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May 14, 2021 at 11:25 comment added user21820 @Khaled.K: Exactly. It is ridiculous that people on CG SE do not understand the difference between strings and their evaluation (if any).
Aug 21, 2016 at 6:13 comment added Andrew Grimm @Jwosty I think you're interpreting the answer too literally.
Jan 19, 2016 at 11:59 comment added Khaled.K "the $n-th prime" is not the n-th prime.
Jul 16, 2015 at 9:11 comment added Luis Mendo @IlmariKaronen I tend to agree with your reasoning. But for the n-th prime there is a convenient decimal representation, whereas for the cases you mention there is not. Saying "sqrt(2)" is probably the simplest explicit representation of the intended number, whereas saying "the n-th prime" is not (you could write it explicitly and simply as "23", or as "127", etc)
Jul 16, 2015 at 8:54 comment added Ilmari Karonen @LuisMendo: It could also be viewed as a representation issue. That is, if we accept, say, "13", "13.0", "thirteen", "XIII", "0xD" and "1.3e1" as valid representations of the same number, then why not also "10 + 3" or "int(pi^2 + pi)" or "x: x^2 - 26*x + 169 = 0" or "the 6th prime"? This is not a trivial issue in philosophy of mathematics, since in math, we're constantly dealing with numbers that we can't write down as, say, a finite sequence of decimals, like pi or sqrt(2) or even just 1/3. Just about the only easy and simple answer is "because it would make the challenge boring".
Jan 25, 2015 at 18:02 comment added Luis Mendo This is not a loophole actually. It's just a misconception (albeit a very extended one), a confusion between use and mention. The challenge didn't include quotation marks
Sep 5, 2014 at 12:25 comment added Matthew Najmon Your example is actually one of not interpreting the challenge quite literally enough. You would have a good point if this were a spoken medium, but on a typed challenge, "the $n-th prime" in quotes is different from "the $n-th prime" without the quotes. Punctuation matters. It's the difference between "I had a dream about 3 ballerinas, Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler." and "I had a dream about 3 ballerinas: Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler."
Jul 4, 2014 at 12:07 comment added Fabinout Someone may answer my question, I've said this a few months ago (meta.codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/924/… ), but why does my question have a tag "this question has already been answered in {this topic}"? Even though my own one was months prior to this one? I didn't think it would be like that.
Jun 20, 2014 at 15:59 comment added Jwosty @Rokk Or is it? IT'S ALL A RUSE!
Jun 20, 2014 at 9:28 comment added user23597 @Jwosty not in this case, as PHP is interpreted.
Jun 10, 2014 at 17:21 comment added Jwosty I believe you meant "Compiling the challenge too literally" :P
Mar 18, 2014 at 0:35 history made wiki Post Made Community Wiki by C. K. YoungMod
Feb 23, 2014 at 14:37 history answered Ilmari Karonen CC BY-SA 3.0