In particular, this problem I submitted seems to be disliked. I'm curious as to why.

I can understand that people who aren't familiar with programming languages may not understand it or be able to address the problem, but does that make it bad? Or are there other reasons that people don't like it?

- SK

Gamer,

Perhaps... but with respect to DJ's The Powers that Be, he specified how to represent a complex number, but he didn't show how to add or multiply two complex numbers, let alone how to exponentiate them.

That being said, I think DJ wrote it just fine.... It is to complex an issue to describe in his problem. But similarly, what verbage could I have used to simplify this problem, or make it more available to those who aren't familiar with pointer-supporting computer languages?

- SK

*sigh*... okay... I'm outta college... (is that an "old geezer"?) How old do you think I am?!? :-)

lol
i think old guys are much smarter then i am
besides in china being called old is a matter of respect(i am not chinese)
when somone is called old it means that they are wise and make good decisions. By making good decisions it means you are a good member of the community and that you are happy. You dont wanna be happy?=(
lol

Everyone pretty much knows that if i = square root (-1), you can just leave that there and multiply. :) So I don't think that's a problem.

The idea of the problem was to say if such a thing to another power would make sense.

I'm happy to say I'm MUCH younger than that ;-)

no. :-) much younger would have to be... oh... I dunno.... at least 10...

I mean at least 10 years YOUNGER than 40-50 years old... (not at least 10 years old)... and yes, I'm outta college... though I'm STRONGLY desiring to go back in... life is hard.

No, I'm somewhere between 21 and at least 10 years less than 40.

uh... perhaps... and
no, sorry.

SK, I haven't read the Forums in weeks and just saw your query ...

I didn't (couldn't) enjoy the problem in question because I am not a programmer, and so it meant as little to me as Sanskrit. This is not an indictment of the problem; I just couldn't understand the puzzle or the world it was coming from. If I recall correctly, rather than give it a TD I simply did not vote on it and left it to the EECS-minded to decide its worth.

In general, I would recommend to everyone that they submit puzzles that don't require much beyond a high school education, simply so that the puzzle has the potential to be appreciated by the largest audience. Sure, many of us have educations that far exceed this level and, case in point, your puzzle seemed to draw keen interest from some fellow Flooblers. The problem IMHO with submitting specialized problems such as computer programming is that they turn off those who don't have the background to even understand what is being asked. I've thought of five or six really cool puzzles that I haven't submitted because the contingent of readers lacking a degree in Mechanical Engineering are going to feel cheated that my puzzle took the place of something else they could participate in.

Sabes?

Another consideration is that all problems, regardless of category, show up on levik's Problem of the Day on other sites that link to it. A problem should be of general interest. I think the problems shouldn't be esoteric in the sense of being solely computer-related. That is, so long as the algorithm has a tie-in with either the real world or the world of puzzles, the computer algorithm or verbal algorithm description will have interest. I think the difficulty of the one problem about linked lists is the fact that it was computer-related concerning a solely-computer-related problem, rather than computer-related concerning a real-world or puzzle-world problem. You'd probably get the same, not so enthusiastic response if you discussed queues and stacks, unless you framed the queuing problem in terms of queues (lines to us Americans) at bank teller windows, etc.