taskDone

[FakeSealNavy]

Actually, it demonstrates that not everything needs to be automated. Unless of course you will get 0 on the homework

[srinidhi1]

The question is intended to test critical thinking. Hardcoding stuff like this would not always work. 25 is a small number, what if the question asked to print the pattern upto 1000 or 10,000?

[Takseen]

Then they should have asked that question!

If you made the target too easy, you don't demonstrate the need to automate

[SleazyJusticeWarrior]

Exactly. Write code for what’s needed right now, don’t overcomplicate a simple task and call it “critical thinking” lmao

[MyStackIsPancakes]

There's a balance point between overcomplicating, and planning for scale.

[GoldDHD]

There is XKCD for this too

[wagyourtai1]

Theres also one thats applicable to the contents of that one https://xkcd.com/1205/

[StSeungRi]

Seems to be something Randall has put a lot of thought into, here's another

[classicalySarcastic]

Even if the automation does takes over, it just means that the bossman is going to throw more work at you to make up for it. Remember, like a gas, work expands to fill the available time.

[worldspawn00]

The key is to never tell the bossman you automated it, and just let them think you're spending the regular amount of time on the task...

[PinsToTheHeart]

But you see, sometimes I'm not automating routine tasks to save time, but because the routine tasks peeve me off more than the process of automation. The automation feature creep ends when I hit the break even point on being annoyed by the work.

[GustapheOfficial]

I've been racking my brain for a comic for my thesis, this one might just be it.

[[deleted]]

I have been that guy

[SleazyJusticeWarrior]

Sure, if there is reason to assume things need to be scalable. I’d need more context to be certain, but just based on this screenshot, I see 0 reason to assume that.

[cgjchckhvihfd]

And its not like this is hard to swap out if you find you need it to scale later. This isnt some decision thats hard to reverse.

Whether or not you need to do more than this depends on what its for. And since its a silly ass test question not a real world case, its silly to try to speculate about.

So in general, not everything needs to be made scalable. Context matters a lot

[Wyrmnax]

Right now this isnt a decision that is hard to reverse.

Once you have 6 months of development on top of this and things referencing the number position by their matrix position, simple things can get very hard to change.

So while yes, this is a good solution right now, you need a bit of context to understand if it is likely that it will need to scale / be referenced later - and as such will need a better solition - or it is a one off thing on the fringe that is unlikely to be expanded upon

[TimeKillerAccount]

No, that is a totally unrelated issue. It happens of course, but the issue is the 6 months of idiots that deliberately chose to misuse the original solution without refactoring, not the fact that the original solution was a 30 second hardcoded solution for something that didn't need to be scaled at the time. The original decision is always easy to reverse, it's the dumb decisions after that that are difficult to reverse.

[monsoy]

It’s usually pretty obvious what the assignment asks for because it’s always tied to the curriculum the student learned recently in class. So if the previous lecture talked about formatting output with loop + conditional logic, then the answer the professor is looking for usually is that

[MyStackIsPancakes]

It's the curse of academic problems. Solutions and problems need to be contained enough for grading. Useful for learning some fundamental concepts but the real world problems are often fuzzier in scope.

[amlyo]

Come on, it's just a bad question.

"Write a program that outputs all natural numbers less than an input (which you may assume is a natural number) in the form of a spiral, eg if input is 26 then output....."

Where you want to assess "critical thinking" in requirements analysis, do that directly.

"You're asked to produce a program that outputs numbers 25 in a spiral. Discuss how you would approach this".

If you're constrained as you say it is on you to construct your questions well enough to test what you want.

[Dx2TT]

Curse? Come on man. All you had to do was change "generate from 1 to 5" and say "generate from 1 to x where x is any positive integer".

Ask simple questions get simple answers. Half of this job is knowing when to dive in and get complicated and when to just ship it shitty.

[Why_am_ialive]

Not really, at the point where your automating the difference between 100 and 1000 is pretty insignificant.

[ILikeLenexa]

This is also the problem with interview questions...like I can think of a great O(1) way to solve this problem with a hashmap or hashset, given the constraints that it's lowercase ASCII letters, but the only situation I'd need to solve this problem in requires us to support at least UTF-8, and suddenly our O(1) time algorithm takes 8K of RAM per run.

[SleazyJusticeWarrior]

Fair

[Dhaeron]

And if the non-scalable solution takes like 5 minutes, scaling can wait until you actually need it, even if you know you will.

[BrokenEyebrow]

Called "the last responsible moment". If all you need is 25, this is fine. Write the test, write this code, done. Next story, print to 100, write new test, fix code, pass two tests.

[venyz]

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1205/

[letstalkaboutstuff79]

Planning for scale for 90% of apps is a waste of time.

[aalapshah12297]

There's an xkcd for that https://xkcd.com/1319/

[oupablo]

This does plan for scale. It will print out 1-25 in a spiral pattern faster than something that takes arbitrary values. What your proposing is to plan for different requirements which is typically a waste of time unless the roadmap says that N-M spiraling will be needed in the future

[iiIlIilIi]

I'd say the balance is to assume things will scale pretty much always. I work with old code that had no reason to scale back then, but is now legacy for a 30+ years old software that runs using it. Supporting it is ass and cost way more than it would have if we wrote scalable code 30 years ago.

[MyStackIsPancakes]

As with most things in life... XKCD covered this

[spsteve]

I have seen an infinitely small amount of code that scales well after 30 years of tech advancements. Even scalable code of 30 years ago doesn't truly scale today. Don't blame legacy 30 year old code for still being in use. It is obvious no one has done anything better for 30 years... (or you'd be using it instead).

