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01:41:30 <SimonRC> so, after 15 mins discussing conditional keywords, we realise that we haven't decided on the significance of line-breaks
01:41:42 <SimonRC> we vote ... and get a 4-4 tie
01:46:37 <Pikhq> You know you're bored when you get an executable in 324 bytes. . .
01:47:17 <Pikhq> http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/software/tiny/teensy.html And you're really bored when you do this.
01:50:39 <SimonRC> ooh, now almost half-an-hour making a decision that one person could have made in 2 minutes
01:52:15 * SimonRC howls with laughter at the latest suggestions
01:52:40 <SimonRC> it comes to 48 possible forms of the simple two-armed conditional
01:54:03 <Pikhq> Damn, that's dumb.
01:54:31 <Pikhq> New rule: "Your language fails as an esolang when it's less esoteric than x86 assembly".
01:54:46 <SimonRC> we just voted in a 72-variation one
01:55:13 <oerjan> exponential growth, yay!
01:55:16 <SimonRC> "IZ <cond> [?] [(.|\n) YARLY] (.|\n) <code> (.|\n) [NOWAI (.|\n) <code>] KTHX"
02:09:10 <oerjan> have you reached 150 yet? :)
02:09:59 <SimonRC> no, the vote was final for the moment
02:11:44 <SimonRC> ISTR one of us diong this before
02:12:44 <Pikhq> Of course, I'm doing "Hello, world", which is a bit less trivial.
02:12:50 <Pikhq> SimonRC: What, the "really small asm program"?
02:13:22 <Pikhq> Um, yeah. That website, I think, was done by one of us.
02:13:33 <SimonRC> there was a micro-esolang, too
02:19:58 <Pikhq> Mmkay, now I'm down to 101 bytes. . .
02:21:39 <Pikhq> Now I'm down to segfault bytes.
02:21:46 <Pikhq> Just a simple "Hello, world".
02:22:00 <bsmntbombdood> have you done the elf header overlapping stuff yet?
02:22:22 <Pikhq> I can't see a way to actually fit my code *inside* the elf header.
02:23:53 <Pikhq> Hmm. . . I wonder how many bytes a jmp call would take.
02:24:32 <Pikhq> *That* much I have done.
02:24:53 <Pikhq> His second suggested overlap is broken, though.
02:27:23 <bsmntbombdood> maybe put the first part of the program inside the elf header and jmp to the rest?
02:28:08 <Pikhq> I was thinking that.
02:29:24 <Pikhq> The problem is, I can't quite figure out a) how many bytes are being used there b) how many bytes I have to actually work with.
02:29:36 <bsmntbombdood> or write "hi world" instead and put the data there
02:29:55 <Pikhq> Now, that's a thought. . .
02:30:38 <Pikhq> Now, just to figure out how many bytes my code is actually *using*.
02:30:51 <Pikhq> Preferably per instruction.
02:31:01 <Pikhq> This'd be easier if I hadn't learned assembly earlier today.
02:33:23 <Pikhq> Mmkay. Got it down to 87, thanks to the idea of putting the data in the header.
02:33:36 <SimonRC> in that time, we did what one man could do in 20 minutes
02:34:44 <Pikhq> Let's see if I can get a shorter way to exit. . .
02:35:31 <SimonRC> 25 minutes to decide on ADD, TIEMZ, NURF, and OVAR
02:35:40 <Pikhq> Segfaulting grants 79 bytes.
02:35:52 <SimonRC> just make the spec say the program must print "segfault" and exit
02:36:21 <Pikhq> Well, if *that* is all I'm going to do, all I need is the ELF header.
02:39:00 <oerjan> "Wadler later formulated a law to describe how effort was allotted to various topics: semantics is discussed half as much as syntax, syntax is discussed half as much as lexical syntax, and lexical syntax is discussed half as much as the syntax of comments.
02:39:32 <oerjan> (from A History of Haskell)
02:39:41 <SimonRC> at the end we just about managed to squeeze in a vote saying that we would have only int math initially
02:39:59 <SimonRC> though no-one bothered to say what *width* of integer
02:42:04 <oerjan> which of course leads to the obvious question: have you decided on comment syntax?
02:43:22 <oerjan> i suggest ALSO as comment continuation :)
02:43:40 <oerjan> or whatever the correct spelling is.
02:44:49 <Pikhq> bsmntbombdood: I get the feeling his last header is broken.
02:45:43 <Pikhq> Which, of course, it is.
02:47:25 <bsmntbombdood> i wonder just how slow 2**16 bit arithmatic would be
02:57:09 <Pikhq> With a bit more munging, I was able to get "Hello world\n" to fit in the ELF header.
02:58:47 <Pikhq> I wonder what the a.out specs look like.
03:37:52 <Pikhq> Mmkay. If this *worked* the way I thought, I'd have a damned small program by now.
