The Nineteenth Byte

8:02 PM

If you're asking about non-golf challenges, you can look at all the other winning-criterion tags: code-challenge (though many of those involve a certain amount of golf), answer-chaining, fastest-code, king-of-the-hill... Or are you asking about programming-puzzle specifically?

HyperNeutrino

I doubt my computer science teacher even really looks at my code, just runs it and sees if it works... I just got the exact same comment on all of my assignments. Then again, I'm getting 100% on everything so I'm not complaining :P

DLosc

What's the comment?

HyperNeutrino

who knows, maybe he does and I just have everything done perfectly, which is quite likely because I already know programming

Header comments

Author, Definition of program 2/2

Comments 3/3

Program operates 5/5

TOTAL 10/10

I don't even have comments in my code IIRC. Unless I added them to try and get marks. I can't remember.

DLosc

~~Seems like he'd at least have to glance at the code to check if you had any comments~~ Oh. Heh.

HyperNeutrino

:p

Zacharý

8:06 PM

What language is this?

(It could be an automatic grader)

HyperNeutrino

Java

It can't possibly be automatic. Everything has to be a GUI so a human would have to look at if it works.

Unless it's a really advanced autograder

Zacharý

Is it for AP Comp Sci A? Or something else?

HyperNeutrino

I wish the teacher would just let us do everything in terms of REAL computer SCIENCE instead of making like 2-line programs and wrapping it in a 100-line GUI stuff, but we're using drag-and-drop GUI stuff so it's easier

@Zacharý basic Grade 11 Intro to CS

Zacharý

(I mean the program that checks for comments)

HyperNeutrino

maybe

yeah that's a possibility

I mean I think there are comments because Netbeans automatically inserts them for me

the only reason I'm taking it is so I can take grade 12 CS

Zacharý

8:09 PM

@HyperNeutrino Just take the comp sci a exam, then get a 5. That might shut them up

HyperNeutrino

and the only reason I'm taking that is for a credit so I can apply for my local university with the proper credit requirements

@Zacharý yeah good idea actually, i don't know where I can take that though. My school board doesn't offer that AFAIK

Zacharý

Neither did mine, you can just ask for the exam. That's exactly what I did

(If necessary, email AP or something)

HyperNeutrino

oh okay. yeah i'll actually consider that, thanks for the suggestion

wizzwizz4

@HyperNeutrino What do you think real programming is?

DLosc

@HyperNeutrino Nitpick: computer programming !== computer science

wizzwizz4

8:11 PM

In theory you create awesome stuff...

Anonymous

APCS is super easy

3

wizzwizz4

but users are not terminal users any more.

Zacharý

You're welcome. (And don't worry about studying for the exam, if you know basic Java + OOP, you'll get a 5)

HyperNeutrino

in practice you try to resolve 80 segfaults and then realize you forgot a semicolon

2

Zacharý

@Mego I wish they still had APCS AB

HyperNeutrino

8:11 PM

@Zacharý oh lol okay. yeah that should be easy enough then I guess :P

wizzwizz4

@HyperNeutrino The compiler would tell you about that.

HyperNeutrino

@DLosc well it's Introduction to CS not to programming. but people at the school board probably don't care (or know) about the difference :P

@wizzwizz4 (slight exaggeration)

wizzwizz4

In practise you try to resolve 80 segfaults and then realize you had an extra semicolon because there was one in a macro and one in the macro call so it exited the block scope when it shouldn't've.

HyperNeutrino

l o l

Zacharý

@HyperNeutrino You have 2 courses, we have a joke. The teacher is the most oblivious person when it comes to programming

HyperNeutrino

8:13 PM

lol

wizzwizz4

@Zacharý Read the specification.

Zacharý

Eh?

DLosc

@HyperNeutrino Fair enough. It took me a few years after getting a college degree in CS to realize the difference. (In essence, theory vs. practice.) There is, of course, a lot of interplay between the two.

HyperNeutrino

yeah

complex complex numbers?

Zacharý

My internal conception of CS: O λ P NP

3

I know it's more than that.

@HyperNeutrino That's called lazy implementation

HyperNeutrino

8:15 PM

oh ok

DLosc

@Zacharý Haha! That's a pretty good summary for 9 bytes.