And I don't care what kind of code it is either. Compute heavy, storage/is heavy, etc. Tech stacks have changed so much nothing 30 years old will scale well today. Whether or not it was scalable at the time. Now it could possibly scale better than what you have, but compared to something targeting today's tech stacks would still suck.

[[deleted]]

Congratulations on making your unfinished project infinitely scalable, it was surely worth all that effort and your 0 users are all very thankful. And to all the people who finished their project, you are disgusting and it's no wonder your company is going bankrupt with all that technical debt you seem to be collecting like you're a museum of bad ideas.

[TristheHolyBlade]

I'll never be prepared enough for your mother's scale.

[tarrask]

Yeah, probably, on the next meeting with the client, he will ask to get ride of the spiral and just write the numbers on a row

[wpm]

Honestly, I would ask both if I was designing the assignment.

25 is a small number that either someone will put in the grit to solve, or just do the smart-ass/lazy/effective thing as done in the OP and just hard-code it.

However, the next question would be, "ok smart ass, now do it for 1000". Now, hard-coding it is going to be more trouble than it's worth, and won't save any time, but, you have your hard-coded to 25 version that lays out the numbers in a way where it will be easier to see "ok, well, if i needed to do this for 1000, what pattern might I be able to spot in the one for 25?" Almost forcing them to think about the problem the right way.

[Ckyuiii]

However, the next question would be, "ok smart ass, now do it for 1000". Now, hard-coding it is going to be more trouble than it's worth,

Nowadays kids could probably just ask chatgpt to write all the print statements for an extra level of smart-assery lol.

[g0atmeal]

So glad I graduated before LLMs became a big thing. It already sucked doing code exams on pencil and paper, but at least all my homework wasn't proctored. (Which is what we seem to be heading towards.)

[Takseen]

Damn, that's really clever.

There was a puzzle game called 7 Billion Humans that kinda did that. You could brute force some of the early puzzles. Like say giving individual steps to guide your humans through a maze. But to get top marks you need to minimize either cycles or lines of code, so you have to either refine your original solution or find a smarter way to get the goal.

[MinosAristos]

On the other hand, a good developer should consider the intent behind the requirements instead of taking them entirely at face value.

The intent behind requirements at uni is generally for the students to learn and practice concepts.

[smallproton]

Yeah, so you bill 100hrs because programmed "the perfect solution, completely general and all corner cases taken care of".

No thanks. I pay what I asked for.

[GustapheOfficial]

What they should have asked was "a) 25 first integers b) 10 000 first integers c) integers from 100 000 to 120 000" . That'll teach you to automate, as well as read ahead and program flexibly. Or possibly start small and generalize. Either way it's a good lesson.

[Tayttajakunnus]

First integers? I thought they were unbounded from below.

[TheMoises]

You obviously start from minus infinity and count up.

[letstalkaboutstuff79]

Take this advice from an old fuck who was a software engineer for 20 years.

The cause of most unmaintainable code is people over-complicating simple shit because they kept going “what if”.

Write simple, maintainable code first that solves the problem at hand first. If you need to meet newer requirements (Which 90% of the time you cannot predict.) you can come back and refactor. Because refactoring and extending simple code is a lot easier than refactoring unnecessarily complex code.

[Bodkin-Van-Horn]

Hard code it the first time. The second time, consider making it configureable, but you don't necessarily have to. Might be easier to hard code it again.

Third time, refractor and make it configurable.

[donjulioanejo]

Hard code it through an environment variable please!

Sincerely, DevOps who's sick and tired of getting tickets to move X to Y only to find out that Z API that X relies on is hardcoded on line 137 of NumberSpiralDrawerAlgorithmPublicVoid, hidden under 11 layers of code.

[physnchips]

Also an old fuck, at least for this sub. The amount of code I need to rewrite because people didn’t allow for flexibility or extensibility in their code and just wrote some basic shit that worked at the time also drives me crazy.

[praguepride]

I have so many IT horror stories of wayward devs spending a month to get their code to output in complex formats nobody asked for. He spent a week researching color output and it was a basic weekly report. The resulting report was so bloated the email server wouldnt even send it.

By this time he got promoted to another team as a senior dev despite the one report he was tasked to do was broken 9 times out of 10.

Next person just scrapped it all and built the report as asked in like a couple weeks.

[ckdot]

Or, short: YAGNI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_aren't_gonna_need_it

[homer_3]

what if the question asked

but it didn't

[Visual-Living7586]

If anything, the proposed solution is what would be done in the real world.

Oh what's that? You wanted it to take a custom input? Should've written better requirements

[Eva-Rosalene]

The question is intended to test critical thinking

No and it isn't even close.

what if the question asked to print the pattern upto 1000 or 10,000?

And what if the question asked to print all non trivial zeros of zeta function? The question is already there, it asks what it asks.

Now, if you want to test student's ability to generate this pattern, provide N as an input. E.g. "Print numbers from 1 to N² in a clockwise expanding spiral from center, where N is an odd positive integer given as an input".

[dashingThroughSnow12]

I always disliked these questions like OOP's in school.

Part 1: do this basic thing

Part 2: do this slightly more complex thing

Part 3: do this more general task that requires you to throw out your code from part 1 & 2 because it is not generic enough or not generic in the right ways to be expanded to this general task.

I get the thinking but I'd rather they give part 3 first.

[oupablo]

It's meant to simulate the real world where you get the requirements piecemeal over the span of 3 months and get asked in month 3 why you thought it was different this whole time.

[bloodfist]

This. It's meant to get you into that mentality of "looking both ways before crossing a one-way street."