03:39:53 <Pikhq> I, uh, don't have a.out support in-kernel.
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03:49:30 <bsmntbombdood> i think you can represent any complex number in it
03:50:58 <oerjan> it's base -4 with a twist
03:53:29 <Pikhq> Would anyone here happen to know the intimacies of the Linux a.out format well enough to tell me whether or not I'm being an idiot?
03:54:07 <GregorR-L> Pikhq: Intimacies? No. Enough to tell me whether you're being an idiot? Maybe.
03:54:42 <Pikhq> http://pikhq.nonlogic.org/hello-2.asm
03:55:17 <Pikhq> I probably am doing something really stupid, like "trying to ignore the assembler's nice little 'header' and such".
03:55:29 <GregorR-L> I don't, however, speak ASM very well.
03:55:37 <Pikhq> . . . Well, that is exactly what I *am* doing stupid, probably.
03:55:49 <Pikhq> GregorR-L: Nor do I; I just learned it *today*.
03:57:00 * Pikhq would *prefer* being able to do this 'uber-tiny Hello, World' thing using a.out, just because the header is much, much smaller.
03:57:02 <oerjan> 131,132,133,120,...,110,...,100,...
03:57:02 <bsmntbombdood> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quater-imaginary_base
03:57:51 <Pikhq> I may just have to stick with my psuedo-ELF version.
03:58:06 <oerjan> and when he was in high school no less
03:58:37 <Pikhq> oerjan: So what? I've written a few heaps of code in high school. :p
04:02:14 <Pikhq> For my "Why the *hell* did you do this", working version: http://pikhq.nonlogic.org/hello.asm
04:02:29 <Pikhq> 87 bytes of "Hello, world".
04:06:33 <Pikhq> I'll get around to that later.
04:06:41 <Pikhq> I still need to beat the dead horse. :p
04:27:38 * oerjan wonders if anyone ever used the quater-imaginary base seriously in computers
04:31:00 <oerjan> maybe you could do multiplication quickly or something
04:31:18 <oerjan> exact arithmetic, anyhow
04:33:58 <Pikhq> Uh, hi. I'd like to introduce you to the mpz_t type.
04:36:06 <oerjan> i see one example: "Simplified optical complex multiplication using quater-imaginary number representation."
04:38:51 <oerjan> "But it takes a true genius (No offence Sid), to invent something as wacky as a Quater Imaginary Base Number System !"
04:39:16 <oerjan> thus we conclude that our bsmntbombdood is a genius too :)
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04:59:58 <Pikhq> bsmntbombdood: Fine. Here's something for you.
05:00:31 <Pikhq> struct real_t {mpz_t integer, fractional};
05:01:58 <Pikhq> What? That can represent all reals that fit in RAM.
05:02:36 <Pikhq> Those don't fit in RAM.
05:02:46 <Pikhq> Unless you've got a Turing macine.
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05:04:20 <Pikhq> But the Unicode "touché" is *IRC* good.
05:04:37 <Pikhq> touch\'e is only \tex good.
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05:05:34 <Pikhq> BTW, I think "touché" renders properly in recent Tex builds, anyways. ;)
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05:43:01 <bsmntbombdood> hmm, by representing strings as trees you get constant time concatenation and O(log n) time indexing
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05:59:39 <Pikhq> Mmkay, I'm thinking that my little "Hello, world" program is the smallest asm one that will run on a 2.6 kernel.
06:09:53 <Pikhq> There's a 59 byte one, but it won't run on my system.
06:15:46 <Pikhq> Runs on Gregor's box and Leibniz.
06:16:12 <Pikhq> Linux gdeskgor 2.6.17-14mdv #1 SMP Wed May 9 21:11:43 MDT 2007 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz GNU/Linux
06:16:24 <Pikhq> Linux leibniz 2.6.8-3-386 #1 Thu Sep 7 05:39:52 UTC 2006 i686 GNU/Linux
06:16:31 <Pikhq> Notice something in common there?
06:22:29 <GregorR-L> Other than i686 GNU/Linux? No, not really.
06:24:16 <Pikhq> What, the "it runs on those"?
06:24:32 <Pikhq> . . . Don't expect coherency from me.
06:24:45 <Pikhq> Please, don't. I've been doing a whee bit too much x86.
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16:13:07 <SimonRC> oklopol: is that a new sexual deviancy?
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16:23:27 <oklopol> no, that's my little bother.
16:23:53 <oklopol> he has a scoping disorder.
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17:38:01 <SimonRC> also, I am sure I have seen him elsenet...
18:07:02 <oklopol> yes exactly, it's very hard :<
18:08:11 <oklopol> even harder trying to explain a problem trying to keep it a double entendre
18:08:32 <oklopol> i now have my constants defined in every function.
