|
I disagree with the indirection on the infinite one, I don't see it being any different to most indicators that are just synonyms of the action you should apply. Granted not a common indicator that you would see (if ever), but it's not a requirement to make them easy!
I was in two minds about the "knot" part though. I am not a big fan of these "double indirections" as you call them (no idea what I would call them), but it made the clue sound better in this case, and I have certainly seen others use them too so I couldn't justify them being against the rules.
A tough one for sure.
I would be interested on what people think of the "drawing parallels?" part though, does that work as a definition for "rectangle"?
|
|
|
|
|
Drawing parallels suggests that the answer is a verb. Maybe two parallels would have been less cruel.
To return to my whingeing, there's the superfluous of. But it disappears if the clue becomes "Infinite recursion not hearing two parallels".
|
|
|
|
|
Very nice, I like that version better.
Makes me wonder... could I use that clue tomorrow but find a different answer that fits!
(probably not)
|
|
|
|
|
However you word it Greg it's still a poorly constructed clue, neither infinite or recursion indicate rectangle. End of story.
"I didn't mention the bats - he'd see them soon enough" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
|
|
|
|
|
I get that you could use infinite for endless; but "endless" generally means you lose only the last letter (or at most last syllable). In this instance you've made the larger part of the word the "end". Maybe "Starting recursion" would have been more appropriate? I thought clues were "meant" to start or end with the definition; really not sure that "drawing parallels" (or even "two parallels") really defines a rectangle?
... but then I've set some questionable clues myself (it turns out - didn't realise it at the time!) and no shame in that... 
|
|
|
|
|
You're absolutely right Derek it wasn't a well constructed clue as it didn't conform to any of the many unwritten rules.
"I didn't mention the bats - he'd see them soon enough" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
|
|
|
|
|
One of the unwritten laws ( there are many ) of constructing a cryptic clue, is, one of the clues words must point to the answer. in your clue they don't. Neither infinite or recursion mean rectangle. A good cryptic clue should be challenging but solvable - we can all write difficult clues but they won't conform to the cryptic rules. If one of mine isn't solved I feel that it was either poorly written or a good clue ( hopefully the latter ) but I've also been guilty of the former.
"I didn't mention the bats - he'd see them soon enough" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
|
|
|
|
|
I'm wrapping up alpha channel/alpha blending support in my graphics library.
It's really cool, but it highlighted a bunch of issues with my drawing routines - particularly my ellipse and arc drawing routines.
As it happens, they are drawing in the same place more than once for part of the draw operation, leading to - say you have yellow with an alpha of 50% - well if you layer it on itself you effectively get a yellow with an alpha of 75% so that's not a happy thing to draw twice with alpha blending.
I need to retool my drawing.
However, this highlights a performance issue as well, as the less I draw, the faster things go, so this is both setback and opportunity.
I'm really proud of the alpha channel support. It was not trivial to do, since there's no hardware support for it.
Real programmers use butterflies
|
|
|
|
|
honey the codewitch wrote: particularly my ellipse and arc drawing routines
Good old Bresenham, I assume?
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
|
|
|
|
|
not quite. there's a variant of it that does a mirrored technique so it only computes one corner, and then it uses integers to compute successive "widths". I'm not sure what it's called. There was a description of it on tutorialspoint and I used that as a guide for implementing it.
Real programmers use butterflies
|
|
|
|
|
Careful here. Exploiting symmetry is not a bad thing, but it might lead to having a SetPixel(x,y,color) method. That's a performance killer for Bresenham-type algorithms because of the address calculation that has to be done at every call. I prefer to have a memory pointer that is only incremented for horizontal steps or needs only a simple addition at every vertical step. Drawing a circle as four line segments (one for every quadrant) this way may be a lot faster than exploiting symmetry at all cost.
Maybe you should take a look at this old book from the days of Doom and Quake: Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book Special[^]
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
|
|
|
|
|
I used to own that book.
I only use setpixel when drawing outlined ones, and line segments when drawing filled ones.
however, I have been meaning to optimize the former to use line segments like my line drawing does. horizontal and vertical line segments are fast, because you can address entire rectangles at a time and set the color. I haven't gotten around to it yet. With alpha blending it doesn't matter anyway - i have to draw pixel by pixel.
I don't gain any advantage for drawing diagonal lines using this system, because of how most of the displays work.
Real programmers use butterflies
|
|
|
|
|
Nice.
It's not often that adding new features improve performance!
|
|
|
|
|
|
That's still amateur level. Next level is to tell them the truth and not say anything directly at all:
"Do you think I'm fat?"
"That's the smallest of your problems."
Instant stack overflow. If they can't love me, they shall fear me.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
|
|
|
|
|
Sometimes I wonder about F#...
I remember a while ago I spent the effort of learning all the syntax and then.. I dropped it.. perhaps because I found it hard to interact with F# and not worth the effort for only fuzzy benefit...
Can anyone enlighten me and motivate me to give F# another try?
|
|
|
|
|
Well, it's three letter "better" than C# ... and that's all I know about it.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
|
|
|
|
|
So You must be waiting for A# then.
"Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read." Frank Zappa 1980
|
|
|
|
|
What happened to B flat then?
|
|
|
|
|
Good Point.
Devs don't really like the word "Flat" as it has negative connotations. E.G. Flat Tyre and feeling flat.
So probably not such a good name for a programming language.
Sharp is well accepted as we think that it refers to our minds, our intelligence and our wit.
On the other hand, being a rather sedentary job, I noticed that Bb or B Flat is a supposedly an expensive fat burning belly cream that is supposed to flatten your stomach and remove stretch marks.
Just looked this up but I don't believe it.
In addition I should add that I know what you are doing here.
When A# is finally released, just don't tell the Devs that it has equivalence with Bb, else it is doomed.
"Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read." Frank Zappa 1980
|
|
|
|
|
I'm not a musician, but I thought the sequence of sharps in the major scales was
0. (C major)
1. F# (G major)
2. C# (D major
3. G# (A major)
4. D# (E major)
5. A# (B major)
6. E# (F# major)
7. B# (C# major)
...
6000000. (Lee Majors)
|
|
|
|
|
People that does a lot of math coding seems to like it, as F# give less noisy code.
|
|
|
|
|
Super Lloyd wrote: Sometimes I wonder about F#...
Sometimes I wonder about F-all. 
|
|
|
|
|
It's kind of less useful than it once was since C#'s LINQ and lambdas/anonymous methods are pretty mature and together provides functional programming within an imperative language, giving you the best of both worlds, so to speak. F# is geared toward purely functional programming like Scheme or Haskell, and as such is basically a glorified query language. It's great for mathematical style code, or query code, but not much else, honestly. While there's some modicum of state it's not really geared for stateful programming.
Real programmers use butterflies
|
|
|
|
|
yeah I had this feeling too...
my amin hobby interest is desktop UI app.. and F# seems to bring little here...
|
|
|
|
General 
News 
Suggestion 
Question 
Bug 
Answer 
Joke 
Praise 
Rant 
Admin 
Submit an article or tip