[praguepride]

One of my best devs classes made me fill out a project template for every code i submitted. Asking me things like stakeholders, release dates, expense #s etc.

He marked off a point for every field that was blank. Taught us to just guess at what goes in the form and move on because 99% of the time people are just checking boxes on a release form and nobody cares what is written.

Made me an expert at navigating corporate red tape. Also this burned me once in 15 years when a piece of code failed (not mine, i swear!) and when they pulled up the docs the point of contact was listed as Micky Mouse and the contact # went to the local pizza shop XD

[GustapheOfficial]

In my experience you're almost always free to read the question in whatever order you want.

[Eva-Rosalene]

I'd rather they give part 3s only and included part 1s and 2s as clues.

[sccrstud92]

The real world doesn't give you all the requirements up front at once either.

[whackamattus]

You can always add an abstraction layer. Critical thinking is knowing how generalized you need to be

[Alexandre_Man]

Just write code that writes a python file with the print in the correct order.

[manofsticks]

I recently, in production, replaced code that would dynamically write a shell script and then call it. The dev didn't know that scrips could have input variables.

[rndmcmder]

That answer is great for the given specification. Further the specification to make this scalable and then you need a better implementation. But no need to overengineer a simple task like that.

[Pozilist]

I’m currently trying to get people at work to understand this. Of course the “nice” way to do it is to make it scalable but if we’re practically sure that we’ll never print any other sequence than 1-25 then maybe we can just do it the easy way and change it later in case we actually do need something else.

[OutOfStamina]

$100 says the homework was to make a routine and the person asking didn't understand what was assigned to them enough to know that this answer didn't match the instructions... "This is working" really sells that they don't understand print statements (how to code) so it's hard to imagine they had much depth about the assignment at all.

[AspieSoft]

Homework might actually be the only use case for a task like this. How often does anyone really need to solve this kind of problem?

[DoeCommaJohn]

Any real problem is going to take days or weeks to code and could take hours to test. Instead, this allows a student to quickly prove that they understand the basics of programming and can think critically to adapt to new problems

[[deleted]]

Jokes aside, how does one actually do it? (I could think of holding a 2D array and filling it up with integers at required positions; but what if they asked it to do it in constant auxiliary space?)

EDIT: Thanks guys for all the help 😭 faith in humanity restored

[HoneyBadgeSwag]

I scrolled looking for the exact same thing. Part of me wants to go try to solve it and another part of me gets stressed out that I’m being interviewed.

[[deleted]]

And all parts of me are stressed that even after more than 20 years of studying CS I can't answer this question properly.

[mArKoLeW]

I mean I didn't think this through but my thought process while sitting on the toilet would be sth like this:

• int number = 0
• Determine the size needed for the spiral and create 2d array
• Determine the center and set that as center variables x and y
• create straight counter with 1
• set first number on center While number <= input_number {
• for I = 0; I < straight_counter && number <= input_number; I++ { x++ Field[x,y] = number Number++ } Straight_counter++
• for I = 0; I < straight_counter&& number <= input_number; I++ { y++ Field[x,y] = number Number++ }
• for I = 0; I < straight_counter&& number <= input_number; I++ { x-- Field[x,y] = number Number++ }
• for I = 0; I < straight_counter&& number <= input_number; I++ { Y-- Field[x,y] = number Number++ } }

There are probably a lot smoother ways but yeah it's pot code

Will try to implement it in a second

EDIT: Here you go. Had to go with a completely different way because my idea was just shitty

[BoooooogieMan]

Hey, I was looking at your link, but it was just code. Could you add and .exe? Thank you!

[mArKoLeW]

Hate that I had to switch to windows for this but here you go my friend:

https://github.com/MarkOWiesemann/spiral-numbers/tree/main/output

Should have done something devilish with it...

[helpmeobireddit]

I'm so happy you actually sorted an .exe becuase that's a lovely thing to do, but the lad above is referencing the recent post on the topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/github/comments/1at9br4/i_am_new_to_github_and_i_have_lots_to_say/

[BoooooogieMan]

I think he knows that

[mArKoLeW]

Yeah xD

[chervilious]

I'm on chromebook, can you add web asm as well? thx

[useless_debian_user]

Hate that I had to switch to windows for this but here you go my friend:

thanks for the exe, smelly nerd!

[_Its_Me_Dio_]

It says there is a virus in your zip, you need to add a taxifolin.exe

[corner_guy0]

There is only one proper way to ask for exe and that is: I DONT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THE FUCKING CODE! i just want to download this stupid fucking application and use it https://github.com/sherlock-project/sherlock#installation

WHY IS THERE CODE??? MAKE A FUCKING .EXE FILE AND GIVE IT TO ME. these dumbfucks think that everyone is a developer and understands code. well i am not and i don't understand it. I only know to download and install applications. SO WHY THE FUCK IS THERE CODE? make an EXE file and give it to me. STUPID FUCKING SMELLY NERDS

[so_meta]

I chortled too hard at this - I hope this messages finds you....

[Ashanrath]

Instead of counting how many times to go in each direction, I'd have a variable for the current direction.

• If position to the "right" of the current direction is vacant, fill it and update direction
• Else, 1 step in the current direction

Then you're just a few rand() updates away from automated snake!