18:52:07 <oklopol> python has neither lexical nor dynamical scoping
18:52:37 <oklopol> so... how do i make a global i don't have to explicitly "include" in every function with "global"
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19:11:04 <Pikhq> Globals are either prefixed with ::, or included in your function's namespace with "global" or "upvar".
19:32:10 * Pikhq is too much of a Tcler for his own good
19:43:38 <jix_> some things are really hard to phrase
19:50:36 <SimonRC> I occasionally end up expressing things with explicit qualifiers
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20:09:54 * SimonRC boggles at the number of letters in "haemmorrhage".
20:10:08 <SimonRC> what's wrong with just "hemorage"?
20:10:37 <oerjan> what's wrong with just "bogles"?
20:10:57 <lament> what's wrong with just ""?
20:11:17 <SimonRC> oerjan: "bogles" would be prnounces differently
20:12:01 <oerjan> actually it is just haemorrhage.
20:13:10 <oerjan> ae is obviously from a greek diphthong, spelling latinized.
20:15:14 <oerjan> wikipedia says AE:e, BE:ae
20:16:47 <oerjan> anyway norwegian does not seem to have that word but we spell another word "hemoroider"
20:17:05 <oerjan> (google says about equally with or without double r)
20:17:33 <oerjan> we have a policy of simplifying spellings
20:17:42 <SimonRC> English is usually the best language for technical vocab.
20:18:02 <SimonRC> English has a policy of keeping the original language's spelling.
20:18:22 <lament> especially in words like "jalapeno"
20:18:31 <Pikhq> English has a hell of a lot of technical vocabulary. . .
20:18:44 <SimonRC> most computer terms, for example
20:18:56 <Pikhq> It's also got a very, very confusing system of spelling, simply because it uses the spelling for the original language.
20:19:05 <oerjan> anyway norwegian also seems to be less willing to use excessively technical terms for common medical words
20:19:25 <SimonRC> The French, being the closest "foreign" country, naturally hate anything English (linguistically).
20:19:58 <Pikhq> Which is kind of ironic, considering that they forced *their* language into ours.
20:20:06 <oerjan> although we are not as fanatical as the icelandic, who translate nearly everything.
20:20:34 <SimonRC> "Hallelujiah" "café" "ballet", etc
20:20:55 <lament> english is just a gigantic pile of garbage, linguistically.
20:21:13 <lament> it's so complicated, most linguists never bother studying it.
20:21:13 * SimonRC recalls PTerry's remark on that.
20:21:25 <SimonRC> the verb declensions are ok
20:21:26 <Pikhq> English is ever language.
20:21:29 <Pikhq> Every. Single. One.
20:21:41 <SimonRC> and we have got rid of fucking noun genders
20:21:46 <oklopol> <Pikhq> English has a hell of a lot of technical vocabulary. . .
20:21:46 <oklopol> <SimonRC> most computer terms, for example
20:21:48 <Pikhq> (there we go. I used 3 different linguistic sources in a single sentence!)
20:21:52 <oklopol> <SimonRC> The French, being the closest "foreign" country, naturally hate anything English (linguistically).
20:21:53 <oklopol> <Pikhq> Which is kind of ironic, considering that they forced *their* language into ours.
20:21:59 <oerjan> i heard there is an indian language which considers all english words included in theirs...
20:22:08 <Pikhq> I don't *think* so.
20:22:26 <SimonRC> Ok, so your hand is male, the fingers are female, the thumb is neuter, and the wrist is female of neuter depending on which word you use. WFT?!
20:23:12 <Pikhq> "And then the tsunami pummeled the fjord". There we go. One sentence, 4 languages.
20:23:40 <lament> SimonRC: it depends on how the word sounds, not on what the thing is.
20:24:06 <lament> SimonRC: in the languages i'm familiar with, anyway (spanish, russian, ukrainian, hebrew, portuguese)
20:24:13 <oerjan> french is not that easy.
20:24:23 <Pikhq> "... after the cumulonimbus clouds came in, following the Czar."
20:24:53 <oerjan> the germanic languages with genders are not so easy either
20:25:09 <oerjan> in both cases most endings have turned into -e or nothing
20:25:42 <oerjan> while in spanish/russian the endings still can be several vowels, mostly correlated with gender
20:26:01 <SimonRC> noice that "came" uses an strong anglo-saxon past tense, whereas "pummelled" uses a weak one.
20:27:36 <Pikhq> Even our Germanic roots are muddled. . . I think it's 4 or 5 Germanic languages that contribute to our *early* language.
20:27:40 <oerjan> on the other hand i read somewhere that you can guess most french words by the last letters, but it's a bit more complicated
20:27:42 <lament> oerjan: this will probably be eventually followed up with removal of gender from germanic langs
20:27:53 <oerjan> english has already done so
20:28:06 <lament> not in our lifetime of course
20:28:11 <oerjan> swedish and danish has collapsed masculine and feminine
20:28:14 <lament> in the meantime, just learn spanish instead :)
20:28:30 <oklopol> every natural language will die pretty soon.
