scared of Python because I had to worry about syntax! ooohhhh.

Geobits

Haha, scared of python. Nice.

Rusher

I wish Python IDEs would auto decrease indent by default. Tapping space space space is much easier than typing backspace backspace backspace.

Trimsty

when you use visual languages, it's reeeally hard to get comfortable with text because it feels fragile.

Geobits

@Rusher I figured that's what it was for, just saying that it makes sense they don't keep a full list of visited IP's for every single question.

Trimsty

@Rusher I use tabs and just run a replace all on the tabs to spaces when I'm done, much more convenient to only have to press backspace once and tab once

Geobits

4:14 PM

The only "visual language" I ever used much was VB6, but only for simple forms and such. It felt so weird after having to do everything by hand.

And it's not even really in the same league as Scratch visual-wise.

Trimsty

my advice: when you get into text programming, use a lisp, and use a good ide to do the parentheses/newline indenting and stuff for you

it's not as uncomfortable because making syntactical errors is shielded by the system (just like in visual languages)

why am i giving advice that nobody is asking for on a site full of programming veterans

Geobits

Well, I did start by asking about programming for kids, and it seems like a logical step from there.

I'll see how he does with the kid's stuff and move him into something else when he shows interest in it :)

Trimsty

coolio

i'm planning on learning clojure and scala myself, i have to get used to different kinds of paradigms

Synthetica

5:05 PM

@Geobits I don't know if you have the budget, but you could try getting a Mindstorms set.

Geobits

That's probably a good idea. He does like legos. I haven't ever used MindStorms, is it a better introduction to robotics or programming, or does it work well for both?

Synthetica

It works well for both (it was my first real introduction to programming back when I was 11 or so)

Geobits

I may have to look into that. Thanks!

Trimsty

@Geobits Bit late here. I have the Fischertechnik electronics set, it lets you program via a flowchart. Quite nice.

More expensive than Mindstorms afaik, definitely more useful though

Synthetica

@Geobits Also: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotc

Quincunx

5:11 PM

@Quincunx Ha!

Synthetica

(When he's ready for it ;)

Trimsty

i made an electronic highway toll with optical sensing and an attached (had to get hacky for that) python program to track balances

ProgramFOX

@Quincunx Congrats!

3

Trimsty

unfortunately you had to identify yourself with the laptop and it had no verification but the point remains

Geobits

Well, I've got time. He stays with his mom during the summer school break, so I've got a while to take a look at the options.

Doorknob

6:22 PM

Congratulations to our newest 10k member, @Quincunx! :D

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