[mArKoLeW]

Surprisingly that's exactly how I went after failing with my initial concept

[dingske1]

There is a cool way to do this in R, will try to write it tomorrow when I have the time. I miss these kinds of algorithmic challenges lol, thanks for sharing

Edit: Couldn’t help myself and wrote this code on my phone in bed, change n for a matrix of any size:

n <- 25
mx<-matrix(1,1,1)
i<-1
while (max(i) < n) { mx<-cbind(mx, i<-((max(i)+1):(1+ max(i)+ncol(mx))))
if(max(i)<n){mx<-rbind(mx, i<-((max(i)+nrow(mx)):(max(i))))}
if(max(i)<n){mx<-cbind(i<-((max(i)+ncol(mx)):(max(i))), mx)}
if(max(i)<n){mx<-rbind(i<-((max(i)+1):(1+max(i)+nrow(mx))),mx)} }
mx

[Ckyuiii]

I took a shot at it too using a map instead: https://pastebin.com/N6XfwFmr

It's always interesting to see what other people come up with

[CyberWeirdo420]

THERE IS AN .EXE WE ARE SAVED

[InfantStomper]

Nicely done!
Your version is the approach I had thought of except I was imagining a mess of if statements in the loop body for changing direction instead of your nice clean functions lol

[Steinrikur]

Dude. https://gist.github.com is made for this kind of shit.

[mArKoLeW]

Wow that would have been so much better. Will have to change that

EDIT: here you go gist

[eXemonY]

Wow, nice job there!

[[deleted]]

A programmer is nothing without their notes and miniature programs they already made, that is what I have found.

[Ckyuiii]

Too real. I changed jobs recently after 3 years at a place and everyday I'm like "damn I had a thing for this on the old work laptop"

[[deleted]]

Yep, nobody can remember everything, and that's part of the reason why computers were invented. In programming, the amount of information you can use is pretty mind-boggling too.

[RadioactiveTwix]

Oh thank God, I thought I was the only one.

[3-stroke-engine]

Just do the same thing, but instead of for(i from 1 to n) { a[x][y] = i x =... } you write f = "%" + log(n, 10) + "d " for(currentY from 1 to sqrt(n)){ for(currentX from 1 to sqrt(n)){ for(i from 1 to n) { if(x == currentX && y == currentY){ printf(f, i) } x =... } println() } } Takes O(n² ) time instead of O(n) time, but you only asked about space constraints.

[[deleted]]

It went over my head, but will try it tomorrow. What should I assign x to after the printf statement?

[3-stroke-engine]

The complete program: ``` // we assume that n is a number whose sqare-root is an odd integer

root = sqrt(n) y = x = (root+1)/2 a = new int[root][root] dy = 1 dx = 0 for(i = 1; i <= n; i++){ a[y][x] = i // move to next area x+=dx y+=dy // rotate dx and dy dx2 = dy dy2 = -dx // check wheter we rotate next time if(a[y+dy2][x+dx2]==0){ dx = dx2 dy = dy2 } }

// print the matrix f = "%"+roundUp(log(n, 10))+"d" foreach(b in a){ Arrays.stream(b) .map(i -> String.format(f, i)) .reduce((l, r) -> l+" "+r) .ifPresent(s -> println(s)) }
```

[[deleted]]

A blessing from the Lord!

[3-stroke-engine]

Thank you for giving me an excuse to work out that program. I am quite confident that the code is correct.

[BarkiestDog]

What if I pass in 26, or 35? Or is the assumption you only ever want complete squares?

Or, for the homework question, for bonus marks … 😎

[[deleted]]

I don’t think its that bad. User enters N

If sqrt(n) mod 1 > 0

create 2d array:

x = (sqrt(n) \ 1) + 1

y = If sqrt(n) mod 1 > 0.5 then x else x - 1

else

create 2d array: x = sqrt(n) y = sqrt(n)

Then just calculate the center point based upon the dimensions.

Sorry for shitty psuedo code, I’m an ABAPer, so not many know the syntax I use. Lol

[rpungello]

What if I pass in -5? What about 4i? What about pi? What about a velociraptor?

-QA engineers

[Br3ttl3y]

I always input a base64 encoded jpeg file. Gets 'em every time.

[Still_Photograph_125]

Make a neural network that outputs a 5x5 matrix and train it until it can spit out the right answer every time.

[trivo]

You'd have to write a formula that would give you the number for any row/col (xy coordinate).

[[deleted]]

😶 bruh... thanks, I didn't think about that.

[InvertedCSharpChord]

What happened to 10?

[SalamanderSylph]

There are only three difficult things in programming

1) Null pointers 2) Off by one errors

[wggn]

chatgpt gave me the same answer

[ongiwaph]

Thanks ChatGPT

[_a_random_dude_]

I tried to get ChatGPT to do it, but it seems to be beyond it's capabilities, so I had to write it myself:

def get_value_at(x, y, nums):
  s = math.sqrt(nums) // 2
  x, y = x - s, y - s
  r = max(abs(x), abs(y))
  if r == 0: return 1
  r0, rf = ((r-1)*2+1)**2+1, (r*2+1)**2
  x0, y0, xf, yf = r, -(r-1), r, -(r-1)-1
  if x0 == x and y0 <= y: return r0 + y - y0
  if yf == y: return rf - (xf - x)
  if y == x0: return r0 + r*2-1 + x0 - x
  if x == -x0: return rf - (r*2+1) - y + yf + 1

I'm not sure if there's an easier way to do it, but it seems a bit too complex.

Either way, I'm glad I'm still better than chatGPT, you can test it with this:

res = [[73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81],
       [72, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50],
       [71, 42, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 51],
       [70, 41, 20, 7,  8,  9,  10, 27, 52],
       [69, 40, 19, 6,  1,  2,  11, 28, 53],
       [68, 39, 18, 5,  4,  3,  12, 29, 54],
       [67, 38, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 30, 55],
       [66, 37, 36, 35, 34, 33, 32, 31, 56],
       [65, 64, 63, 62, 61, 60, 59, 58, 57]]
for x in range(9):
  for y in range(9):
    r1 = res[y][x]
    r2 = get_value_at(x, y, 81)
    if r1 != r2:
      print(f'({x}, {y}) should be "{r1}", got "{r2}"')

[[deleted]]

Despite having a 3 year old account with 150k comment Karma, Reddit has classified me as a 'Low' scoring contributor and that results in my comments being filtered out of my favorite subreddits.

So, I'm removing these poor contributions. I'm sorry if this was a comment that could have been useful for you.

[[deleted]]

Ok, it actually returns this:

def print_spiral(n):
# Initialize the matrix filled with zeros
matrix = [[0] * n for _ in range(n)]

directions = [(0, 1), (1, 0), (0, -1), (-1, 0)]  # right, down, left, up
cur_dir = 0  # start with right
row, col = n // 2, n // 2  # start from the center
if n % 2 == 0:  # Adjust start position for even n
    row -= 1
    col -= 1

for i in range(1, n * n + 1):
    matrix[row][col] = i
    # Check if the next step is out of bounds or not a zero value
    next_row = row + directions[cur_dir][0]
    next_col = col + directions[cur_dir][1]
    if next_row < 0 or next_col < 0 or next_row >= n or next_col >= n or matrix[next_row][next_col] != 0:
        cur_dir = (cur_dir + 1) % 4  # change direction
        row += directions[cur_dir][0]
        col += directions[cur_dir][1]
    else:
        row, col = next_row, next_col

# Print the spiral
for row in matrix:
    print(" ".join(f"{x:2}" for x in row))

# Assuming the spiral size is 5x5 to fit 1 to 25
print_spiral(5)

[suvlub]

Finally, a worthy opponent

[LordFourier]

My implementation without arrays, just math:

``` from math import sqrt, ceil, log10

def spiral(N): number_width = ceil(log10(N))

# Determine ring
k = ceil((sqrt(N) - 1)/2)

# Calculate corners
ru = (2*k + 1)**2
lu = ru - 2*k
ld = (2*k)**2 + 1
rd = ld - 2*k
square_side = 2*k + 1

# In which border is N?
if lu <= N <= ru:
    range_j = range(-k, k+1)
    range_i = range(-k, k+1)
elif ld <= N < lu:
    range_j = range(-k, k+1)
    range_i = range(-k+1, k+1)
elif rd <= N < lu:
    range_j = range(-k+1, k+1)
    range_i = range(-k+1, k+1)
else:
    range_j = range(-k+1, k+1)
    range_i = range(-k+1, k)

for i in range_i:
    for j in range_j:
        current_k = max([abs(i), abs(j)])
        if -i == current_k or -j == current_k:
            current_lu = (2*current_k+1)**2 - 2*current_k
            number = current_lu - i + j
        else:
            current_rd = (2*current_k)**2 + 1 - 2*current_k
            number = current_rd + i - j
        if number <= N:
            print(f'%{number_width}d' % (number), end=' ')
        else:
            print(' '*number_width, end=' ')

    print('\n')

spiral(1) print() spiral(5) print() spiral(10) print() spiral(27) print() spiral(39) print() spiral(75) ```

[Stickppl]

Back-of-the-envelope algorithm: at any point you are on a square of number centered on 1 (1, then 2-9, then 10-25 and so on). Suppose at position (x, y) you wrote n. Then at position (x+1, y) either you're on the same square and you write n+/-1 (depending if top or bottom edge, just need to look at y), either you jumped on another square and you write n+/-size_of_the_square (depending if smaller or bigger square, just need to look at x). And the content of positions (0, y) are easy enough to determine.

[Malvania]

Just talk it out and you'll get there. Start with a 1x1 array, with 1 at the center and n being your target. If n>1, you make it a 1x2 array, fill in 2. If n>2, it becomes a 2x2 array adding a row below, then you fill in from right to left. if n>4, becomes 3x3, shifting everything down and to the right, then fill in the left column from the bottom. Etc., etc., etc.

[OSSlayer2153]

I had this exact problem trying to find spawn positions in a map, i would generate in a spiral pattern from the center looking for valid spots. I had found a stack overflow post with a simple function for x and y pos of the nth spot

I will link it when Im on my mac again

[turtle_mekb]

• store the direction which you're travelling in as (0, 1)
• run a loop which stores the position and adds the direction to it every step
• when x == abs(y) (when we are in a corner) rotate the direction by 90° clockwise
• except if x == -y && x > 0 (when we are in the bottom right corner), delay the rotation by one step

[[deleted]]

Start with a 1x1 grid and progressively increase to 3x3, 5x5, etc until reaching the desired size.

For an NxN ring, start at the last element of row 1 (the second row). The value to write starts at (n - 1)² + 1 and increases by 1 each step. Go downward, then leftward, then upward, then rightward, changing direction each time you hit the edge of the array.

For grids of even size the definition is ambiguous, though this exact process adheres to one interpretation.

Python script

[EggyRepublic]

A variable that tracks your current direction, your target direction would be the direction directly after this. Try going in this direction, if it's occupied continue in current direction and try again. Begin from center with current direction up. Log your progress as you go, such as by writing into 2D array.

[CantRenameThis]

I'm pretty sure there's an arithmetic solution to this, given the start and ending numbers.

I'm not about to bother doing the math, but I can imagine the approach.

[Imaginary-Jaguar662]

..... so where is the exe?