20:28:35 <Pikhq> Ne, ne, ne! Lernu Esperanton.
20:28:38 <lament> the overwhelming majority of words have "regular" gender
20:28:48 <Pikhq> oklopol: Languages don't die, they blend.
20:29:08 <lament> the big ones aren't in any danger at teh moment, though.
20:29:11 <Pikhq> They 'die' by merging into another language.
20:29:11 <oklopol> they die if no one remembers them anymore.
20:29:16 <lament> Pikhq: no, often they just die
20:29:33 <lament> Pikhq: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_death
20:30:05 <lament> the majority of languages currently spoken are in immediate danger of death.
20:30:13 <lament> it's a serious issue for linguists.
20:30:43 <lament> (immediate, as in right now, not in a couple hundred years)
20:30:58 <oklopol> they will merge into english first, prolly, then, hopefully, they all die and ppl start using a _good_ language, an artificially made one.
20:31:00 <Pikhq> I stand corrected.
20:31:01 <lament> within 1-2 generations
20:31:15 <lament> many currently still spoken languages will die
20:31:16 <SimonRC> oklopol: that last phrase is an oxmoron
20:31:34 <SimonRC> The problem is that no speakable language offers that much over any other, apart from the people who use it.
20:31:47 <oklopol> as i also am an ox moron, you will have to tell me what that is
20:32:44 <lament> oklopol: if everybody in the world speaks one language... that will just suck
20:32:56 <SimonRC> the artificial langs can;t really be much better than any natural ones
20:33:00 <oklopol> perhaps, why not make more than one language?
20:33:20 <lament> languages are highly evolved tools
20:33:46 <oerjan> perhaps in a few hundred years spoken languages will give way to visual cybernetically transmitted ones...
20:33:49 <lament> just as you can't design an organism better suited for survival that the naturally evolved ones, you can't design a language that's better than the ones we have
20:34:05 <lament> the existing stuff is just too good
20:34:09 <oerjan> (unless we somehow find a "natural" telepathy)
20:34:18 <lament> yes, but you're ignorant
20:34:32 <SimonRC> beyond the obviously awkard things, like having 93 different phonemic clicks and 8273 verb declensions, there is not much you can do to make a language better
20:34:47 <lament> SimonRC: that's not "awkward", that's "expressive"
20:34:52 <Pikhq> lament: I'm going to beg to differ. . .
20:35:11 <SimonRC> it mostly comes down to libraries, i.e. vocab, which English is good at
20:35:26 <oklopol> i don't have anything on paper about this yet, so you will have to wait a few years for my arguments.
20:35:34 <lament> English is an excellent language. I love it.
20:35:39 <Pikhq> I can make an organism which is *much* better than other organisms in certain niches.
20:35:46 <lament> Of course I love the other ones too.
20:35:48 <SimonRC> If you increase the density, people end up speaking slower by ecxactly the same amount because everything is more fragile
20:36:10 <lament> SimonRC: pretty much; nevertheless, it's good for things like poetry
20:36:32 <SimonRC> if you make it more logical, you find that many people don't think logically, and that they want to express some compilcated things often and some simple things rarely
20:36:33 <lament> SimonRC: a language that doesn't support poetry well is not particularly interesting :)
20:36:55 <SimonRC> that last point is of particular note...
20:37:29 <lament> english is very expressive thanks mostly to vocab
20:37:34 <SimonRC> learning some Set theory, Prolog, and Haskell did far more for me than 4 years of French
20:37:47 <lament> SimonRC: how are those things at all related?
20:38:03 <SimonRC> well, languages are supposed to offer different views on the world
20:38:04 <Pikhq> Esperanto bonas por poezio, mi pensas.
20:38:26 <lament> esperanto is terrible simply because of the suffixes :)
20:38:39 <SimonRC> At first, I kept getting frustrated by that lack of HoF in English.
20:38:40 <Pikhq> Ne, ne, ne. Tre bona!
20:38:42 <lament> of course, that's not really an issue
20:38:55 <lament> just write unrhymed poetry, like many natural langs do
20:39:13 <lament> but small vocab is also an impediment
20:39:29 <SimonRC> you just said an empty line!
20:39:48 <Pikhq> Not my fault you don't do Unicode.
20:40:27 <lament> anyway having many languages is nice :)
20:40:55 <lament> SimonRC: having many languages is more stable than having one
20:41:08 <lament> if you have one, it will break apart into several
20:41:15 <Pikhq> SimonRC: The history of the human race would like to come up and tell you about this bit about "always having multiple languages".
