How Often Should I Post Stuff?

@ karkathateseveryonesposts

Anon in that ask was me, not rping as you say but what I meant from computer-exploding code is I was unsure if ~ATH was supposed to crash once running a code like Sollux's.  Also, there couldn't be a syntax error as the program crashes if I press enter with no code on it yet.

Ah! My apologies for my misunderstanding, I interpreted the reference to computer exploding scripts combined with your handle to [ justification for why I misinterpreted snipped for brevity].

You don’t type the script in when you run the program. You need to first save the script as a seperate file, and then when you run the interpreter, type in the filename.

The last bit of the interpreter says like

filename=raw_input() filelink=open(filename,'r') script=filelink.read(-1) result_obj=evalScript(script,NULL_obj) raw_input("press enter to close")

I probably should have made it more clearly ask for a file name instead of just having a prompt with no explanation.

(also, wow, this reminds me that this code was written in python 2.7 and not python 3. Maybe I should update it to use python 3? There’s also many other things about it that ought to be improved but it isn’t high on my priorities..)

My ~ATH keeps crashing whenever I run a non-computer exploding code, or if I press enter. Why is this?

Based on the username which recently followed this blog at the same time as I received this ask (which I won't say what it was because you asked this on anon, and haven't received permission), I'd guess that you may be running a different version of ~ATH than the one I document here :P

Unfortunately, I don't have a specification for the version you have.

If you have such a specification, or the executable for it, I'd be happy to take a look if you could send it to me, haha.

If on the off chance you are using the version I document here, then presumably you have a syntax error or something in your code?

I've realized that my tutorials haven't been tutorial-y enough

I've realized that recently, my tutorial posts have been too much code and not enough explanation. That was a mistake on my part, so I am going to go back now and give better explanations.

Also, I have started to make a table of contents page.

I figured that if someone wanted to read the tutorial after a significant part of it were finished, that they might have trouble, because it would kind of be in reverse order.

So TABLE OF CONTENTS AHOY!

Yeah.

So uh, any suggested changes to the format of the TOC page?

Why cant I mark this as a post that can be answered? I can let people photo reply, but once it goes in drafts I can't let people answer this question? Or is it too long?

What is with this interface?

okay, this might be a liiittle specific, and more HS oriented, but still. can you power a First Guardian using ~ATH? and if so, what are some ways?

This is a slightly off of the usual topic of this blog, which is more about a language which I made up and is based on and named after the language in the comic, and attempts to be as close to the comic while still being possible to implement and use, (the language in the comic is not particularly well documented), but I’ll answer it to the best of my abilities.

I’m not sure what you mean by “power”.

“Can I write a first guardian character that has some of their behavior be based on ~ATH in some ways?” : I don’t see any reason why not. If you can do ectobiology with a puppet and a cueball, why not with a computer running a program?

“Can I make a first guardian character who is a first guardian because of the continual execution of a ~ATH script?” : While you can of course write whatever you want, I’m not sure that this is consistent with what is said in acts 1-7 (I have chosen to disregard everything after act 7) about first guardians. It seems like an entity either is or is not a first guardian, and that this fact is established at the time of that entity’s creation. It seems to me like what happens with first guardians is: using ectobiology, the genetic code from some players’ subconscious-or-whatever is combined with some other source(s), and the result is a first guardian.

Oh, I suppose if you just mean “an entity has the powers of a first guardian as a result of a ~ATH script”, then, uh, I guess that doesn’t contradict anything. How would I depict such a script? Well, I don’t know that anything that we’ve seen of the language gives any particularly clear direction for what such a script would look like. If you want it to just have the keywords we’ve seen, possibly re-interpreted to mean something different, I guess one idea could be to like, say bifurcate an existing first guardian into parts with names that seem relevant, and also whatever entity is to have the abilities of a first guardian, and then like, un-bifurcate (unbifurcation is not something shown in the comic, but is something I’ve added to my language, in order to make it usable) the other entity, but with some component of the first guardian mixed in somehow? Though if you did that, you would probably want to justify why, if ~ATH can do that that easily, why it doesn’t happen all the time.

