7 Aug 2026
disbot <antononcube> Yeah, sparse matrix algebra can be implemented with hashmaps. 21:48
<ilguappo> The above algorithm is sparse. It's only storing and manipulating a list of alive cells and potentially alive cells 21:49
<ilguappo> That's why I'm confused as to why it's unbearably slow on such a small grid. 21:50
<antononcube> Ok. I am proposing / looking into sparse matrices because "Math::SparseMatrix" can use C-implemented matrix algebra. 21:51
<antononcube> Especially with large play fields that should be fairly fast. 21:52
<ilguappo> That's interesting. 21:53
<ilguappo> This is what inspired me to use GOL to learn programming languages. jaxry.github.io/colorful-life/ 21:57
<antononcube> Nice! Also, it can be implemented in Raku.
<antononcube> Hmm.. if the mutation rules can be expressed as sparse matrix operations. 21:58
<antononcube> "Dry life" 🙂 21:59
<antononcube> @ilguappo In case you are wonder why I am interested in Cellular Automata -- I tend to talk the "New Kind of Science" guy often enough. 22:02
<antononcube> This seems like a good topic to discuss at «The SF Perl Raku Study Group, 08/09 at 1pm PDT». 22:15
<antononcube> @ilguappo Can GOL be implemented using regexes? That should be fast. 22:34
<ilguappo> That's an interesting idea. I don't know. 22:46
<ilguappo> I found this code golf version and of course Perl wins. 😉 stackoverflow.com/a/3539261 22:51
<ilguappo> I can't say I understand that it all. Lol 22:52
<ilguappo> Cool stuff dotat.at/prog/life/life.html 23:03
8 Aug 2026
<antononcube> Raku should be able to do something terse like that too. 00:50
9 Aug 2026
<antononcube> @ilguappo Hopefully, today I will publish in raku.land the package "CellularAutomata". It might be 1D rules only, though. 18:38
<antononcube> Nevertheless, I plan to have 2D rules and to use sparse matrices. 18:40
<ilguappo> I look forward to playing around with it! 19:45
<antononcube> That package would be very "fruitful" blog-posts-wise. 19:50
10 Aug 2026
lizmat And yet another Rakudo Weekly News hits the Net: rakudoweekly.blog/2026/08/10/2026-...ating-hex/ 15:22
14 Aug 2026
ab5tract atononcube: Did you say you are in touch with Stephen Wolfram? He's one of those legends that seems almost unreal, like Ray Kurzweil. 15:27
disbot <antononcube> Yes, I can talk to him. (Stephen Wolfram.) But I, usually, think I am wasting his time, so, I communicate with him in "official manner" only, with other people around, 15:43
<antononcube> I have not heard of Ray Kurzweil before...
ab5tract He developed that classic Text to Speech voice chip from the 80s, among a few dozen other things. Also popularized the idea of an AI singularity with some books in the early 2000s. 15:58
Anyway, that's pretty cool re: Stephen Wolfram. 16:01
disbot <antononcube> Here is a summary/review of what I was doing last month at Wolfram Summer Research Program 2026: www.reddit.com/r/summerprogramresu...are_button 16:57
<antononcube> BTW, that is why I did not go to the Perl/Raku conference in June. 16:58
16 Aug 2026
<jubilatious1_98524> Only a handful of Raku talks this year (2026). 14:58
<antononcube> 🙂 What was the attendees average age. Or age distribution... 15:38
<jubilatious1_98524> Age is just a number. 23:44
<jubilatious1_98524> There was at least one high-quality talk/attendee 🤣 . 23:45
17 Aug 2026
<antononcube> Yeah, many old people say that. 12:02
<antononcube> I am curious, who/what that is, but I think I know the answer... 12:03
<jubilatious1_98524> We needed you at the conference, Anton! Rob was there...maybe he'll give a talk in a year-or-two. 15:36
18 Aug 2026
lizmat and yet another Rakudo Weekly News hits the Net: rakudoweekly.blog/2026/08/18/2026-...-infinity/ 14:25
25 Aug 2026
And yet another Rakudo Weekly News hits the Net: rakudoweekly.blog/2026/08/25/2026-...r-by-coke/ 11:31
29 Aug 2026
habere-et-disper m: say (1..*).gist; 21:53
camelia 1..Inf
habere-et-disper I thought .gist would truncate at 100 elements...
Docs say to be expected if lazy, but if I'm eager the list will never populate... ie say (1..*).eager.gist 22:03
I realize we use .head
disbot <antononcube> You can use Rakupp. Then you will get the message: > Cannot eager an infinite range 22:44
30 Aug 2026
habere-et-disper How do I keep doing something until a key is pressed ? 20:52
31 Aug 2026
lizmat and yet another Rakudo Weekly hits the Net: rakudoweekly.blog/2026/08/31/2026-...revisited/ 17:44
6 Sep 2026
thowe I apparently don't understand how to create a hash? I am sending a hash to a sub routine, but it tells me "ype check failed in binding to parameter '%address'; expected Associative[Hash] but got Hash ({:address_status_id(...)". I don't understand how to send what it wants. I've tried creating the hash 4 different ways. 16:42
disbot <antononcube> I think Associative[Hash] means that the value are hashmaps. Are they? 18:04
thowe I thought that too, but I then created the hash from scratch to check and got the same thing. 18:18
It seems to be something with how it lands in the object tree or something... I think it may be becasue I didn't explicitly create with Hash.new so it sort of was coerced into a Hash? But the odd thing is it says i is getting a Hash, but expecting "Associative[Hash]" which I don't get becasue my subroutine signature said "Hash". Now I am wondering if it is becasue I did (Hash %hashthing) instead of (Hash $hashthing) 18:20
% instead of $
I gave up for now because I need to get this done for someone at work, but I'll have to go back and figure it out. 18:21