Zacharý

Since they need to have a variable type (for int, double, float, etc.), they have to do it with a template. And since C++ doesn't have template restrictions IIRC, that is a result

HyperNeutrino

oh ok rip

DLosc

I'd add DFA/NFA, PDA, and TM to the list, at least.

Zacharý

Whoops, forgot about Θ and Ω, anything else like that?

@DLosc OH, Turing Machines. I have no idea what those other ones are.

DLosc

8:19 PM

@Zacharý DFA, NFA, PDA

Zacharý

Oh, I haven't seen the abbreviations before

@HyperNeutrino 0/10, too many bytes :p

Anonymous

@DLosc I count 8 in ISO-8859-7 :P

Zacharý

@Mego EH?

Anonymous

@DLosc LBAs are important too

Zacharý

What does the LB stand for?

Anonymous

8:23 PM

@Zacharý ISO-8859-7 is a character encoding. It contains all of ASCII, plus Greek.

Anonymous

@Zacharý Linear-bounded automaton

DLosc

@Mego Ah, interesting--like a Turing machine but with memory restrictions. We didn't talk about those in my Theory of Computation class, as I recall.

Anonymous

@DLosc Real computers are more like LBAs than TMs

DLosc

Right.

Zacharý

I only really know lambda calculus well, the others are shaky

HyperNeutrino

8:25 PM

@Zacharý shh :p

Zacharý

@Mego That seems obvious, considering nothing in real life can have infinite memory

HyperNeutrino

better?

DLosc

@Mego Oh, neat. Too bad it has a lot of code points unassigned, or I might like to use it for an esolang.

Anonymous

@DLosc Just make a custom one

DLosc

I know, but I'd rather use an existing one.

Zacharý

8:30 PM

Jelly's codepage.

I just wanted you to remove the spaces after #s, that's all.

DLosc

... and by "existing," I mean one that hasn't been designed on PPCG in the last 2-3 years. There's something nice about being able to say, "No, this is a real codepage--people actually use it for stuff besides code golf."

(Incidentally: I have helped make a custom codepage that uses Greek letters before.)

Zacharý

There's gonna be control characters in the "real" codepages.

DLosc

Well, I suppose that's true.

totallyhuman

are control characters even necessary any more?

Zacharý

No, but no one has made a "real" codepage since that point. 'Cause unicode

totallyhuman

8:34 PM

I know they were used a lot more when ASCII was designed

Zacharý

Maybe try APL's codepage? It's "real"

Anonymous

Man, building GCC is super slow

Zacharý

Why are you building GCC?

DLosc

@Zacharý There's barely any in DOS CP 437. (Which has certain other drawbacks, such as having to distinguish ▌ from ▐ at a glance, but...)

Zacharý

8:50 PM

Holy crap, that seems good enough.

If I ever create a language with the codepage first, that's gonna be the basis for the codepage

DLosc

Hm--actually CP 850 is probably a better choice--it has more letters and fewer box-drawing characters.

Zacharý

Or that one ...

Anonymous

@Zacharý Distro version is super old

Anonymous

@DLosc I don't understand... Why would you want fewer box-drawing characters?

Zacharý

CP437 > CP850. 437 doesn't necessarily have box-drawing characters, meaning they would be the hated control codes

Anonymous

8:58 PM

Also: DOS CP437 (aka IBM437 aka OEM437) isn't widely supported anymore. Most implementations are of ANSI CP437, which is ASCII-compatible (and thus has control characters instead of windings). I had to manually implement OEM437 for Seriously/Actually.

DLosc

I can't tell if that's tongue-in-cheek or not... :) ... but if not: they decided it was more important to have Á than ╡; and I would expect that for a golflang, it would be easier to remember a letter-based character than a geometric shape.

Zacharý

None of those are wingdings

wizzwizz4

I inadvertently started a war with Mithrandir. Does anybody have suggestions for a (MIT) Scratch-off?

Zacharý

@DLosc Depends on the usage

@wizzwizz4 Eh? I'm lost

wizzwizz4

@Zacharý Competition to create the bestest Scratch project evah.

But we need some sort of a restriction.

Otherwise there's no way for anybody to objectively decide a winner.

Zacharý

9:02 PM

You already have one: you're using scratch.