There is very little in terms of rules that the story gives for how ~ATH behaves. If you want to have a ~ATH script “power” a first guardian, just make up some stuff. If you want to depict the actual script, then look at all the pages of the comic that depict code from it, see what it says they do, and just make something up that seems to aesthetically fit.

The language that I have defined (”drocta ~ath”) does not provide any means of doing this, because the language I designed was designed to technically be usable, while also resembling the language in the comic.

I suppose that, as all first guardians get their power from the green sun, and the green sun was created by the circumstantially simultaneous destruction of, uh, either universes A and B, or specifically of A2 and B1, not sure which, and this was in some ways tied to the Möbius Double Reacharoud virus, you could argue that all first guardians get their powers from, something somewhat connected to a ~ATH script.

Why can’t I add tags to an answer to an ask?

Welcome.

If its not obvious, this blog will teach techniques in a version of ~ATH Specifically, drocta ~ATH. And yes, I'm serious. I believe that I probably am the author of the longest ( possibly up to third longest) ~ATH program. Specifically, bubble sort. Further, I believe I am the author of the first ~ATH interpreter. (I am the drocta of drocta ~ATH) Link here: http://www.mspaforums.com/showthread.php?50314-ATH-interpreter This blog is intended to serve as a tutorial on writing things in drocta ~ATH. First I will go over the syntax. Then how to make conditional like things. Then how to make finite loops. Then perhaps storing "numbers". Then copying "numbers" Then comparing "numbers" Then lists In such a way I intend to work our way up to you understanding how to write bubble sort in drocta ~ATH. After that, we might even implement brainf*** in it. Or a universal Turing machine. Of course, when I say "numbers", the quotes are there for a reason. Numbers are not built into drocta ~ATH. One has to build them. Now how do I tag things...? Ah, that's how. In case it wasn't clear, the interpreter for drocta ~ATH does not attempt the impossible. It cannot trigger the apocalypse. It's just a python script that interprets ~ATH scripts. Don't worry if you don't already know how to program. I intend to make the posts fairly accessible.

Do you know of any ~ATH implementations or dialects besides yours and mine?

Actually, yes kinda. Sorta anyway. There is a compiler of sorts that is intended to be ~ATH based, though I don't think it matched canon all that well.

It did have one feature which I found interesting though. It had a command which would create a variable thing which was truthy iff there was a process currently running with a given name, so you could have in a ~ATH loop something that loops until another program is closed. It was a pretty cool feature, but the syntax for it was odd. The author misinterpreted the panel where Sollux deletes the different virus folders he had, so the command was called rm -rf or something like that.

It also had a command to run an executable (by file name) iirc.(which allowed for easy implementation of the robin hood and friar tuck programs)

It also was an editor of sorts, but it had a small window that I don't think was resizeable. It worked (iirc) by doing some string replacement to turn the program into a c(++?) program, which it then compiled.

I'll try to find it  so I can link it. I don't think it represents ~ATH all that accurately, but the using another program as one of the objects seemed like a neat and probably accurate feature (given the mobius double reacharound)

tl;dr yes

So, I just found this and have no clue what's going on. Could you maybe make, like, a simple guide to programming ~ATH? I understand how your python works, but not how to program ~ATH.

Hi!That is sort of what this blog was meant to be.I was trying to explain how to write programs in it, starting with “how do I represent numbers in it?” but then I started prioritizing other projects.I do want to get back to this one though.Perhaps I can give a brief summary in this ask response, and you can tell me what parts you would like clarification on? I will attempt that. I would appreciate it if you tell me what parts of this explanation you are unclear on, or say more about what you don’t understand about how to use drocta ~ATH.

