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Talk:Binary digits: Difference between revisions
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→Natural numbers: changed the wording slightly. -- ~~~~
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::::::::Conversion:A number crunching or string manipulation routine needs to be utilized to achieve this goal
::::::::[[User:Markhobley|Markhobley]] 18:18, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
==A mess?==
The task description is a mess. The task giver uses words like "decimal number", "digits" and "conversion" way too liberally. From what explanations are given on this page, the task should be better described as: take an integer, and write out a string consisting of 0s and 1s that represent the number in base 2. And the claim "some languages don't require conversion" is bunk, again due to the lack of clear definition of the words involved. --[[User:Ledrug|Ledrug]] 23:55, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
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:::Ah right. I would tend to refer to the argument as numerical, rather than binary in this case. By binary, I mean the base two numbering system. The argument is not really binary, if it is not in base two. (I am talking at input level, not cpu level here.) [[User:Markhobley|Markhobley]] 21:20, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
::::But neither output text nor internal numbers are inputs in and of themselves (though either of them can be, with appropriate external interfaces). So this is a meaningless distinction without additional unspecified structure. --[[User:Rdm|Rdm]] 22:39, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
:::::"The task is to output the sequence of binary digits for a given non negative decimal integer." - The word "given" here means supplied as input (this can be parametric input to the conversion routine, rather than user input), but I think that is splitting hairs. The task description looks fine to me. [[User:Markhobley|Markhobley]] 23:16, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
: It is hard to get a task description correct. The descriptions given might have needed some polish, but was a long way from being an outright mess, and could, and has been, improved over time. Tone can be very hard to convey in such short paragraphs common to RC and people can fail to see an encouragement to improve when couched in ambiguous terms. (Ambiguous in the sense that is the intent to get someone ''else'' to improve the task description, or is it to belittle someone)?
:Cut the guy some slack and lets all muck-in to improve things? --[[User:Paddy3118|Paddy3118]] 08:03, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
:: It happens way too often: sometimes a task is given without fully understanding its complexity ([[Last letter-first letter]]), sometimes the task giver has a rather naive understanding of the question asked ([[Convert decimal number]]), and sometimes the task giver doesn't know what's involved at all ([[Colour pinstripe/Printer]], [[Pinstripe/Printer]]), all of which give a lot of confusion to people who try to provide example solutions. Read through the comments on this page, and see how hazy the task giver's idea about "number", "digit", "number crunching" and "string" is. Don't you think that's a little irresponsible? Confusion and lack of clarity lead to varying intepretations of tasks, resulting in code that's not correct or doing wildly different things -- do you care about the content on this wiki, or is it enough just being nice and fuzzy while cutting everyone some slack? --[[User:Ledrug|Ledrug]] 08:59, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
:::It's a wiki. Just try and fix what you can. [[User:Markhobley|Markhobley]] 09:22, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
:::FWIW I have exact ideas about what "number", "digit", "number crunching", and "strings" are. To me, these are not hazy at all. It's just that my ideas do not necessarily match other people's ideas. :) Admittedly, I don't know a lot about printing, but rosetta code is teaching me some things here, and I can use google, so I will learn how to print.
:::Nice and fuzzy? No, nice and precise! I'm sure that there may well be other ways to get to precise, but being nice makes the journey more enjoyable. --[[User:Paddy3118|Paddy3118]] 10:12, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
== Natural numbers ==
The task description now reads "natural numbers". Do we all agree that natural numbers are integers greater than or equal to zero? Or is this another source of confusion? [[User:Markhobley|Markhobley]] 09:22, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
:Any question about zero from the wp link description shouldn't really matter for the purposes of this task. What does matter are that it ''doesn't'' include negative numbers with absolute value greater than zero. I'm sure someone could pick holes in this if they tried, but I think the clarification in the linked text should be OK for the purposes of the task. (But then I did add the link). --[[User:Paddy3118|Paddy3118]] 10:20, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
:: I think the matter of zero is very important to this task as some of the example programs don't handle the case of zero correctly, in that some example programs remove ''all'' leading zeroes, and in the case of a value of zero, a "null" value is returned. Since almost all program examples don't show the case for zero, it's hard for casual readers of other languages to recognize that (if) the error exists in the code (of specifically handling a zero case). I didn't flag those program examples as '''incorrect''' as I don't have a definitive way of proving my observations. It's a trivial case, but still important. Rockets blowing up, anyone? -- [[User:Gerard Schildberger|Gerard Schildberger]] 18:53, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
::: I concur Gerard. examples should work for zero but it is hard to check if output for zero is not shown. --[[User:Paddy3118|Paddy3118]] 20:33, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
:::: Yes, indeedy. I previously hurriedly added the special case of zero to the two REXX versions (to at least ''practice what I preach''). What prompted my comment above was that the '''NETREXX''' version had an error in it, but I couldn't verify that as I don't have a NetRexx interpreter. I'm 99% sure of the error, but I wouldn't want to bet my life on it and flag an example as incorrect just on my ''understanding'' of that language (and not its execution). -- [[User:Gerard Schildberger|Gerard Schildberger]] 20:43, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
== Task review process ==
Would it help for us to have a more structured process for getting tasks from draft to non-draft status? I can see, laterly, that part of the problem with the existing routine is lack of reasonably rapid attention and/or interest when new draft tasks are added. If there's interest, we can implement something. Right now, I've got a consensus-based approach with a minimum-required level of feedback in mind. (i.e. each task would need at least two or three people's input, if only a "looks good to me," and would need to incubate a minimum amount of time) --[[User:Short Circuit|Michael Mol]] 10:29, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
:I don't think we need to go over the top. We want to incourage innovation and development, not stifle it. Some tasks are more interesting than others, so some tasks may not have high traffic. It is a wiki, so contributors can always add and update the tasks. There may be some developers who are only looking at the non-draft tasks, so the drafts are just not getting attention. I don't think we should make the process more difficult than what it is and we don't want to lose skilled writers because of restrictive policies. We could have a 30 day incubation period to enable tasks to evolve, but I think that is the extent of what we should be doing. [[User:Markhobley|Markhobley]] 14:31, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
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