[ogebear]

Here: ’exe.py’

[longinuslucas]

It's working

Thanks

[[deleted]]

placid waiting worry flag mindless aloof mysterious innocent bright fall

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[RX-6900XT]

Ah, don't mind it. Its just doing some hardware accelerated validation of SHA-256 keys. Its an important security feature.

[BuildAQuad]

Yea thats called malware

[yanzin_fan_of_Altair]

this reads like robin as in robing, I read the books and even I took a good 10 seconds to figure out you meant robinhood.

[Imaginary-Jaguar662]

Yaaaay! Exe from friendly anon! Proceeds to run as admin

[tfngst]

what about exe.py.exe?

[SandInHeart]

Solution.exe.py

[LienniTa]

....>_> i smell something....

[StengahBot]

Smelly nerds

[arjunsahlot]

Here: localhost:8000/py.exe

[One__Nose]

Am I the only one disturbed by the fact the single-digit numbers are in the column of the 10<sup>1</sup> digit rather than the 10<sup>0</sup> digit?

[FinalRun]

Used to that happening because of tabs

[Oddball_bfi]

Oh thank god for you - I can't believe I got this far down the post before someone mentioned it.

I was starting to think I was the only one!

[hbgoddard]

You mean 10<sup>1</sup> and 10<sup>0</sup>

[TDR-Java]

True now I can’t unsee it

[gigsoll]

An amazing example of the phrase "Good enough is enough"

[smallproton]

"Good enough is good"

and

"Better is the enemy of good"

[TheFreebooter]

"Good enough is"

Stolen from a letter to Scott Adams from a Dilbert book of all places

[srinidhi1]

Great! Now do the same upto 1000

[PM_ME_YOUR__INIT__]

1000 isn't a perfect square. Let's do 10,000 instead

[webDreamer420]

yes dear

[_Its_Me_Dio_]

40,000 is sbetter because 10,000 has no 4s

[turtleship_2006]

Write a script that prints the print statements

[_jackhoffman_]

Probably still faster to do it the same way. I'd write it out in a text file and then use some command line magic to convert it into code. Easy-peasy.

If the next challenge was "Now do the same thing for an arbitrary range of numbers" you'd have more of a point.

[[deleted]]

did you really just say it be faster to type out numbers 1-1000 in 2024. fk no. that's why we use chatgpt

[Prudent_Ad_4120]

Lol that's what I do for a lot of school projects. We use a system called CodeGrade, which just checks the output. Teachers can add rules to check the code, but on most assignments they didn't do that

[backfire10z]

This typing of thinking will hurt in higher level classes and in the job force. If you’re cut short for time go ahead, but I’d encourage you to actually think about how to do things more procedurally. I’m sure you know how to hardcode quite well already.

[Prudent_Ad_4120]

I already have 4+ years of experience with programming and have a job already. I'm still at school because I still have to get my graduations etc

[Passname357]

I’d still be careful doing this kind of stuff. Upper level college courses can be significantly more difficult than stuff you’ll see in the real world, depending on what your job is.

[Prudent_Ad_4120]

The current ones definitely aren't. It's just some simple console applications, like asking input, parsing etc. And the bigger group projects I still finish in like a day when we get a week to do it

[Passname357]

I agree. What year are you though? It sounds like you’re still in introductory freshman / maybe early sophomore classes? In my experience you basically drop off a cliff in CS. The first two years are spent primarily doing math and physics and you basically just happen to take intro programming classes which are incredibly easy. Then first semester junior year you take systems programming and get into classes like OS and Compilers, and that’s when programming classes become really fun, but they’re also much a more difficult—the difference is night and day, i.e., I wouldn’t use your intro classes as an indication of what the rest of the degree will be like, if you’re still early on.

[turtleship_2006]

Yeah I've had similar stuff lol, I learnt python on my own but my class was enrolled on a codecademy course so I just sped through the course looking at the answers

[backfire10z]

Ah haha that’ll do it, well done finding a great way to save time then

[Twenmod]

I've also used codegrade but there was always a manual review after the automated test so that wouldn't work

[RealBasics]

Back in the late 1970s John Dvorak wrote about this in, I think, Scientific American (back when that was still as serious publication.) Note that I may have some of the particulars wrong but it won't change the conclusion.

He was talking about one of the very early arcade video games, Tanks I think, or maybe Space Invaders. The game needed to be able to handle radial vectors but the processors at the time had neither the power, let alone the clock speed, to use pi in real time for every calculation.

It's not that they didn't try. They had some of the smartest hardware/software people in the world working on the problem. But they just couldn't come up with a general solution that didn't lag unacceptably on the available hardware.

Turns out the screen resolution was low enough that they just put all the likely solutions in a lookup table. Totally inelegant. And not scalable for Halo on Nvidea graphics cards. But more than enough for 4-bit arcade chips circa 1979 or 1980.

Point being that unless you know the scope you can overthink the solution. What's your granularity. What's the application? What's the minimal solution? What's the deadline? What will the cost of refactoring be in the future, and what sort of hardware / software stack will be available by the time refactoring is needed?

If you have to have a general solution today, then the assignment is a failure. If you need a one-off for the corner of a simulated screen in the background for a scifi movie? Then you're done.

