Talk:Sum multiples of 3 and 5

What is the intent of the task?

• The "sum of" does not mean the same as the "count of" numbers. Which does the author intend?
• Second, the description should say "positive integers" if that is what is intended, because there are an infinite number of negative integers below 1000.
• Third, "below" doesn't include 1000, so maybe it should say "not greater than"?

Thanks. --TimToady (talk) 16:16, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

The reading of the task where:

• Sum means sum and not count.
• It is taken to mean positive integers.
• Below means up to, but not including.

...happens to have REXX and Python solutions following TimToady's Perl 6 lead. I quite liked that interpretation. If the task moves away from this, could we create a another task to preserve this interpretation? --Paddy3118 (talk) 17:26, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I've cleaned up the task to be consistent with the (current) majority interpretation. --TimToady (talk) 17:38, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

shouldn't the title be Multiples ?? --Walterpachl (talk) 18:21, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Current title will do fine; we don't want extra capital letters in it if they're not proper names. –Donal Fellows (talk) 22:08, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I didn't really care for the Perl6 solution; it misses the fact that you're just talking triangular numbers with a little wrapping. Making that explicit (which I did in the Tcl solution) gives a really neat piece of code (one general mathematical definition, and a very simple pattern of application to the problem). –Donal Fellows (talk) 22:08, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

I've brought this out of of draft, since the the task seems reasonable by consensus, and the original author can always pose a different draft instead if that was the intent. Also, I've taken the liberty of adding an extra credit for the analytical solutions that scale better than direct summation. --TimToady (talk) 00:28, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

It's a Project Euler problem too

I don't do Project Euler, but I do follow Stack Overflow and one of their questions was asking for help for a project Euler question which got me to the site. This task happens to be their problem 1. I note that the RC task is worded differently, and it is not clear if Project Euler is the originator of the problem but since I made a connection, I thought I'd share. --Paddy3118 (talk) 23:00, 14 May 2013 (UTC)