The only time I have found the solutions page useful is when I was working on problem 100, which I'd been thinking about on and off for several months. Eventually, I gave up and looked at the solution there, and was absolutely none the wiser as to how it was solved! I thought about it more over the next few months, and eventually just copied and ran that program, put it into PE, and looked at the forum, and finally understood how I should have solved the problem.
Without the solutions page, I would probably never have been able to solve the problem, and would know even less about Diophantine Equations than I currently do. However, the only value was the actual numerical solution, since when I have solved a problem myself and want to see if my answer could be improved, I just look in the forum where I can see a range of methods of solution instead of just one. That said, I vote to keep the solutions (providing they are written by the page editor) since IMO they do no harm. On 24/02/2008, Daniel Fischer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Am Sonntag, 24. Februar 2008 11:37 schrieb Cale Gibbard: > > > Hello, > > > > It seems that I'm getting sucked into this argument solely due to my > > unwillingness to allow people to damage useful content that has been > > added to the Haskell wiki. > > > I'm sorry, I was angry that someone posted my code on that page and > over-reacted. I apologize. > > > > > > This started a couple of weeks ago when a user by the name Marypoppins > > decided to arbitrarily remove all the Euler Problems solutions from > > the wiki. I treated this as vandalism and immediately reverted all the > > changes. > > > > I'd like to state up front that I otherwise have no personal stake in > > this, since the solutions pages are not ones that I've made > > significant contributions to, nor have I even spent a significant > > amount of time working on Project Euler problems. (They have not > > enough universal quantifiers in them for my tastes.) > > > > I do however, think it's important to not allow valid contributions to > > the wiki to be damaged by people without good reason. > > > Agreed, and the page with the code may indeed be considered a valid > contribution. However, it certainly would be more valuable if it wasn't > bare > code, but also included explanations of the mathematical or programmatical > ideas behind it. > > The page with just the answers I cannot but find worthless. > > > > > Why is this even the least bit bad? If you publish a bunch of > > problems, expect people to publish a bunch of solutions to them. They > > will do this regardless of what you demand, since there's educational > > value to others in doing so. > > > The educational value would be more visible if the code was explained, but > okay. > > > > If Project Euler is instead, not a contest, as people on the Talk > > pages on the wiki have claimed, then nobody should have any problem > > with publishing solutions, as the only person one could possibly cheat > > by looking up the solution is oneself. However, if one had already > > given up on solving said problem, then there would likely be > > significant educational value in reading a solution to it. > > > > > On top of that, the code for many problems isn't even Haskell, but C, > > > WTF! > > > > This indeed is a problem, as it is the Haskell wiki after all. > > However, I feel that it's more valuable to keep such solutions until > > such time as their Haskell counterparts are made available. > > > I disagree, more valuable would be an explanation of the ideas behind it, > and > perhaps contrasting a C (python,...) programme with a Haskell one to > highlight the different approaches. > > > > > > > Other code was submitted without consent of the author, copied from > the > > > PE fora, which are restricted access and so, even if perhaps not > legally, > > > but in spirit, do not fall under the legitimate resources for > > > haskellwiki: "You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, > or > > > copied it from a public domain or similar free resource. DO NOT SUBMIT > > > COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION!" > > > > This is a legitimate concern. If the copyright of the original authors > > can be proved, said solutions should indeed be removed. > > > PE has a share-alike license, the very least to be demanded if someone > posts > other's code is proper attribution. > > > Daniel > > > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-Cafe mailing list > Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org > http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe >
_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe