User talk:Thundergnat

Hi. Nice job on the Perl6 version of Write language name in 3D ASCII !  :-) --Grondilu 19:36, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi Thundergnat.

Regarding the Perl 6 solution of the checking Machin Style formulas. The problem is that the Perl 6 solution uses floating point numbers. The task requires one to use exact computations.

For example:

  is  tan(atan(1/2)+atan(1/3)), 1;

Here atan(1/2) and atan(1/3) produces floating point values.

--Soegaard (talk) 15:31, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Spam redirect

(Posted this on Paddy's page a while back but he doesn't seem to be around atm, maybe you'd like to have a look at it.)

Just found the following redirect. It seems to refer to a software company. http://rosettacode.org/mw/index.php?title=CalmoSoft_Fifteen_Puzzle_Game&redirect=no Fwend (talk) 19:00, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Not spam exactly. More confusion on the part of a new user. As far I as I can determine, CalmoSoft is a person, not a company. That was Calmosofts first contribution to the site, (the first of many) and an overly specific page description was entered. While it wasn't well planned, I don't think it was malicious. That being said, you are probably right, that page probably should be removed at this point. --Thundergnat (talk) 20:50, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

massive changes to Heronian triangles

Many many thanks for reverting the massive (and damaging) changes to the Rosetta Code task:   Heronian triangles.

I didn't want to start an editing war on the task's preamble, but I couldn't let the damaging and negatory changes to the two REXX language's entries, as well as their prologues and epilogues.

As an aside, it was nice to get the Ring programming entry back from the graveyard after being eighty-sixed.

I did, however, sent a rather lengthy thingy to Paddy   (user Paddy3118, the original author of the task);   you should be able to read Paddy's discussion page for what I did, and I tried to explain some of my reasons for my complaint.

The revert you did of the massive changes didn't revert my latest trivial changes.   I guess Rosetta Code's (or Wiki's) reversion process works better than we hoped.

From now on, I'm going to have to keep a copy of my (REXX'es) prologues and/or epilogues.   I always keep a backup copy of each of the REXX programs, but I don't bother with the extraneous text(s).   I had never thought that people would be butchering my comments of my REXX programs,   ... but there ya have it.

Again, many thanks for your actions.   -- Gerard Schildberger (talk) 23:42, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

I really doubt that the change was malicious, and certainly not targeted at the REXX entry. It looked to me like he (I assume he) was looking at an earlier version of the page, made some edits to it and saved it without realizing the implications. It wasn't only the REXX and Ring entries affected; The ALGOL 68, ALGOL W, AutoHotkey, CoffeeScript, EchoLisp, Elixir, Fortran, FreeBASIC, Go, JavaScript ES5, Julia, Kotlin, Lua, Pascal, Phix, R, REXX 2nd version, Ring, Scala, Sidef and Tcl entries were deleted completely and several other implementation had edits rolled back.

I hope you don't think that I implied it was malicious, just damaging   (which required a bit of work to re-instate essential "by hand" and viewing the before and after screens, which are a royal pain in the ole neckhole for cut 'n paste). --- I didn't dare to revert such a massive change (having used up my silver bullets long ago).   I had no idea that so many others programming entries were deleted completely.   -- Gerard Schildberger (talk) 05:01, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

For what it is worth, if you notice such a large scale destructive edit in the future, don't try to fix it piecemeal, bring it to my or one of the other admins attention and we can roll back / undo the edit with one click. However, we can only easily roll back the last edit without higher permissions, so once further edits have been made to the page it becomes much more tedious. I generally try to check the recent changes page at least 4-5 times a day to catch spam and unintended edits before they get out of hand. I can't be here all the time though. Cheers --Thundergnat (talk) 00:28, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Will do.   I didn't try to fix the massive changes, I only tried to fix the (two REXX) entries that I authored; that way, if it didn't get rolled back, at least I corrected what I could.   -- Gerard Schildberger (talk) 05:01, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

After a cursory investigation, it looks like it had been reverted to the 17:52 13 March 2015 version of the page, which tellingly is exactly the same size.--Thundergnat (talk) 00:53, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

---

For what it's worth department:

Perusing around some odd and dusty corners of the ole Google-net, ... er, I mean internet,   I came across several negative comments about the various tasks (and formats) concerning the Rosetta Code website;   some of the negatory statements were complaining about the loosey-goosey task definitions (and the various flavors on how the tasks/problems are presented --- that is, not having a more strict format, or even not having a common format),   and also that the task requirements are   "all over the place"   and most requirements aren't rigorous enough, and/or some such words to that effect,   and other minor complaints.   That's why I argue about people using   number   instead of   integer   and the like.   I don't believe I've ever won any of those changes   (some task author defend their original wording as if their first born's life depended on it).

To that end, I've been making minor changes   (I assume you or others may have noticed)   to some   (well, OK, OK, a not small number of)   Rosetta Code task's preambles,   mostly in the manner of:

•   trying to have each task contain a   ;Task:   section header --- this is more dangerous than ya think
•   changing   ;C.f.:   to   ;Related tasks:   whenever noticed
•   changing   See also   to   ;See also:   section headers
•   using a larger font for most mathematical formulae,   especially when:

•   Greek symbols are used
•   sub- and/or superscripts are used
•   when other hard-to-read glyphs are used

•   removing pronouns from the preamble:   ... Your task is to ...
•   removing superfluous wording:   ... The purpose of this task is to ...
•   more use of highlighted numbers and variable names instead of:   ... where "x" is equal to b or c and ...
•   more use of bullet points (either plain or numbered) instead of long comma-separated continuous lists
•   separating all the multiple   [[xxx]]   and   {{yyy}}   thingys into distinct lines
•   adding whitespace for visual fidelity
•   adding whitespace where it makes the reading of the text easier, and adds fluidity to your perusing
•   adding whitespace before the first text, this ensures that the (above) stuff won't be abutted with the task preamble
•   adding whitespace before the TOC (table-of-contents)

... Regarding this last bullet, this has become a concern   (in my mind)   ever since the last major Wiki's upgrade.   Previously, the TOC (on my screen, using FireFox, FireFox Aurora, and/or Microsoft's Internet Explorer),   the list in the TOC was always a very light blue.   Now the TOC list is white,   with nothing distinguishing it from the regular (the background, so to speak)   Rosetta Code task preamble.

It was this "sameness" that prompted me to add more whitespace before most TOC's to make it easier to find the TOC when scrolling.   The best of all worlds would be to have the "old" very light blue color reinstated somehow.   I have no idea where to change the TOC list color, but I'm sure it's possible.
By the way, that very light blue is the same color as the "box" for the   <lang xxx>   thingy.

I would like to add much more thingys   (er, I mean   Related tasks)   for a lot of Rosetta Code tasks, but that's 'nother kettle of fish.   (I used to do this kind of documentation for a living for quite a few years --- and most programmers get quite territorial about "their" wording (documentation) and don't take lightly to improvements and/or changes --- no-siree bob).   Some tasks already have a template, but I don't think I have the proper authority or permission to update those templates, and even add one, for that matter.   Primes are one such "category".   There are many others.   It helps curious people to find other   birds-of-a-feather,   especially if they don't know the wording to use to perform searches for (maybe) obscure (or hard to define) algorithms or procedures.

There has been some kickback here and there (reverts, but mostly deletions), and when it happens, I don't push it further, as I've said, I've used up my silver bullets earlier.   I also like to add appropriate JPEGs to a task's preamble,   but several have been deleted by one person, even though those images on the right-side of the preamble don't use up real estate on the preamble part of the Rosetta Code task.   Ya can lead a horse to water, but ya can't push a rope.   One guy (same as above) is reverting more than a few of my preamble changes, so if it gets worse, I'll probably just fade away from further changes.   No sense in wasting time if I try to make improvements to some task's preambles if it ruffles his feathers   (or steps on his toes).   Sometimes it feels like pushing a chain uphill. -- Gerard Schildberger (talk) 05:01, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Heronian triangles

Thank you for finding and correcting my edit on Heronian triangles! I have no idea what happened, but I certainly didn't mean to delete half the page. (I only happened across it just now.)

CRGreathouse (talk) 15:05, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

No long term harm done. It wasn't too difficult to recover. Cheers. --Thundergnat (talk) 19:00, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Uploading photos

Is there a trick to uploading photos? The photo shows in the preview and all seems okay until I try to upload and get the following warning:

Upload warning Could not read or write file "mwstore://local-backend/local-public/a/a7/Futurebasic_logo.jpg" due to insufficient permissions or missing directories/containers. Could not store file "/tmp/phpwWtwYV" at "mwstore://local-backend/local-public/a/a7/Futurebasic_logo.jpg". Could not delete lock file for "mwstore://local-backend/local-public/archive/a/a7". Could not delete lock file for "mwstore://local-backend/local-public/a/a7". Could not delete lock file for "mwstore://local-backend/local-public/archive/a/a7/20160829132005!Futurebasic_logo.jpg".

Still finding my way around here, and am not even sure this is the correct way to ask for assistance, so please bear with me.

--KenS (talk) 01:25, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

It appears that image uploads have been blocked since late May ~ early June 2016, not just for you, for everyone. I really don't have much more information about it than that. I believe the block to be intentional, I seem to remember Short Circuit saying something about problems with malicious image uploads (though I can't find where that might have been) and I haven't heard any time-frame of when they may be re-enabled.

Really, despite being an "admin", I have little more little more control over or knowledge of the inner workings of the site than you. A more appropriate title for me might be "janitor". ;-) I have the power to remove messes, but that's about it. Sorry. --Thundergnat (talk) 15:21, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

using of intermediate variables

Concerning the Rosetta Code task   Sorting three variables,   in the last comment of the section header for Perl 6, you noted:

 Note that this example is awkward and verbose to comply with the task requirement to use a bunch of intermediate variables.

Where did you see a task requirement   to use a bunch of intermediate variables?

The (one) algorithm shown in the task s preamble notes that it   could be   used and wasn't suggesting that it should be used.

If your assertion is correct, do you have a remedy (or improvement) for better wording in the task's requirements?
-- Gerard Schildberger (talk) 19:59, 30 April 2017 (UTC)