June 09, 2011
On Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:02:08 -0400, Walter Bright <newshound2@digitalmars.com> wrote:

> On 6/9/2011 11:03 AM, Robert Clipsham wrote:
>> So there is going to be a next one?
>
> Yes, maybe in 6 months or so. I'm very happy with how this one turned out.
>
> But next time we need to devise a tie-breaking rule. Any suggestions? A runoff?

We're all developers here, I think people might be open to an instant runoff:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting

Essentially, you rank the articles 1 to x, and then the algorithm figures out the winner.  It's still possible to have a tie, but unlikely.

I think for the next time, someone should write a newsgroup-to-vote program that automatically counts the votes (must be in D of course!)

> BTW, there's nothing in the rules preventing an author from tooting his own horn and doing a bit of marketing of their article(s) for votes!

We're developers, not politicians :)  If you allow this, then we'll have to start creating youtube ads showing the other articles' past records of infidelity and such, and it just turns ugly.

-Steve
June 09, 2011
On 09/06/2011 19:26, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On 2011-06-09 11:03, Robert Clipsham wrote:
>> On 09/06/2011 15:13, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>>> Now you can vote in the next one :)
>>
>> So there is going to be a next one? Maybe next time I won't pull the
>> short straw! :<
>
> Short straw? At least yours got some votes! Mine got none. ;)

Maybe it wasn't the shortest straw then. Your article was great, I guess it didn't apply to a lot of people though.

>> Congratulations anyway, to Dave as well, your articles were both great!
>
> Yes. All of the articles are definitely solid contributions to the D
> community. I even learned from Steve's article, when I would have thought that
> I would have known everything in the topic he covered.

Indeed - I'll be giving it another read through at some point to check I got it all!

> - Jonathan M Davis

-- 
Robert
http://octarineparrot.com/
June 09, 2011
On 08/06/2011 05:54, Walter Bright wrote:
> Looks like we have a tie. Darn it. I don't really want to do Solomon's
> solution!

A tad belated, but I'd like to thank everyone who voted for my article! I really enjoyed writing it, I'm glad you enjoyed reading it.

-- 
Robert
http://octarineparrot.com/
June 09, 2011
On 09/06/2011 20:21, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:02:08 -0400, Walter Bright
> <newshound2@digitalmars.com> wrote:
>
>> On 6/9/2011 11:03 AM, Robert Clipsham wrote:
>>> So there is going to be a next one?
>>
>> Yes, maybe in 6 months or so. I'm very happy with how this one turned
>> out.
>>
>> But next time we need to devise a tie-breaking rule. Any suggestions?
>> A runoff?
>
> We're all developers here, I think people might be open to an instant
> runoff:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
>
> Essentially, you rank the articles 1 to x, and then the algorithm
> figures out the winner. It's still possible to have a tie, but unlikely.

I thought about mentioning this, but decided against it. I believe FPTP is the best way to vote for this kind of competition.

> I think for the next time, someone should write a newsgroup-to-vote
> program that automatically counts the votes (must be in D of course!)

Of course, then that one person who doesn't format their vote quite right loses out...

>> BTW, there's nothing in the rules preventing an author from tooting
>> his own horn and doing a bit of marketing of their article(s) for votes!
>
> We're developers, not politicians :) If you allow this, then we'll have
> to start creating youtube ads showing the other articles' past records
> of infidelity and such, and it just turns ugly.

Given the rule that voters must have used their handle here before, that's not going to happen. I won't comment further to avoid ranting.

> -Steve

-- 
Robert
http://octarineparrot.com/
June 09, 2011
Am 09.06.2011 21:18, schrieb Jonathan M Davis:
> On 2011-06-09 11:58, Walter Bright wrote:
>> On 6/9/2011 11:26 AM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>>> At least yours got some votes! Mine got none. ;)
>>
>> I wouldn't worry about that. Consider the Olympics, where the difference between the winners and the rest is, frankly, microscopic. The contest is devised to exaggerate the tiniest of differences.
>>
>> I think all the articles were great!
> 
> Oh, I don't really mind. It doesn't mean that my article was bad, just that no one who voted didn't think that it was the best. It doesn't even mean that mine would win the "worst article" vote if we were to be mean enough to have such a vote. It just means that no one thought that my article was the best.
> 
> I didn't really write my article for the contest anyway, so it's not a big deal. I wrote the article because it clearly needed to be written, and getting it in the contest was just a nice bonus.
> 
> - Jonathan M Davis

It is a great article, pretty informative and certainly a big help for anyone wanting to mess with time-related stuff in D.

But I guess the topic is just not as sexy as parallelism or efficiency (slices are also efficiency-related, besides providing nice syntax-sugar for array operations).

As you said, that article needed to be written and it's a valuable addition to std.datetime's documentation.

Cheers,
- Daniel
June 09, 2011
Am 09.06.2011 21:02, schrieb Walter Bright:
> On 6/9/2011 11:03 AM, Robert Clipsham wrote:
>> So there is going to be a next one?
> 
> Yes, maybe in 6 months or so. I'm very happy with how this one turned out.
> 
> But next time we need to devise a tie-breaking rule. Any suggestions? A runoff?
> 
> BTW, there's nothing in the rules preventing an author from tooting his own horn and doing a bit of marketing of their article(s) for votes!

