November 2008 Archives

This weekly update was supposed to cover two weeks because of my absence last week. Unfortunately, the recent changes page won't show all of the changes that go back that far (the limit really is 500...I tried changing it in the URL). The page will show me changes from the last 8 days, so I will report on those.ActivityThere was a C# boost from a new user (CoreyWhite). There were sprints in PHP, Ruby, and Lisp from anonymous users (up to 79, 102, and 75 examples, respectively). Almost all other activity has been in new pages, with some old sorting algorithm tasks getting attention.New Tasks and LanguagesWe were flooded with new tasks this past week (up to 217). There were too many for a paragraph, so here's a list:

• Jensen's device -- An old programming problem to demonstrate call by name parameters.
• Selection sort -- Most programmers know about this.
• Cocktail sort -- An improvement on the Bubble sort.
• Quadratic equation -- Yeah, I know, we actually didn't have this before. My mind was blown too.
• Character code -- Convert between characters and ASCII codes.
• Column aligner -- Format some custom-delimited text into left, center, and right justified columns.

We don't have tasks yet that start with K or Y, so be on the lookout for those so that we can complete the alphabet.Wrapl and Logtalk each only have one example, but they are unlike any languages I've seen. If we get more examples, we may be able to tell more about them. It doesn't look like there is a complete program for either of them yet.Still NeededCleanup of some old tasks. There are some tasks on the TODO list that have yet to be completed (most notably the linked list tasks). If anyone is feeling bored they could go through a couple of tasks and add syntax highlighting. A list of supported languages can be found on the GeSHi page, but it is not recommended that you add Lisp highlighting because it has some problems right now.

Due to a deluge of spam getting past reCAPTCHA over the last two days, comments have been temporarily disabled.

Sorry for the delay..."Save" != "Publish".ActivityXSLT got a big boost from IanOsgood, bringing its task total up to 20. There was a small E sprint from an anonymous contributor. Once again, most activity wasn't concentrated in any particular area. Paddy3118 was quite active early in the week. Blue Prawn is back and contributing after about a month with no activity. As far as talk goes, people think the Perl example of Monty Hall simulation needs to be checked, and Data Munging has mixed reviews.New TasksThree new tasks showed up on Thursday: Data Munging 2, Xlib simple window, and Percentage of dfference between 2 images. Data Munging 2 is like Data Munging, but with less story, better defined instructions, and more simple operations. Xlib simple window asks the programmer to use a particular common graphics library to create a window. Percentage of difference between 2 images has the program look at two equally sized JPEG images and show how different they are pixel for pixel. A call was made for locally hosted images and they are up.Still NeededMore new tasks. New tasks encourage activity and make things interesting on the site. They also let us create more task categories, and make it easier to get other people to contribute. Add a task and ask your friends to contribute examples in languages they know.

ActivityThere has been a good bit of talk going on this week. The talk in Polymorphism is about changing the task to be a more clear example of polymorphism. Talk in Active Object has resolved itself by changing the task. Talk in Monty Hall simulation was about confusion on some results and it has also resolved itself. Other talk is either getting into deep computer science or getting a bit complicated. Examples have been added in a lot of different languages including Python and Ada most prominently as well as a few other languages.New TaskData Munging is a task which gives us the data from another program that we need to analyze. The analysis itself is not complicated (averaging and counting basically), the real focus seems to be formatted input. The format doesn't seem to be too strict (though some want more rules).Still NeededThe request a task page is getting a bit full. We need to get to work on these tasks. Some of them would probably be pretty quick like some of the sorts that have been requested or even the database calls. We'll never get to 300 tasks the way we're going. Program!

ActivityThere were quite a few Vedit macro language examples early in the week (from PauliKL). Ce put up some Pascal and C++ shortly after that. The new Polymorphic copy task picked up a lot of examples quickly (in two days, it was up to six examples). There was a quick task clarification in User Output - graphical and a new plan for splitting User Input in a similar way. There was also more talk about foldable output tags. Other activity was just miscellaneous cleanup and scattered examples.New TasksThe Dining Philosophers task was mentioned a while ago, but only added today. The task is about the classic CS problem and asks the programmer to demonstrate ways to solve it. Polymorphic Copy has the programmer demonstrate how to copy an object in his language. A further restriction is that the object being copied must contain an instance of an object whose type extends from (inheritance) another type. After the copy, the proper copy of this instance must be verified by calling an overridden method.Still NeededWeb developer help for foldable output. A seemingly simple solution has been offered on the Village Pump, but if any web developer has a simpler or more powerful solution, your input would be appreciated.Also NotableSpoon! finally made a user page!