The Nineteenth Byte

@FricativeMelon well I didn't say I liked Python's forced indentation either ;)

Ugh. This part: "When B does not appear in A, you should output A unchanged." is going to cause several more bytes :(

@Geobits it costed me about 12 byte in lua ^^

@MartinBüttner You have a point, so "style" is going to be taken carefully and slowly. I'm still not sure whether I'm going to do python-style indenting, but a good example I can give you is requiring spaces around operators

I had 111 in java (still golfing though) before I saw that part.

2:09 PM

@NathanMerrill enforcing space around operators...?

yes

@NathanMerrill see, I find a + b*c more readable than a + b * c ;)

I would hate that D:

Can't figure out the shortest/best way to clone/check/swap it though.

@MartinBüttner I agree that people have personal preferences on what style looks best, but the issue is that code is never written for one person.

so, by enforcing a common code style, you make the entirety of code readable for everybody

aside from the impossible-to-enforce things, like variable naming

2:12 PM

In fact, the problem comes more from people who have no code-style at all, rather than having multiple code-style mixed in

the only thing that can be disturbing is about functions

@NathanMerrill You could use spaces around operators to decide operator precedence, like a + b * c does the multiplication first, where a + b * c does it second. That may not be particularly readable though.

function name(int parameter){

}
vs
function name(int parameter)
{

}

@Geobits I feel like it's been ages since the last time you answered one of my code golfs. ;)

@FricativeMelon style, by definition, has no impact on the runtime of the program

@FricativeMelon it would be particulary messy D:

2:14 PM

@FricativeMelon that sounds like a terrible idea which I will definitely work into some future esolang, thanks.

13

I'm scared now...

@Katenkyo yep, if I do decide on curly braces for functions, then I'll definitely do the first

@MartinBüttner This one looked nice and simple to bang out in a minute or so. And it was, except that keeping a copy of A around to return really sucks. I'm sure there's a better way to do this.

@NathanMerrill Most people use the first, from what I saw, but I prefer the second because I easily can see where it start and where it ends

@Katenkyo either way, indentation will be required, so it should be easy to tell where it starts/ends

2:17 PM

@Geobits it may be the easiest way, I've oftep for it, why not just copy it, work on the copy, and at the end decide if you print the original or its copy?

@Katenkyo I'm looking at that now. Modifying inplace looked so nice though :P

Hello

@NathanMerrill Not really, I usually expect a one liner in the first case, because I don't see the first brace, so I need some time to understand it isn't

What kind of indentation? There are several diferent styles (tabs, 4 spaces,...) and they are all objectively right. If you enforce one you're gonna end up with a bunch of salty people

@quartata hum, what's the difference between tabs and 4 spaces...?

2:19 PM

@Katenkyo Absolutely nothing!!! :)

Except tabs may be different sizes in other editors.

Big difference. Tabs can be any number of spaces; there is no standard.

How do you put multiple lines in chat, since Enter doesn't work?

Spaces are constant

@FricativeMelon Shift + Enter

shift enter

Well, true that I have some editor jusing tab=2 spaces, but by tab-spacing I usually mean 4 spaces

2:21 PM

Anyways, I just think in general it's bad to enforce a code style that you think is right but others might not

It's the most common setting

@quartata tabs.

Yeah that's gonna get a lot of people mad at you

I prefer tabs and I don't care what other people think. :)

sure. I know lots of people love spaces (and I currently use them on pretty much every project), but fundamentally, tabs are better

2:23 PM

A lot of editors expand tabs too so they'll have to fiddle with their settings and stuff

what do you mean by "expand tabs"

Auto converted to spaces.

@quartata And some editor auto-convert spaces to tabs...

(it can be painful when working in 2-spaces D:)

@NathanMerrill How about this:
function name(par)
{
| function second(par2,par3)
| {
| | output par2
| | if par2>par3
| | {
| | | do stuff
| | }
| }
}

They won't be able to copy snippets from SO either since they expand tabs

2:25 PM

@NathanMerrill are they now...

I think for indentation you should just enforce consistency

i.e no mixing tabs and spaces

@NathanMerrill I find that easier to read than having to count spaces in normal indentation

" I designed it according to what I think languages should do, as opposed to what they currently do"

@MartinBüttner Yes :P

@quartata I don't understand why people do that.

2:26 PM

@quartata mixing tabs and space is a pretty healthy thing to do in python !

Mixing tabs and spaces.

For golfing maybe.

please no

@Geobits I could totally get behind the whole "everyone can use the tab width they like in their editor and it's still going be consistent" argument if it actually worked

Oh no! Not a tab-space war! For the sake of all, let's change the topic!

2:27 PM

@MartinBüttner The only thing you need to do to get that to actually work would be enforcing tabs AFAIK. The only times I see problems with it is when they're mixed.

this_function_takes_a_lot_of_arguments(foo,
                                       bar,
                                       baz,
                                       blah,
                                       yadda)

^ can't do that with tabs

No one is going to want to use a language that enforces tabs. It woud be a massive pain in the ass

@MartinBüttner Good point.

@quartata like Makefiles you mean? ;)

Also no one is going to use a language that enforces spaces

You have to be flexible on some things

2:30 PM

Really, spaces and tabs are an opinion. Don't bother changing people's minds about it.

@MartinBüttner oooh, that's a really good argument

@MartinBüttner didn't even think of that

I want to golf down my answer before Geobits beats me, but cant' find anything to improve >_<

@NathanMerrill this is probably not even the best case I can make for it, because this is a fine alternative:

this_function_takes_a_lot_of_arguments(
    foo,
    bar,
    baz,
    blah,
    yadda
)

@MartinBüttner Actually, that looks nicer. :P

@MartinBüttner only if you want the latter code style

I'm not sure what I want

2:33 PM

but when I have a lengthy arithmetic or logical expression, I like to do this:

   foo
&& bar
&& baz
&& blah
&& yadda

(possibly with something preceding the foo)

and for this kind of alignment you're not as free to pick any position as with the function call

no, the &&s are like commas

and should always go after

@NathanMerrill actually, I prefer to put them at the start of a line

It indicates what's the purpose of this line

@NathanMerrill think of it like long addition... you'd put the + in front as well

It's easier to see what's in the condition, and what isn't

because then you might have + or - and which one you have affects the next operand not the previous one

2:35 PM

mmm, true

also putting them at the front makes it less likely that you forget the operand when extending the list

@Katenkyo I don't think there's any way I'm shaving 20 bytes from mine. You're safe from being beaten by Java today I think.

Even seeing mine beat Python 3 by so much makes me just assume that one isn't golfed enough.

@Geobits Makes me wonder what he did too, python is often about the same length or shorter than lua

Well, I probably could get rid of 20 or so using Java 8, but I have a thing against using lambdas to "disappear" the entire function declaration.

Feel like it's cheating?

2:41 PM

Very much so. It's just offloading it to another part of the program imo.

you people and your "X language should be hard to golf in" arguments

Not "should be hard to golf in", but "should be a self-contained function". It's no different than requiring imports to be counted to me.

@NathanMerrill there's languages for everyone

I personnaly golf in lua because of its simplicity: you have nothing at hands, do everything by yourself

@Geobits Yeah, I've never lost to Java before. This is my greatest shame. — Morgan 'Venti' Thrappuccino 1 min ago

Morgan 'Venti' Thrappuccino

It has the bad side of making golfs longer

2:47 PM

@Geobits :(