"If I win I'll implement $great_feature_everyone_wants" ;-)

("If I win I port a D compiler to ARM/iOS" would really make sense, when the price is an iPad - it's kind of ironic anyway that the price is a kind of computer that isn't supported by D)

Cheers,
- Daniel
June 09, 2011
On Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:35:44 -0400, Robert Clipsham <robert@octarineparrot.com> wrote:

> On 09/06/2011 20:21, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>> On Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:02:08 -0400, Walter Bright
>> <newshound2@digitalmars.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 6/9/2011 11:03 AM, Robert Clipsham wrote:
>>>> So there is going to be a next one?
>>>
>>> Yes, maybe in 6 months or so. I'm very happy with how this one turned
>>> out.
>>>
>>> But next time we need to devise a tie-breaking rule. Any suggestions?
>>> A runoff?
>>
>> We're all developers here, I think people might be open to an instant
>> runoff:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
>>
>> Essentially, you rank the articles 1 to x, and then the algorithm
>> figures out the winner. It's still possible to have a tie, but unlikely.
>
> I thought about mentioning this, but decided against it. I believe FPTP is the best way to vote for this kind of competition.

I wonder if there's some form of instant runoff that only breaks ties.  That is, a runoff only occurs between ties, with the people who did not vote for the tied candidates getting their secondary votes counted.  I suppose most voting systems are for votes that count in the hundreds of thousands to millions, so there is very little chance of a tie.  So this might be unexplored territory...

I just am not keen on the idea that someone can vote for candidate A, then when A ties with B, vote for candidate B in the runoff.  Instant runoff appeals to me because you have to write down your preferences up front.

>
>> I think for the next time, someone should write a newsgroup-to-vote
>> program that automatically counts the votes (must be in D of course!)
>
> Of course, then that one person who doesn't format their vote quite right loses out...

Well, we can make it simple:

Mark your preference in this box (1-5):
 |
 v
[ ]  article 1
[ ]  article 2
...

Another (really good) option is to use a web-based voting system, which makes things verifiable.  You still need something to verify the user has posted to the NG in the past.

>>> BTW, there's nothing in the rules preventing an author from tooting
>>> his own horn and doing a bit of marketing of their article(s) for votes!
>>
>> We're developers, not politicians :) If you allow this, then we'll have
>> to start creating youtube ads showing the other articles' past records
>> of infidelity and such, and it just turns ugly.
>
> Given the rule that voters must have used their handle here before, that's not going to happen. I won't comment further to avoid ranting.

I hope you didn't think I was serious, though I don't see how it could be seen that way.  If I offended, I'm sorry.

-Steve
June 09, 2011
On 06/09/2011 01:21 PM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:02:08 -0400, Walter Bright
> <newshound2@digitalmars.com> wrote:
>
>> On 6/9/2011 11:03 AM, Robert Clipsham wrote:
>>> So there is going to be a next one?
>>
>> Yes, maybe in 6 months or so. I'm very happy with how this one turned
>> out.
>>
>> But next time we need to devise a tie-breaking rule. Any suggestions?
>> A runoff?
>
> We're all developers here, I think people might be open to an instant
> runoff:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
>
> Essentially, you rank the articles 1 to x, and then the algorithm
> figures out the winner. It's still possible to have a tie, but unlikely.
>
> I think for the next time, someone should write a newsgroup-to-vote
> program that automatically counts the votes (must be in D of course!)
>
>> BTW, there's nothing in the rules preventing an author from tooting
>> his own horn and doing a bit of marketing of their article(s) for votes!
>
> We're developers, not politicians :) If you allow this, then we'll have
> to start creating youtube ads showing the other articles' past records
> of infidelity and such, and it just turns ugly.
>
> -Steve

I second the vote for IRV.
June 09, 2011
A lot of technical groups that do voting use the Schulze method < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_method>.  Similar to IRV but technically better.  I'm not sure how easy it is to do in practice.

On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 3:06 PM, Kai Meyer <kai@unixlords.com> wrote:

> On 06/09/2011 01:21 PM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:02:08 -0400, Walter Bright <newshound2@digitalmars.com> wrote:
>>
>>  On 6/9/2011 11:03 AM, Robert Clipsham wrote:
>>>
>>>> So there is going to be a next one?
>>>>
>>>
>>> Yes, maybe in 6 months or so. I'm very happy with how this one turned out.
>>>
>>> But next time we need to devise a tie-breaking rule. Any suggestions? A runoff?
>>>
>>
>> We're all developers here, I think people might be open to an instant runoff:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
>>
>> Essentially, you rank the articles 1 to x, and then the algorithm figures out the winner. It's still possible to have a tie, but unlikely.
>>
>> I think for the next time, someone should write a newsgroup-to-vote program that automatically counts the votes (must be in D of course!)
>>
>>  BTW, there's nothing in the rules preventing an author from tooting
>>> his own horn and doing a bit of marketing of their article(s) for votes!
>>>
>>
>> We're developers, not politicians :) If you allow this, then we'll have to start creating youtube ads showing the other articles' past records of infidelity and such, and it just turns ugly.
>>
>> -Steve
>>
>
> I second the vote for IRV.
>


June 09, 2011
On Thu, 09 Jun 2011 17:27:14 -0400, Brad Anderson <eco@gnuk.net> wrote:

> A lot of technical groups that do voting use the Schulze method <
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_method>.  Similar to IRV but
> technically better.  I'm not sure how easy it is to do in practice.

That looks cool, but we need a proven piece of software to do it :)

I'd vote for that method.

-Steve