20:41:38 <SimonRC> I meant it isn't stable *now*.
20:41:44 <lament> SimonRC: latin is an excellent example, and it's happening slowly with spanish and english
20:41:47 <SimonRC> we seem to be heading for a few dozen
20:42:02 <lament> SimonRC: hopefully more
20:42:13 <SimonRC> lament: gobal communications may slow down the differentiation
20:42:18 <lament> SimonRC: there's a lot of, for example, tiny european languages that coexist with the main language and aren't dying
20:42:55 <lament> a whole LOT of langs are dying in africa and south america and australia
20:42:59 <lament> they will most likely die
20:43:45 <lament> i believe there's something like 6000 at the moment and we're heading for 600 very very soon :(
20:43:58 <lament> but 600 is still decent
20:44:45 <Pikhq> I get the feeling that the number of languages in existence is cyclic. . .
20:45:02 <Pikhq> We got a ton of languages dying or converging at one point, and later, we get them breaking up. . .
20:45:14 <lament> Pikhq: no, globalization makes it smaller
20:45:23 <lament> Pikhq: it's been declining for a while
20:45:33 <lament> (discovery of america was a biggie there)
20:45:39 <Pikhq> Yeah, it *does*, but I can't help but feel that it more changes the intensity of the cycle.
20:46:05 <lament> Pikhq: when latin broke apart, the number of parts was much smaller than the number of languages that died as latin expanded
20:46:07 <oklopol> next cycle starts when when the human race disperses into outer space
20:46:30 <lament> Pikhq: we used to have many small tribes living pretty much separatly
20:46:40 <lament> Pikhq: so, a huge number of languages, each one with only a couple hundred speakers
20:46:48 <lament> this is still the situation in some parts of the world
20:46:48 <Pikhq> lament: Yeah. The increasing globalisation *changes the intensity* of the cycle.
20:46:58 <lament> all these tiny languages will surely die
20:47:15 <oerjan> no, it changes the basic isolation parameter
20:47:26 <Pikhq> You don't disprove my point by proving it; you *really* don't.
20:47:31 <lament> Pikhq: you think things like the internet do nothing to decrease the number of languages?
20:47:56 <lament> and to "stabilize" existing ones
20:48:12 <Pikhq> lament: Of *course* I do. It's just that that means that when the cycle goes around to *increase* the number of languages, there will be fewer languages at *that* peak than the previous one.
20:48:20 <oerjan> the internet _could_ stabilize a language that was thinly dispersed
20:48:23 <lament> spanish, for example, was falling apart steadily
20:48:31 <lament> but now the process is slowed down by media and pop culture
20:48:35 <oklopol> in finland it's mostly the less intellectual ones that adapt english into their spoken finnish
20:48:42 <lament> as people in spain watch latin american movies, etc
20:48:57 <Pikhq> Although the languages would probably split apart *less* simply because of globalisation, it will still happen.
20:48:57 <oklopol> i doubt each and every word i write.
20:49:02 <Pikhq> (especially with the smaller ones)
20:49:33 <lament> usually languages split after a big expansion of a single language followed by the collapse of the associated empire
20:49:34 <Pikhq> Consider Esperanto. . . And the *class* of languages that have formed around it, the Esperantidons.
20:49:38 <oerjan> it does not change the _intensity_ of the cycle but its balance point
20:49:48 <Pikhq> oerjan: Fair enough.
20:50:06 <oerjan> and we don't yet know whether the balance point has shifted so far that it is now 1.
20:50:19 <lament> it's "cyclic" in the same death as the "circle of life" is cyclic
20:50:27 <lament> it helps to think of languages as living things
20:52:23 <lament> (thinking of them as species is more accurate but less exciting)
20:52:25 <oerjan> like bacteria perhaps, which also have the ability to merge genetic material
20:52:38 <oklopol> i just removed about a grapeful of my hair 8|
20:53:18 <SimonRC> you measure hair by the grapful?
20:53:29 <lament> the reason artificial languages can't work is that they'll stop being artificial as they're used
20:53:30 <oerjan> oklopol: that may or may not be a bad thing, dependent on whether you are a good self-hairdresser...
20:53:47 <oklopol> lament: not if that's not allowed.
20:53:52 <lament> oklopol: not allowed??
20:54:07 <oerjan> lament: that's what has happened with several signed languages, i guess
20:54:11 <SimonRC> oklopol: what arrangement is you hair in?
20:54:19 <lament> oerjan: that's a good example actually
20:54:21 <Pikhq> lament: A good few artificial languages are just *meant* to be artificial at the start, with the *hope* that they'll become natural.
20:54:30 <lament> Pikhq: well, the problem is
20:54:36 <lament> Pikhq: say you have esperanto, it's nice and regular
20:54:45 <Pikhq> Not true, but anyways.