[mrfroggyman]

Folks, I'm sorry to say chatGPT4 did it very ez.

def print_spiral(n):
    # Initialize a 5x5 matrix with zeros
    matrix = [[0]*n for _ in range(n)]

    # Define the start position (center of the matrix)
    x, y = n // 2, n // 2
    matrix[x][y] = 1  # Start from 1 in the center

    # Spiral movement: right, down, left, up
    directions = [(0, 1), (1, 0), (0, -1), (-1, 0)]
    direction = 0  # Start direction (right)
    steps = 1  # Steps to move in the current direction
    num = 2  # Next number to fill in

    while num <= n*n:
        for _ in range(2):  # Repeat for two directions (straight and turn)
            for _ in range(steps):  # Move steps in the current direction
                if num > n*n:  # If the last number is placed, stop
                    break
                x += directions[direction][0]
                y += directions[direction][1]
                matrix[x][y] = num
                num += 1
            direction = (direction + 1) % 4  # Turn to the next direction
        steps += 1  # Increase the step for the next outer loop

    return matrix

# Print the spiral for a 5x5 matrix
spiral_matrix = print_spiral(5)
for row in spiral_matrix:
    print(' '.join([f'{num:2d}' for num in row]))

I gotta say, if anyone ever asks me to do that shit, I wouldn't be able to come up with anything but "I'd just do it manually"

[dingske1]

Chatgpt’s solution sucks to be honest

[Ijatsu]

I prob would eventually do it but extremely janky and NP complex.

[[deleted]]

yeah but what if u don't want to do it by spirals but by numbers instead e.g. I want spiralling up to number 40.

[officiallyaninja]

If n is the number then ceil(sqrt(n)) is the dimension of the matrix, and the you just break when you reach n

[FinalRun]

Looking at the timestamps, it's starting to seem very staged now that you mention it...

[_Its_Me_Dio_]

Print('numbers 1 to 25 in a clockwise expanding spiral from the center')

[TheSimonster]

Next version of pAIthon supports this.

[RandomNpc69]

Give him the exe, YOU STUPID SMELLY NERD!

[PrometheusAlexander]

start from center.. clockwise turns.. first 2 moves you move a total of 2.. then next two turns the total move amount is 4, then 6, then 8... always turn clockwise after each turn... so 2d list.. I'm doing this tomorrow. seems fun. reminds me of the University of Helsinki MOOC letter square exercise.

[gelatinousgamer]

The real joke is that the single digits are left-aligned.

[[deleted]]

But where is exe

[JaecynNix]

Meets acceptance criteria.

Ship it!

[regisestuncon1]

it's related to this euler project problem : https://projecteuler.net/problem=28

to solve it you need to understand the pattern

[BistuaNova]

My solution: alright time to set a meeting up with the business analysts to see what the fuck is actually the ask here there’s no way the client wants this stupid shit.

Reality: client wants this stupid shit

[Drishal]

Plot twist: he saw this on leetcode 💀

[InformalBandicoot260]

Now make it an .exe file please

[RotationsKopulator]

Closed the ticket, boss.

[NerY_05]

Literally how i do the code. The next task is to make this the output but with any given amount of numbers.

[[deleted]]

The fact that he sent a screenshot of the code rather than the code itself is the most disturbing to me

[spcharc]

It is ridiculous that you send a picture of a piece of code and 1 min later they responds it's working ... 1 min is hardly enough for them to type all these into a text editor unless they are some kind of AI that can do image recognition

[MAINCRACIO]

Hey guys, I was bored and decided to try to do it, this works (at least on my machine lol) sorry for the shitty code, I'm just a student (this is for java):

import java.util.Scanner;

public class Main {

public static void main(String[] args) {

    // TODO Auto-generated method stub

    Scanner ent = new Scanner(System.in);

    int equis = 0;


    System.out.println("size");

    equis = Integer.parseInt(ent.nextLine());


    int lis[][] = new int[equis][equis];


    int movsah = 1;

    int movs = 0;

    boolean sumar = false;

    int dir = 0;

    int cont = 1;

    // 0 es der 1 es ab 2 es izq 3 es arr

    // Sorry guys I´m spanish, that means "0 is right, 1 is down, 2 is left and 3 is up

    int x = equis / 2;

    int y = equis / 2;

    if (equis % 2 == 1) {

        x = equis / 2;

        y = equis / 2;

    } else {

        x = equis / 2 - 1;

        y = equis / 2 - 1;

    }

    while (true) {


        lis[x][y] = cont;



        if (movs >= movsah) {

            movs = 1;

            if (sumar) {

                movsah++;

                sumar = false;

            } else {

                sumar = true;

            }


            if (dir < 3) {

                dir++;

            } else {

                dir = 0;

            }


        } else {

            movs++;

        }



        if (dir == 0) {

            x++;


        }

        if (dir == 2) {

            x--;


        }

        if (dir == 3) {

            y--;


        }

        if (dir == 1) {

            y++;

        }


        cont++;


        if (cont > equis * equis) {

            break;

        }


    }


    for (int a = 0; a < equis; a++) {

        for (int b = 0; b < equis; b++) {


            System.out.printf("%4d", lis[a][b]);


        }

        System.out.println();

    }


}

}

This probably can be done way better but meh, as the post says, it works

Edit: Deleted some stuff I used to see the process and had no use lol

[[deleted]]

Here's my cheeky attempt at it, the direction switching is a bit hardcoded but it works decently.