I avoided a project in scratch by doing it in HTML, still have no idea how my friend convinced my teacher to do it

^ That tells you how much I hate Scratch

*ONE of those is a wingding. The white smiley face

I have stars!

wizzwizz4

@Zacharý ☺☻♥♦♣♠•◘○◙♂♀♪♫☼►◄↕‼¶§▬↨↑↓→←∟↔▲▼

Zacharý

THREE wingdings, ☺, ○, and ☼.

Unless you're generalizing "wingdings"

Look at the actual wingdings font, I memorized it once upon a time to compete with a friend. And he memorized it because he accidentally set his chrome default font to wingdings.

*Four: Forgot about •

DLosc

9:18 PM

Huh. I thought I remembered ♂ and ♀ being in Wingdings. I must be remembering some other, similar font.

wizzwizz4

@DLosc Wingdings 2.

(Or was it 3?)

Zacharý

Oh, those ones. And the arrows as well. I was thinking of Wingdings 1.

Nick T

Are there any 3d languages, like Piet + 1 more?

Zacharý

Trefunge?

Nick T

hmm

actually I was pondering making a VR demo for a 3d language, but I just remembered that Minecraft/Redstone has already done that in large part

Zacharý

9:25 PM

Maybe a general N dimensional language?

¶ is the paragraph symbol, @wizzwizz4. Why would that be a wingding?!

wizzwizz4

@Zacharý I meant the male and female symbols.

Zacharý

Ah.

I see what you mean, they have a similar look at a quick glance to the first part of the lowercase alphabet, which are the zodiac signs. (At least to me, they do). (This is Wingdings 1 I'm talking about)

@DLosc I remember something similar (serifed restricted sign versus sans-serif) to that when trying to memorize the entirety of the Symbols font, rather than just the letters.

@NickT Why would you think of going to such a length to make a programming language?!

Nick T

Because when we're all uploaded to the cloud it will take off in popularity

because our monkey brains still like 3d space

Zacharý

9:40 PM

But really though, why go through that torture?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page_437, according to wikipedia, all of the characters have a graphical representation. So, that means it SHOULD fit the specification of a golfer's dream.

Is it just me, or does the SO 404 page show a polyglot?

DLosc

@Zacharý There's a fine line between "esolang" and "torture." 1 2 3...

Zacharý

I mean IMPLEMENTING the demo.

If there's a line, it's pretty blurred.

DLosc

@Zacharý That may be the case, but not all of the graphical representations are unique. For example NUL, SP, and NBSP all just look like a space.

Zacharý

Ah

@DLosc What's the reasoning for the ordering, order of torturing-ness ?

Holy crap, Ziim looks horrible

DLosc

@Zacharý Just the order in which I thought of them. BF was the obvious one because it's right there in the name. Malbolge is there in the name too, but less obviously. Ziim came to mind after I spent half a minute thinking of a suitable third entry.

Zacharý

9:54 PM

I saw BF then Malbolge, then I thought ... what's worse than that? And which is worse to you?

DLosc

I still want to try Ziim sometime, but:

in Esoteric Programming Languages, Feb 2 '17 at 9:03, by Martin Ender

even with the EsoIDE it's a pain to code in. Timwi has a special Ziim editor that is pretty much mandatory

Oh, I'm sure Malbolge is the worst. Functioning Ziim programs have been written by hand. BF is clearly the easiest of the three.

Zacharý

A good Befunge editor should be fine. And who the Brainfuck wants an IDE for esoteric languages?

cdn.sstatic.net/Sites/stackoverflow/img/polyglot-404.png Yep, SO made a polyglot for 404

DLosc

@Zacharý Ah, but it has to support all those Unicode arrows in a monospace font that makes it clear where they're pointing. Evidently most editors don't.

Zacharý

Speaking of IDEs, is it bad that I have never used an IDE whatsoever while programming until RIDE for Dyalog?

MD XF

@Zacharý Wait, so what all does that work in?

I see Befunge, Brainfuck, C, Python... anything else?

Zacharý

10:02 PM

Well, C++ obviously

MD XF

... duh

Zacharý

Or not

I'm dumb

MD XF

If you add a #include <stdio.h> or add a bunch of flags it works. C++ in my books is C with mandatory verbosity.

Zacharý

Whitespace?

caird coinheringaahing

Q: How do you enter control characters in a text file on a Mac? Is it even possible?