20:54:56 <lament> Pikhq: if people actually spoke it, it would become irregular in no time
20:55:03 <lament> Pikhq: as i understand, this has already started to happen
20:55:10 <lament> this did happen to sign languages
20:55:16 <Pikhq> It's also forked into the Esperantidos. . .
20:55:42 <Pikhq> (Some, like Ido, are mutually intelligible, so are more like dialects)
20:55:50 <SimonRC> someone comes along and decides to add voicing harmony, then they dike out the voicing distingtion on sybilants, then fuck around with it some more, and before you know it, it's and irregular mess
20:56:26 <lament> SimonRC: many things happen naturally, without anybody specifically "deciding" to do stuff
20:57:36 <lament> the only way to avoid changing a language is to not use it :)
20:57:51 <lament> (case in point: hebrew)
20:57:58 <oerjan> however some language changes probably really started as deliberate in-jokes
20:58:16 <Pikhq> Or to make it so delicate that a change will tumble the whole thing down. . .
20:58:18 <lament> hebrew was revived after 2K years of beind dead
20:58:35 <lament> so it is less "evolved" than other languages
20:58:49 <Pikhq> Some sort of esoteric natural language. . .
20:58:58 <lament> the people responsible for revival actually made up a whole bunch of words
20:59:13 <lament> for things that weren't around 2000 years ago
20:59:18 <oerjan> Pikhq: if you make it too delicate then it will not work in noisy environments
20:59:42 <Pikhq> oerjan: You could just as well make the *grammer* far to delicate, instead of the phonemes.
21:00:07 <lament> Pikhq: people will just simplify it then.
21:00:19 <lament> this is happening in many languages
21:00:49 <oerjan> Pikhq: but if there is redundancy then there _will_ be possibility for compression
21:00:49 <lament> eg latin lost its cases and several verb tenses
21:01:40 <Pikhq> Hmm. . . The Malbolge of esoteric languages?
21:01:47 <lament> oerjan: and if there's no redundancy, people will introduce it, because redundancy is useful
21:02:02 <oerjan> although several new tenses were added, so romance languages may actually be more complicated on that point
21:02:11 <lament> oerjan: i don't think they are.
21:02:20 <lament> oerjan: and spanish is losing some tenses too
21:02:37 <oerjan> lament: i just recall someone saying so
21:03:18 <oerjan> it may depend on if you count the compound tenses as well, i guess
21:04:37 <lament> spanish lost future subjunctive
21:04:45 <lament> "The future subjunctive is rarely used in modern Spanish and mostly appears in old texts, legal documents, and certain expressions"
21:06:25 <oklopol> most recent changes in finnish are just that a few complex tenses have died because the majority of finnish ppl don't know how to use them
21:06:28 <oerjan> one of the tenses formed after Latin from merging infinitive with haber, i guess?
21:07:37 -!- Trey_ has joined.
21:08:10 -!- Trey_ has changed nick to W|cked.
21:13:48 <SimonRC> W|cked: are you one of the language-the-shall-not-be-named devs
21:14:36 <SimonRC> (the actually-nothing-wrong-with-it-but-getting-excessive-attention language)
21:28:21 <SimonRC> Did you hear about their 2-armed IF?
21:29:14 <SimonRC> W|cked: Due to various compromises between everyone's different ideas, it comes in 72 different forms, all functionally identical.
21:29:34 <SimonRC> I was on the comittee that decided that
21:29:55 <SimonRC> Eris a god who gets results.
21:30:25 <W|cked> For what language are we talking about?
21:31:38 <SimonRC> I'll dig out the description
21:32:00 <oerjan> note that they are not 72 _completely_ different forms, just a form with several independent variations
21:32:05 <SimonRC> we voted in the following: "IZ <cond> [?] [(.|\n) YARLY] (.|\n) <code> (.|\n) [NOWAI (.|\n) <code>] KTHX"
21:33:29 <oerjan> a lot of that comes from treating . and \n as equivalent.
21:33:50 <oerjan> which actually sounds sensible.
21:34:15 <SimonRC> we also decided thaat everything is a 1d array, I think
21:34:18 <oerjan> haskell does the same with ; and \n
21:34:36 <oerjan> for the right definition of \n
21:34:49 <SimonRC> actually it has some slightly-compilcated rules about turning whitespace into ;{}
21:35:08 <SimonRC> the grammar is in terms of {}; , not whitespace
21:35:53 <oerjan> without that you get 2*2*1*1*2 = 8
21:36:14 <oerjan> python may also be similar
21:36:58 -!- jix_ has quit ("CommandQ").
21:38:17 <oerjan> what's that YARLY about?
21:39:07 -!- iamchrist has changed nick to aarcane.
21:39:39 <oklopol> "noway" is "else if(false)"?