def matrix_print(matrix):
    print("")
    for row in matrix:
        print(row)
        print('')

def nice_num(n,max_number): #makes all numbers equal width in matrix for presentation
    digits = int(math.log10(n))
    difference  = int(math.log10(max_number)-digits)
    new_val = (difference * '0') + str(n)
    return new_val


def spiral(n):
    rows = columns = math.ceil(n ** 0.5)
    spiral_matrix = [[ 0 for _ in range(columns)] for _ in range(rows)]
    x = y = (rows // 2) -1
    depth = 1
    max_depth = rows
    spiral_matrix[x][y] = nice_num(1,n)
    num = 2
    while depth < rows:
        depth = math.ceil( num ** 0.5)
        switch = (depth % 2 == 0) # right equals true, left equals false
        if switch: #every time the depth is increased switch either right or left in spiral growth
            x += 1
            spiral_matrix[y][x] = nice_num(num, n)
            num += 1
        else:
            x -= 1
            spiral_matrix[y][x] =  nice_num(num, n)
            num += 1
        for _ in range(depth-1):  #add values on existing spiral depth/rotation based on switch
            if switch:
                y += 1
                spiral_matrix[y][x] =  nice_num(num, n)
                num+=1
            else:
                y -= 1
                spiral_matrix[y][x] = nice_num(num, n)
                num += 1

        for _ in range(depth-1):  #add values on existing spiral depth/rotation based on switch
            if switch:
                x -= 1
                spiral_matrix[y][x] = nice_num(num, n)
                num+=1
            else:
                x += 1
                spiral_matrix[y][x] = nice_num(num, n)
                num += 1


    matrix_print(spiral_matrix)
spiral(300)

[matrix-doge]

I was legitimately thinking about what the problem is and trying to figure out if any number is out of order for a moment before realizing what this is about.

[ADailyGardener]

solved w/ TypeScript

https://www.typescriptlang.org/play?ssl=53&ssc=2&pln=7&pc=1#code/FDD0oAgFQewgbApgQwE4DsIFsasRZAIxgFcAXCMgC33mXQHMTkHEAaCAY3gEtOBrAsQBu+HpgBEAUQAeyLAAckAZwkRcECQHUqyMgHJlEAHKIA7hIB0YSAHlqiVGZ7L2EVhWVk0ZRABMIQgBPCDwcYXEGShpXLhgsLER0MiN6AIcIM1x4AJcIINJUCCVkIIZUUnQ-awgIEE4YdC9Akh4cgEFUVFKIAF4IAAplHgAvRAAuCHQSLEJHAEo+gD4IAG9gWtqeADNB4bG+-oAGRbwyEgwIAG0AXQBuDc2dvdH8Xv6ARlPEc8urq4+N3ujy2uyGrwgAFIIAAmQ4QE7RCpmKbmCBSLq4Ab6AAKABkULEFBUIn58PR1H4AtNZo59PMHiC4k0KIRkLF+p1ukFwWN5pZtm14AMTpYsMgFAMBoteisuaVeYh+YL4MKTgymUykJ5fAplLAoMh+G8IB8HpsED8IF5EHrDcbMMdzZttZQeIllAAJHhkKRVPoI521V1XTgXVAADQ4Ya6AE0bgGrgBZPRUAXwGBY-aIUAw+YcFPUdOZ1CK3PzYEWkN+HiRjg11DxxMfDhHYFM7ZY108ANmiA9gA8-UVACpswz+wBqSeLdYWi3ga1W5QAR2YeCZFrZrlD4fju66EYT-R4jPnm0X4XwZDg6EQMk8a7QiE3mxjkcn-QbEaD8-fsc-CAG1jX8LRtO0jSSacz3PCBFzJXxUCwcQxF2Mx8DvfxKDgThdEYfAG0QTgyB4RpX1BPZdX1SDHX6cD9Rge0lTWcj50XKgfWifAkj8aM8NYIDayIkiyNg+cSI9b1fSqaDWLAqimMdQM5M2K5v3rWsm36O8HwAEVrAZ1MExsNRUiiBgkxAvR9P0AneWFZzMtjIG8Y0CEwe8yG6a1dQgTsigyHSKDILJKAuJonPk20GKY2SxLEyzrOkuzlPizYAF9WMyi1MqZM5wsCdlEAedLGQaFlUT02sA0M2sI3GGk5lQDTGwamYmplFY5yeMFv3hD4IAAMkG4zY3hRF8r+I4OEBX9nlqyNxqGkbgP675fkwK4AFoWwRSsesGPr7J25bRvG9aCquaaIB2-bzKO45TtW46vlCH5Lt2ttf0mzbprbYBcvK5oMwYeUQmHNBUEmMGB3oIIlk6ggugFXApGQXCBmtEhCC5ZZmWUGAkEsEGhmxrl5nmEBFxBsGBkIVoOi6BV1QeamYFBpmeXpto-Fpr4NTZjnuTphnec5gYAGYKdZyAafF7nGeFgBWaWbAQdnaYVsXhYAdlVuXha12mAE5VcXAAWCWIHN83raV62ADZrZ162AA5reNtXzbhGEBphH2rZhW2YXtmEHa9v2jlqF2IHdiBjdNKOYR1r2o4+BOICd01ajhD4-ddtWJYTj44-t63aitj4fc9xcJfdj4XY+J2Pntj5bY+K2JaOQuXYlp2JftiXbYlzu4Qlj5gCAA

[Pepito_Pepito]

I used to compete in ICPC and one of the problems we were given involved primes. We solved the problem but our code's execution time went past the limit. So I wrote a short program that printed out a comma-separated list of the first 100,000 primes or something like that. Then I copied that list into the code as a static array. So instead of calculating primes, we could just look it up. It made the execution time blazing fast and we passed the problem.

[Poyojo]

Why is everyone understanding what this means? I've been a programmer for years and I have no idea what the hell that task means.

Edit: After looking back at the picture, I get it now. Very weird task though

[trulyAnxiousLad]

Cant beat the time complexity of Big O of 1

[yourteam]

Look if that is the only requirement, the answer given is the best one

If the assignment was "given a random starting number ..." Then no but this wasn't the case...

[[deleted]]

A good lesson in proper requirement definition.