Talk:Words containing "the" substring

Trivial task

This seems to me to be just a trivial subtask of String matching. Can we have more original tasks and less pointless busywork please? Thebigh (talk) 09:36, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

The Rosetta Code task  String matching  doesn't handle a dictionary,   and because this task uses a dictionary,   there are   (or should be)   more concerns such as (possible extra) whitespace   (either tabs and/or leading/trailing blanks,   and/or double words)   in the dictionary as well as handling caseless searches   (although the particular dictionary specified has no capital letters in it,   nor duplicate words).   Another restriction is the situation when a word in the dictionary that is too short   (as per the task requirements).   Also, a minor detail is counting the number of words found and also possibly showing the number of words found (searched) in the dictionary.     -- Gerard Schildberger (talk) 17:13, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

<quote>doesn't handle a dictionary</quote> So? <quote>this task uses a dictionary</quote> So? <quote>whitespace ... double words ... in the dictionary ... caseless searches</quote> So? The dictionary to use was specified. Which makes all of that completely besides the point. <quote>counting the number of words</quote> Where is there ANY mention or requirement to count the words?

Those are all incidental and peripheral to the task. It also doesn't specify to power your computer on first. I suppose I should look forward to the task "Turn on your computer then find words containing "the" substring" because "Thatss completetly diffent!!1!1" Sheesh. --Thundergnat (talk) 17:48, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree. Finding a substring of a string is just problem 2 of String matching, and reading in a dictionary first is a trivial addition- especially since so many of the recent tasks involve reading in the same dictionary. Thebigh (talk) 18:20, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I'll try to answer the   "So?"   queries as politely as possible and keep my answers as civil as possible, ignoring your use of a strawman augment.   The addition of reading/processing the words in a dictionary (file) is somewhat trivial,   but it is part of the task,   and part of Rosetta Code's purpose is to compare how different computer programming languages (and programmers) implement even small requirements, albeit maybe somewhat trivial,   but not incidental.   I don't know what the author of this task considers incidental,   but I won't say that he considers it trivial or not.   As trivial as it seems,   it is necessary to read/process the input file (the dictionary) and it is one of the task's requirements (although implied),   but different computer programming languages could do it much differently and/or simply;   SAS  and  APL   come to mind.   I don't understand the need to mention your non sequitur comment about powering on your computer first.   Furthermore, I never said nor implied that the showing the number of substrings found was a task requirement.   It's common sense   (but not required)   to either show a running index count of the words found   (especially if the number of words found isn't easily countable),   or a summary total at the end of the displayed list,   but that is something the programmer decides to implement  (or not).     -- Gerard Schildberger (talk) 19:11, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Looks like you need to go and reread the definition of strawman since you seem to be confused about it. I directly refuted the points you brought up, quoting your words directly.

There is no requirement that you load a dictionary, so talking about task requirements (even trivial ones) dealing with loading, filtering and storing the dictionary IS COMPLETELY BESIDES THE POINT. The requirement is that you use a specific dictionary. How it is done is peripheral to the task. The task is Find words containing the substring "the". In what way does loading the dictionary for this task differ from that in: Prime words or Odd words or Alternade words or ABC words or Teacup_rim_text or many others? It doesn't. <quote>It's common sense</quote> But it is not a requirement, so using that as a justification for why this task is different IS COMPLETELY BESIDES THE POINT.

That brings us back to the actual task requirements, essentially, filter a list based on some substring thereof; much like String matching or ABC words, two tasks among many that quite admirably cover this concept quite well. The point this whole thread started with was "Please lets cut down on the largely redundant tasks". Using examples of irrelevant implementation details and what the programmer <quote>decides to implement</quote> as argument for why it is not, is disingenuous at best. --Thundergnat (talk) 20:14, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

If I may insert my 2 cents... although Gerard is possibly overstating the case, the use of the dictionary does make it a little different as we have to look at actual words in a language (English in the unixdict case). Questions like "which words in the language contain "the" as a substring" are (perhaps not enormously) interesting questions that are IMHO different to "show how to check a string contains a substring".

I see Thundergnat has (rightly IMHO) deleted the "find words that contain all the vowels" task as it is little different from this and the "find the words that contain "a", "b" and "c" in order" task etc. (Actually, I think the "find the words that contain all the vowels" is actually a marginally more interesting task than the ABC one but the ABC one came first...). --Tigerofdarkness (talk) 20:09, 6 December 2020 (UTC)