21:40:26 <oerjan> IZ - YARLY - NOWAI - KTHZ = IF - THEN - ELSE - END, i guess
21:41:00 <oerjan> not _that_ strange, apart from the variations on YARLY
21:41:46 <lament> why are we discussing lolcode
21:42:01 <oerjan> hm, in fact that is a bit broken, you can have ? . YARLY
21:42:58 <lament> SimonRC: you have some kind of unhealthy interest in this language. You keep bringing it up.
21:43:32 <lament> at least edit its esolang page then :)
21:44:29 <oerjan> hard to do when it is still under construction
21:44:39 <Pikhq> SimonRC: Learn a less odd language, like assembly.
21:45:10 <lament> lolcode doesn't seem particularly odd from what i've heard about it
21:45:25 <lament> it seems the developers are not knowledgeable enough to introduce non-standard features
21:45:40 <lament> (not knowledgeable and not imaginative enough)
21:45:49 <Pikhq> Fine. Learn a *more* odd language.
21:58:23 <SimonRC> how do you lot remember who everyone is on this channel?
21:58:31 <SimonRC> there are so many here now
21:59:02 <lament> and i'm pretty sure you're SimonRC
21:59:11 <lament> those others, i have no idea
21:59:36 <SimonRC> but I forget things like whether GregorR or RogerTheGreat is the on with the hats.
21:59:44 <Pikhq> That would be Gregor.
22:00:07 <SimonRC> mst of you blur together a lot for me
22:00:18 <oerjan> i'm the one who has far too many towels.
22:00:30 <Pikhq> Even me, Mr "I <3 PEBBLE to much"?
22:01:32 <oerjan> well, do you forget things like that about people outside the net?
22:02:53 <oerjan> gregorR should be easy, we have pictures of him.
22:03:50 <oerjan> rogerthegreat is a bit vague to me too.
22:06:30 <oerjan> i guess information sort of accretes on people until it reaches critical mass
22:07:17 <lament> oerjan is the gay norwegian farmer
22:07:30 <lament> and fizzie is the retired scuba diver with 7 cats
22:08:34 <oerjan> Pikhq is the obnoxious 9 year old with plans for world domination.
22:09:48 <Pikhq> Feeling 'complemented' here.
22:10:36 <oerjan> Lament is the Russian mafia hitman.
22:11:11 <lament> people who know that little factoid tend to not live for very long
22:11:48 <lament> oerjan: congrats, you just doomed everyone in the channel
22:12:24 <oerjan> oh that's ok, just part of my plans for world domination. besides i had to kill them anyhow since you revealed i was gay.
22:13:04 <oklopol> i have a complete personality assigned to all of you.
22:13:07 <lament> i thought that was public knowledge, hence the oerjan.isgay.com website and all that
22:13:21 <oklopol> it just might be biased for those who talk little.
22:13:42 <lament> let's just ban all those who talk little
22:14:59 <oklopol> lament... i think of you as a connection between functional and imperative programming... i have no idea where that has come from :)
22:15:02 <oerjan> indeed i had to move out of the closet. it got too full of towels.
22:16:11 <oklopol> plus, i have a who-is-friends-with-whom diagram in my head, i guess deduced from conversations of small groups
22:16:54 <lament> I mostly play music and take pictures and do no esoteric programming.
22:17:01 <lament> I did, however, take a course with cpressey at one point.
22:17:09 <oklopol> oh, ah, lament is friends with GregorR yet talks about math, GregorR i've mostly seen talking about c++.
22:17:25 <lament> (not that cpressey is ever around)
22:17:30 <oklopol> lament: you have a does-a-lot brand on you.
22:17:57 <SimonRC> I can't remember which of you is the other one who konws Haskell...
22:18:01 <lament> oh, and i put up falsebot which inspired egobot
22:18:22 <oklopol> and... SimonRC i guess, a bit
22:18:56 <SimonRC> "Oooh, like, we can do duck typing. Yay!"
22:19:19 <oerjan> where is that ehird guy again? i finally got his little language implemented after i switched from Perl to Python
22:19:26 <SimonRC> and there is no conflict between cowboy.draw() and sprite.draw(), nosiree
22:19:51 <SimonRC> (note: Haskell can resolve that ambiguity just fine)
22:20:27 <oerjan> with modules, but then so can python
22:20:36 <SimonRC> nah, python isn;t a bad language at all
22:20:40 <oklopol> oerjan: i made some programs with sadol when <don't remember name> was around, and he then disappeared for a few months
22:21:11 <oklopol> i guess that'll happen to you too
22:21:19 <SimonRC> It's just that my experienc of it is spending half an hour implementing some algebraic data types, then realising that it would be easier in a language with native support for the darned things
22:23:20 <oerjan> i am sure some people have the opposite experience with objects in a functional language
22:30:11 <oklopol> why do i still have to write essays on paper... i now have to erase about 70 words just to add one sentence i accidentally left out.
