Jul 2012
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dfeuer_sof
Jul '12

I can understand why one might want to ban a language that has the entire problem solution built in (though such problems are generally not interesting anyway), but many problems seem to just exclude languages the problem posers have some grudge against. For instance, LEONARDO is "All except: ERL JS PERL 6", though I can't imagine a reason that any of those languages would have any advantage when solving the problem. I noticed another problem at one point that excluded all LISP derivatives, again for no apparent reason. Is there a way to discourage this sort of behavior?

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    Jul '12

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    Jul '12
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leppyr64
Jul '12

For a problem the setter needs to choose which languages are available. By default they are all selected. There is also a flag to include new languages. This is also the default. Long ago there was no option to include new languages, so if a language got added then it was excluded for all those problems until the setter allowed it.

I think that you will see this as less of a problem on the newer problems.

dfeuer_sof
Jul '12

That explains the problems that have a huge list of allowed languages. I don't see that explaining all these "All except Perl 6 and JS" sorts of things. Or am I missing something?

leppyr64
Jul '12

That does explain those as well. The setter initially selected the "All Languages" button, but not the "Include new languages" button. Either that or they didn't want to allow those languages. It's up to the problem setter.