

Rosetta Code: solutions to the same task in many languages - derwiki
http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Rosetta_Code

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BoppreH
When learning new languages, by far the best project I've seen is the
minimalist task manager. It accepts only command line parameters, and just
actions to add, edit, remove and print. But it covers:

    
    
      - control flow
      - strings
      - arrays
      - standard input/output (when adding/editing and printing)
      - file IO
      - using modules
      - reading command line parameters
      - output formatting
      - editing and running programs (this is important)
    

All that in very few lines with very simple logic. And then there's the
challenge to minimize it. The smallest I have seen is 6 lines of python, less
than 270 characters total. To do this you must abuse the language, and it
requires a deeper understanding of what's going on behind the curtains.

It doesn't take more than a day, and from there you can dive into more
abstract concepts with much more fluency.

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qrush
Rosetta Code is awesome. One of my good friends
(<http://rosettacode.org/wiki/User:Mwn3d>) has helped maintain it for a while,
and the main guy behind it (shortcircuit:
<http://rosettacode.org/wiki/User:Short_Circuit>) is a great, helpful gent.

I actually hosted the site off my SliceHost account for a bit, and tried to
write a new skin for it that didn't look like MediaWiki. Looks like this is
inaccurate, but it's funny to see the languages bit from 3 years ago for me:
<http://rosettacode.org/wiki/User:Qrush>

~~~
jff
Don't forget the p-p-p-POWER APARTMENT!

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rheide
This is excellent! A real help for people who like to learn from example. I'd
love to see some more math stuff translated to source code. It's a great help
for people who suck at math but are able to read source (like me).

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1337p337
I love Rosetta Code. For common problems, the solutions cover a very long list
of languages, sometimes with multiple solutions. It's a great tool when you're
learning a language and want to see why the code you've written doesn't feel
natural.

For me, it's also been useful for finding new languages. Scrolling around, you
occasionally see a language with a particularly clever or readable (or just
quirky) solution, and you can bounce around the wiki to see what other
examples in the language look like.

<http://99-bottles-of-beer.net/> is also a great page for browsing languages.
Of course, it's a bit more whimsical and the focus is on a single problem (a
good one, though: it covers conditionals, looping and I/O), but it covers a
large number of languages and is easy to browse.

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derwiki
I really like the idea, but
<http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Rosetta_Code:Add_a_Task> is dissuading me from
contributing. I'd much rather clone a Github repo and make a pull request to
submit my version of something.

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smosher
It seems reasonable to me. What's the issue?

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derwiki
Lack of time to implement? Maybe someone with more time will read this, agree,
and make it happen :)

~~~
smosher
It does take a bit of work to add a new task, but it's important work. Without
it the problem is difficult to understand and the correctness of solutions is
impossible to verify.

However, if you don't want to write the boilerplate, task suggestions are
welcome:
[http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Rosetta_Code:Village_Pump/Sugges...](http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Rosetta_Code:Village_Pump/Suggest_a_programming_task)

I don't know how effective a suggestion is, but my bet is that the interesting
ones are processed quickly. I've been visiting the site and it has grown very
rapidly, owing in no small part to all the work shortcircuit does.

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kno
I like the Idea and will definitely contribute when I get a chance.

Please note that folks at Rosetta Stone are pretty aggressive on copyright
matter, watch out!

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tvon
I really can't get my head around how Rosetta Stone could possibly be a
protected term with regards to any kind of language comparison or translation.
I mean, people know where they got the name from, right?

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kno
Remember Facebook with anything Book, I guess they did not invent book either.
Big companies always have ways to come after small folks.

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tvon
I think Facebook has a case, at least with regards to dogbook/catbook/petbook,
because why the hell would you call something "dogbook" unless you were trying
to say "it's Facebook but for dogs"?

But Rosetta stone named themselves after _the_ Rosetta Stone which is an
ancient translation tool, for them to then turn around and try to protect that
as if it was _their_ copyright is just mind boggling (to me, anyway).

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chc
It would be trademark, not copyright. The difference is extremely important to
the question of whether they can "own" the term in some sense.

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svrocks
Great idea, but I think this would be much improved by some standardized test
cases, especially for the algorithms. I saw a lot of haphazard 3-input tests.

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techiferous
Cool. Reminds me of <http://pleac.sourceforge.net>