22:30:30 <oklopol> i'm so in the conversation.
22:30:38 <oerjan> you are not allowed to use a printout?
22:32:16 <SimonRC> do it on computer first, then copy it out longhand?
22:32:48 <oklopol> yeah... that's what i should've done.
22:33:13 <oklopol> i finished the essay right on time, the night before i should've returned it
22:33:34 <oklopol> but it took me 6 months to finally copy it on paper and turn it in :)
22:35:14 <oklopol> plus this makes no sense since my handwriting is undecipherable
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22:58:17 * Pikhq still doesn't appreciate being called a 9 year old. . .
22:58:26 <Pikhq> That's an insult to 9 year olds everywhere, I fear.
22:58:59 <oerjan> would 99 year old be better?
22:59:15 <Pikhq> I'm not quite that senile.
22:59:49 <Pikhq> You can call me that if I get a hip replacement.
22:59:53 <oerjan> but your perception is clearly distorted by your condition.
23:01:48 <Pikhq> Of course it's distorted by my 17-year-old-ness.
23:02:53 <oerjan> well, 17 year old dogs are often senile.
23:03:13 <oerjan> (you thought no one knew you were a dog on the internet?)
23:03:15 <Pikhq> I'm a member of Homo sapiens, last I checked.
23:03:26 <lament> i thought only oerjan was homo
23:03:28 <Pikhq> . . . Fine. I'm only a dog when I'm online.
23:03:35 <Pikhq> When I'm offline, I change species.
23:04:02 <Pikhq> And a genius one at that.
23:10:11 <oklopol> wow, ich bin fucking fertig :)
23:11:14 <oklopol> following conversations and playing irc trivia i write 1 wpm on average
23:12:10 <oklopol> i'm pretty sure i'll never have to write another essay in german or swedish, excluding matriculation.
23:13:01 <Pikhq> One word per minute?
23:13:05 <Pikhq> That's a bit. . . Slow.
23:13:12 <oerjan> und there war viel rejoicing.
23:13:46 <Pikhq> ARGH!!! GERMANISH!
23:15:38 <oklopol> it's a bit slow, that exactly was my point
23:16:12 <oklopol> of course, standard deviation is needed before jumping into conclusions.
23:16:24 <lament> germany outlawed hacking tools
23:16:26 <Pikhq> Oh, you mean the average for essay writing. . .
23:16:43 <Pikhq> lament: I think their definition is vague enough to include the human brain.
23:16:55 <oerjan> Pikhq: have you seen Folkspraak?
23:17:44 <Pikhq> Why would I care about the people's speaking?
23:18:07 <oklopol> usually you hear it, now see.
23:21:16 <oerjan> it was an auxiliary Germanish language that we discussed on the conlang mailing list years ago. I am surprised to see it has a (disputed notability) Wikipedia article, and (not as surprisingly) has split into several versions.
23:21:24 <oklopol> tonight, i'm gonna go to sleep early! ------>
23:22:58 -!- CakeProphet_ has quit (Remote closed the connection).
23:27:39 <lament> Pikhq was on a conlang list?
23:28:39 <SimonRC> I am on CONLANG-L and the ZBB.
23:34:41 <lament> quoting wp: "there is no article in Latin, Sanskrit, Persian or in some modern Indo-European languages such as standard Russian and Czech."
23:34:49 <lament> what's this non-standard russian that has articles
23:42:29 <lament> oh, russian wikipedia has some info
23:42:48 <oerjan> you mean it actually exists?
23:43:05 <oerjan> (that non-standard russian)
23:43:39 <lament> the example given is from late-1600s church language.
23:43:58 <GregorR-L> Anybody know of a good algorithm/library for comparing images more intelligently than just pixel differences?
23:45:20 <oerjan> the original slavic church language was old Bulgarian, wasn't it. and Bulgarian has articles.
23:45:39 <oerjan> not that there is necessarily a connection.
23:45:42 <lament> yes, that's how it got there.
23:45:47 <lament> yes, there's likely a connection.
23:50:07 <oerjan> what does "skoal (dip) declension" mean? It's in the article on Bulgarian.
23:52:19 <oerjan> the reason i am not sure if there is a connection is because i don't know how recent Bulgarian articles are
23:53:04 <oerjan> it was changed from "noun" to "skoal (dip)" without comment.
23:54:36 <oerjan> i'll change it into "case", me thinks.
23:55:00 <Pikhq> GregorR-L: Raster->SVG, diff svg1 svg2
23:56:07 <GregorR-L> ......................................... no :P
23:56:53 <Pikhq> Hmm. . . You *could* do something a bit lengthy by comparing color values, edges, etc. . .
23:57:01 <Pikhq> But I'm not sure that's "Good".