Zacharý

10:05 PM

I mean the language

MD XF

Ah I see

Zacharý

Might explain the arrows

MD XF

The arrows just mean "don't actually put a newline here"

The SO people wanted the polyglot to fit into that 500x275 image

Zacharý

How on earth does that work in Befunge?

MD XF

It works in Befunge or ><> or some 2d language...

Zacharý

10:07 PM

Maybe the arrows denote linefeed?

Or linefeed denoted by numbered lines, and newline denoted by the arrow?

caird coinheringaahing

@Zacharý It ignores the define, then turns down at the v. The e pushes 15, 44 pushes 4 twice, . outputs the first 4, * multiplies 4 by 15 to produce 40, which is then printed with . before exiting with @

Zacharý

Won't it reflect at i?

caird coinheringaahing

No, why?

Zacharý

I thought hex was only in the newer version, and that version reflects IIRC

caird coinheringaahing

i is a no-op

It seems to be a combination of ><> and Befunge

MD XF

10:11 PM

@cairdcoinheringaahing I can't get it to run on TIO though

DLosc

Aren't we ignoring "the arrows just mean 'don't actually put a newline here'"?

MD XF

@DLosc It appears so

FlipTack

@cairdcoinheringaahing you could use something like Notepad++ which has a "Character Panel"

caird coinheringaahing

@FlipTack Unfortunately, you can't get Notepad++ on Mac :/

Zacharý

i is input file in BF-98

Which seems to be activated by something else, so it shouldn't reflect.

Which person thought it was a good idea to have an SO person do esolangs?

And won't the C code break on exit()?

DLosc

10:18 PM

Yeah, I'm not sure it works in any 2D language. Trying various candidates on TIO, the closest seems to be Befunge-97 which outputs 4.

Zacharý

BF97? THat's a thing?!

DLosc

I know, right?

MD XF

There's BF96, BF97, etc... they're all on TIO

Well let's find out

0

Q: Error 404 page polyglot?

The Error 404 page for StackOverflow is a polyglot that looks like this (if I interpreted the weird arrows correctly): # define v putchar # define print(x)main(){v(4+v(v(52)-4));return 0;}/* #>+++++++4+[>++++++<-]>++++.----.++++.*/ print(202*2);exit(); #define/*>.@*/exit() It prints 404. I c...

Zacharý

I don't remember all the Befunges being on TIO

DLosc

Dennis is a busy man.

MD XF

10:21 PM

Dennis found MTFI and added a bunch

Zacharý

Somehow, GNU APL is left out (probably for a reason)

That probably should've been our 404.

MD XF

Aha

119

A: Amusing 404 "Page Not Found" Images for Trilogy sites?

I'd like to see some kind of polyglot for Stack Overflow's 404 page. Here's a little polyglot for Befunge-93, Brainf*ck, Python, Ruby, Perl, and C that simply prints 404 to stdout. It probably works in whatever other scripting languages that use # as a line comment and accept the keyword print. ...

Befunge-93, Brainf*ck, Python, Ruby, Perl, and C.

But not really Befunge-93.

Zacharý

Would a challenge to output 404 in as many languages polyglot as possible be closed as dupe?

MD XF

DAMMIT

I was just about to suggest that challenge nooo

Zacharý

I should do it, less rep

Heeby Jeeby Man

10:29 PM

It wouldn't be very interesting

FlipTack

@Zacharý I'm not sure if it's a dupe, but it wouldn't be very interesting at all

MD XF

It would be interesting since it would be based off of the error page though

Heeby Jeeby Man

Polyglots where every language does the same thing are never very good

MD XF

@Zacharý ಠ_ಠ

Zacharý

Good idea: throw XKCD in

Heeby Jeeby Man

10:30 PM

Then you need to come up with a definition of different languages

DLosc

Yeah, the number of languages that could be added would be practically unlimited. Just look at what's been done with this behemoth.

It might be better if there were some more restrictions that made it difficult to get above 10 languages or so.

Zacharý

Let's try to formulate rules here that would work

Any ideas?

Heeby Jeeby Man

It going to be hard

Zacharý

Maybe make the program output 404 iff the input is 404?

Heeby Jeeby Man

Having all the programs do the same task means you are going to have trouble defining what different languages are. Changing the task doesn't make it much better.

DLosc

10:37 PM

Hm, that's true. Whereas with different tasks for each language, then two languages are different iff they have different output in this challenge.

