User talk:Rdm

Please fill out your user page with the help of the mylang templates (e.g., below) so that the wiki software can link you in to everything else nicely. Thanks! —Donal Fellows 19:59, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

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{{mylang|J|Wrote it}}
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Ok, done.. though I am not sure what guidelines I should use to judge how familiar I am with a language, so I likely could be more accurate if I knew how to judge myself. Rdm 03:50, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Best advice when judge yourself - not to overjudge with your capabilities. And... better to put own nose to languages you know well, leave D alone, OK? ex-pert.... User:Vincent

It's entirely self-subjective, whatever descriptives you think best defines your familiarity. See my page for comparison. (Though I don't think anyone else uses my particular approach.) --Michael Mol 15:47, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok, that works for me, thank you (there are so many dimensions to consider here, it's almost ridiculous). And I like the simplicity of Active vs. Rusty. Rdm 16:04, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Ex-expert

Ex-ex-pert. Double negative. You're a pert. ;-) -- Eriksiers 22:26, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

The world needs more perts? Rdm 16:34, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

When doesn't the world need more perts? -- Eriksiers 16:02, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Filling out Rosetta Code:Add a Task

Could I get you, Dkf and Paddy3118 to give Rosetta Code:Add a Task a thorough treatment of examination, debate and filling? Of the cross section of current users, I think you three are probably the most likely to be familiar with the general pattern and concerns of creating tasks. I added a bunch of my own thoughts in HTML comments in-line, and left a note in the talk page. --Michael Mol 17:15, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I had read it, and superficially it seemed good, though I was planning on giving myself a few days to digest it. But the best test would be to try and create some new tasks based on its recommendations -- if these new tasks need work, which was not covered by the task description, we could go from there. Anyways, maybe I will try and add a task based on it -- having never done so before, I think I might make a decent test subject. --Rdm 17:26, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Rule 90

I decided to move our discussion about Rule 90 here so Comps doesn't keep getting emails.

On "end states": the task doesn't have anything to do with checking for end states, so any work that you do there is extra credit and doesn't really apply. On other similar tasks: tasks in the sorting category usually do fundamentally different operations. Also, lots of those algorithms are the subject of discussion in academics for early programmers. There is more of a demand for separate tasks for each of those algorithms (though there really isn't much demand at all for the silly ones, but those came after the fact). You may be right about prime decomposition and counting in factors. In any case, the next generation in the Rule 90/104 processes can be implemented as such (at least in the languages I program in; J seems to be different in ways I don't expect to understand):

For each character in this generation
  Count the number of neighbors
  If the number of neighbors = x and this character is y, then
    the character in this position in the next generation is z
  ...more ifs for whatever rules there are...
return the next generation

Basically a few numbers change for x, y, and z for all the rules. The setup of this generation and counting the neighbors doesn't really need to change. Counting the neighbors doesn't need to change at all (unless you want to add more characters, but then it's not really a Rule x game). Forest fire also does a similar operation to Conway's Game of Life , but it has extra stuff added in like random numbers and extra types of cells. Wireworld expands on that still by adding another type of cell. The change between Rule 90 and Rule 104 amounts to using a different lookup table. --Mwn3d 17:31, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I had actually said pretty much I had to say on this topic. And, I added a "Rule n" approach for J, on the One-dimensional cellular automata page, for just-in-case. --Rdm 18:15, 19 April 2011 (UTC)