(drocta ~ATH, as a reminder, is my interpretation of how ~ATH could work, which attempts to stay as true to the comic as it can, while still being turing complete, and also possible to implement in reality)In drocta ~ATH there are things called objects. Every object (except for possibly one depending on the specific version of the interpreter, but that isn’t an important detail.) is initially alive. Once an object dies, it cannot be made alive again.Every object has a left half, and a right half, which are both objects. Just because an object is dead does not mean that its left or right halves are dead. Similarly, just because both an object’s left and right halves are dead does not mean that the object is dead.

Also, for any two objects (possibly the same object), there is an object such that the left half of it is the first object, and the right half of it is the second object.

(skippable sidenote : Yes, this would mean that there are infinitely many objects, but they are only /really/ created by the interpreter when they become relevant, so really there are only ever finitely many that the computer is keeping track of)

A variable, in drocta ~ATH, refers to an object. However, it often does not always refer to the same object at different points during the program.

For example, suppose you want some variable to refer to a number which changes during the program. The way that the number which the variable refers to changes is by changing what object the variable refers to.

There are two ways to change what object a variable refers to.

1:Suppose you have three variables names VAR1, VAR2, VAR3.BIFURCATE VAR1[VAR2,VAR3];will take the left half of the object that VAR1 points to, and make VAR2 point to it, instead of whatever it was pointing to before, if anything, and it takes the right half, and makes VAR3 point to it instead of whatever it was pointing to before, if anything.

2:Again, with three variables VAR1, VAR2, VAR3:BIFURCATE [VAR1,VAR2]VAR3;will take the object pointed to by VAR1, and the object pointed to by VAR2, and finds the object such that the left half is the first one, and the right half is the second one, and makes VAR3 point to this object.

Also, when you initially declare an variable it makes a new object for it.

Now, in order to make an object dead, you take a variable (named, say, examplevariable) which currently points to it, and put examplevariable.DIE();and then the object will be dead. Note that this does not make examplevariable point to a different object, which is the same as the one it pointed to before except for being dead. This actually changes the object.In fact, this is the only operation that actually changes an object.

loops:How do you do control flow with this?Well, you use ~ATH loops.

A ~ATH loop looks like this:

~ATH(SOMEVARIABLENAME){//SOME CODE GOES HERE}

What this will do, is it will check if the object currently pointed to by SOMEVARIABLENAME is dead, and if it is not, it runs the code which is {between the curly brackets}. Then, it checks again if the object currently pointed to by SOMEVARIABLENAME is dead, and if not, runs the code inside again. This keeps on repeating until a time that it checks if SOMEVARIABLENAME currently points to an object which is dead, and it is, at which point the program keeps running after the curly brackets.

Note that which object the variable name points to may be changed by the code inside the curly brackets, and probably will be. Changing which object the variable is pointing to is the main way to make the loop exit.

speaking of, let’s get to numbers:

drocta ~ATH doesn’t have numbers as a built in thing. You have to make up your own numbers. But there is a sort of standard way to do so. Where by “standard” I mean, “it is the way that makes the most sense / is the most obvious, and is the way I usually do it”

if some object is the positive integer n, then an object x which has n as the right half, and some object which is alive as the left half, then that object x is n+1 .1 is an object where the left half is a dead object, and the right half is anything.

The reason for this is because this way you can make loops which do things n times, for n>0.

say the object representing n is pointed to by VAR1 , and VAR2 doesn’t point to anything you care about, but it does point to something which is alive, and VAR3 points to an object which represents 1, but you aren’t using it for anything else. You can make a loop like this:

~ATH(VAR2){BIFURCATE VAR1[VAR2,VAR1]; //decrease VAR1 by 1BIFURCATE [VAR2,VAR3]VAR3; /* increase VAR3 by 1, except if this is the last time through the loop, in which case this makes a small error, but one which will be fixed later *///put the stuff you want in the loop here.//Don’t do things to VAR1, VAR2, or VAR3 that you don’t undo though. 

}BIFURCATE VAR3[JUNK,VAR3]; //removes the extra thing that was added to VAR3.