Pavel

:O MS word supports LaTeX now

Heeby Jeeby Man

If you wanted to write in Latex why would you be using MS word?

Zacharý

Maybe we should just make the 404 page contain a link to the behemoth of a polyglot, with some witty remark?

Heeby Jeeby Man

We have to wait until there are 404 languages in the polyglot

MD XF

@Zacharý Umm, difference between a cat/echo polyglot?

Pavel

10:42 PM

@HeebyJeebyMan Well, it's mostly just a text document with a few equations. Formatting in LaTeX is hard, but for small equations it's faster than the regular Word equation builder

Zacharý

@Pavel What do you mean

Pavel

Someday I'll actually learn to typeset full document in LaTeX, but today is not that day.

Heeby Jeeby Man

If you wanted to write equations why would you be using MS word?

Zacharý

Because blackboard bold

Pavel

@Zacharý You can type LaTeX into an equation field and it'll convert them to MS Word equations.

Zacharý

10:43 PM

Even \... { ... }?

Pavel

@Zacharý Yep

Zacharý

I've used MS equation editor, and it's supported backslash sequences for symbols, not structures

Pavel

@HeebyJeebyMan What else should I use? Keeping in mind my knowledge of LaTeX extends to basically just fractions and exponents (which is all I need right now).

Heeby Jeeby Man

It is my opinion that there is no task that MS word should be used for. Latex is very nice for equations.

Pavel

@HeebyJeebyMan What's your beef with Word? If I want to write an essay I'm hardly going to use Latex.

For everything but equations word works very well, and now you can just use LaTeX for the equation part.

Heeby Jeeby Man

10:49 PM

Word is clunky, proprietary and the end result is still looks shitty.

Latex is far from great but it works and doesn't require navigating a hellscape of menus

I do write all my essays in Latex. Once you know how it becomes pretty easy for the most part.

Pavel

What hellscape? All basic formatting you'll want is in the Home tab.

It actually does run pretty fast, has a lot of formatting features, and I don't know how you can say the end result doesn't look good.

Heeby Jeeby Man

I haven't used word since 2008 so it might actually be different but everything I wanted to do always requried clicking on a bunch of buttons. I really don't like cicking when I'm typing.

Pavel

@HeebyJeebyMan I just use keyboard shortcuts for the most part

Heeby Jeeby Man

I don't know if you are going to memorize a bunch of shortcuts you might as well go use something else you can actually customize and tinker with.

DLosc

Yeah, keyboard shortcuts and autocorrect suffice for a lot of what I need: italics/bold/underline, vowels with common diacritics, em dashes, curvy quotation marks. I think I've probably set up some non-standard keyboard shortcuts for certain things.

Pavel

11:00 PM

@HeebyJeebyMan I'm not saying go use Word, but it really isn't that bad. I've set-up word so inserting an equation is <alt-=> to insert an equation, and <alt-2> to finalize it and convert it from Latex

@Dennis Well yes, you shouldn't be using == for strings in perl. == is numeric comparison and coerces its arguments to numbers, in this case 0. You should use the eq operator instead.

This isn't that different from, say, Java making you use .equals for comparing strings, where == betweens strings is legal, just not useful.

Likewise, in JS, the equality operator is === and == is closer to a smart-match operator.

And by the way, with use warnings, Perl will tell you that you shouldn't try 0 == "0".

MD XF

11:37 PM

Feedback anyone?

Especially about the description of the output format

Downgoat

In python, is not a < b < c (not a) < b < c or not (a < b < c)

Leaky Nun

a=1
b=2
c=3
print(not a < b < c)
print(not (a < b < c))
print((not a) < b < c)

False
False
True

@Downgoat ^

Downgoat

oh thanks

btw is there a better way to do this?:

        result = user_settings.set_email(new_email)
        if result is not None: return result

        result = user_settings.set_name(new_name)
        if result is not None: return result

         return default_value()

Leaky Nun

11:54 PM

that depends on what you mean by better

Downgoat

because if I only had 1 call I can do return a.foo(bar) or default_value()

Pavel

@Downgoat return user_setting.set_email(new_email) or user_setting.set_name(new_name) or default_value()

Leaky Nun

^

Downgoat

@Pavel oh ok thanks

HyperNeutrino