[Haskell-cafe] haskellwiki and Project Euler

[Rodrigo Queiro]

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 <daniel.is.fischer at web.de> 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
>
>
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