The result of this is that it will do the code you put in the middle n times, and that VAR3 will still store the number n afterwards.

Following processes like these, it is possible to do basically anything you could with a “counter machine / minsky machine” .

Fortunately, there are also things which make things a bit more convenient than using a minsky machine.

In much the same way that you can create numbers, you can also make lists.Just put the successive entries in the list as left halfs of objects, and have the right halves be the list as made so far. (so, basically, the left half is the first element, and the right half is the rest).A caveat here is to make sure that the left half is never a dead object, because that can make it so that the end of the list is detected pre-maturely. However, you might at some point (if you write a lot of drocta ~ATH, which, I am not certain why you would, haha) find that useful to cut the remaining part of a list off.

Of course, when I say to put something as the left half or right half of an object, feel free to switch that in each case. It doesn’t matter as long as you are consistent.

oh, I left out the parts about how to do input and output .

there are some example files on the github for you to check out which have that?

Please let me know if you have any further questions. I’m not sure which parts of this need clarification, so if part of it is unclear, you would be doing me and any other readers of my blog a favor by asking me to clarify them, so please do not hesitate to ask me to clarify any specific part, or to ask me any other question about ~ATH.

Thank you for your interest,

~drocta / ~hE 

WOAAAAHHHH I posted! (significant progress on functions)

Hey, I haven't posted in a while because I have been doing other stuff. Meanwhile some people followed me. Thank you.

OK, so news: I got calling functions working. it works and stuff.

huh, apparently tumblr changed the interface since I last posted? I think I preferred the previous version? w/e.

But what I haven't added yet is the syntax to define and create a new function. Right now I just have some functions hard-coded in as elements of a dictionary. If you want to try it out just modify the funCodes dictionary. (yes, I am terrible at naming variables.)

Yeah so, I an not totally sure what I am going to have for the syntax for defining a function, but the syntax for calling a function is

FUNCTION_NAME [IN1,IN2]OUT;

(which takes the object consisting of IN1 and IN2 and puts it through the function, where it would be stored as the variable ARGS, and when it finishes the last thing .DIE() was called with is what gets put into OUT)

and then theres

FUNCTION_NAME IN[OUT1,OUT2];

which kinda does the opposite.

takes in IN, and splits the out into OUT1 and OUT2

(this version (the FUNCTION IN[OUT,OUT]; one, as opposed to the FUNCTION[IN,IN]OUT; one) isn't actually implemented yet, but mostly I will just have to copy paste it from the other one and change a few numbers, but I have to homework now so I'll do that later.)

to clarify, the same functions can be used either way. You can say LIME [LIME,LIME]LIME; or you can say LIME LIME[LIME,LIME]; and they would both call the function LIME, but they would do slightly different things.

hooray for stuff.

anyway I am going to go uh, push that new version.

How should the syntax for defining a function be? Should it just be each file can be imported as a function?

ok, made some small commits...

(no features added, but cleaned up some code and added example programs)

yup.

it has the basis for how I am going to make functions if I make them, and cleaned up the code for BIFURCATEion, and removed some lines that were commented out.

if you want the new version it is on the github.

no real difference when it runs though.

(if something you wrote doesn't work with the new version, try using BIFFURCATE instead of BIFURCATE to use the old code. You probably won't need to, though. It works fine for me. and you probably haven't written anything in it anyway, because you kind of have to uh, want to, I guess)

Learn ~ATH turned 1 today!

yaaaay!

So I think that my explanations of things hasn't been very clear so far, and while I can't promise that they will improve, I do intend to teach programming in person at my school, which might help me to know how to make this tutorial better. Maybe, maybe not. 

May things go well!

Bug

Ok, if you tried running a script with the interpreter, it might not have run properly. The part of the code that handles what part of the code is executed next is buggy. It is in the process of being fixed. Also, if python gives you a syntax error, it is probably because you are using a different version of python. Change raw_input to input And change print stuff to print(stuff) I will post an introduction to the syntax soon.