Project Euler Forum

On http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems, I noticed that a few problem titles end with a full stop whereas most of the others (that are not phrased as questions) end without any punctuation mark. Perhaps this could be cleaned-up?

(Yes I know I'm nit-picking, but everything else on PE is so polished.)

A man after my own heart! I think the problem is that whereas the "descriptions" started out as full sentences that summarised the problems they have become titles recently. Grammatically sentences require full punctuation, but you are not permitted to use full stops at the end of a title. So I guess we must decide whether or not we (i) convert all to sentences, (ii) convert all to titles, or (iii) change the heading on the table to "Description/Title". Somehow, the latter seems the easier option in the short term, but the pedant within is tempting me to convert all to full sentences. We'll see what the team think.

fwiw, my non-team vote is for option (ii).

I checked some newspapers and official letters in my own language.
Newspaper headings never end in a full stop, being a grammatically complete sentence or not.
The same holds for paragraph headings in official letters.
So TMHO it's enough to delete all full stops.

I think the titles look prettier. However, when you still have lots of problems to solve, and you scan the list of unsolved problems, then:

Find an efficient algorithm to analyse the number of solutions of the equation 1/x + 1/y = 1/n.

Is much more useful than:

Criss Cross

henk263 wrote:Is much more useful then:

Criss Cross

Indeed, but isn't it funny to have a title that is also a bra?

Another option could be to have a title and a short description fields for each problem, like
Title: "Criss Cross"
Description: "Sums over a grid"

And the main page could present the title with a large font and the description with a small one, just below the title.

...or something like that, but it's just my 2 pence.

Cheers,
sfabriz

sfabriz wrote:

henk263 wrote:Is much more useful then:

Criss Cross

Indeed, but isn't it funny to have a title that is also a bra?

Hm, it must be possible to design a problem for which Victoria's Secret would be an appropriate title.
Who's the first to get that problem accepted by the Team?

hk wrote:Hm, it must be possible to design a problem for which Victoria's Secret would be an appropriate title.
Who's the first to get that problem accepted by the Team?

Ah... if only there were stegano challenges here... I'd know what to suggest...

sfabriz wrote:

henk263 wrote:Is much more useful then:

Criss Cross

Indeed, but isn't it funny to have a title that is also a bra?

Wow! I didn't know that, only the film (movie FOAF).
Perhaps that's easier, so who can find a problem with 'To Have And Have Not' as an appropriate title?

I can see it coming

"Problem 203 (NSFW)..."

Some weirdness in the title of problem 97: ... but I'm sure you have other things to worry about right now!

If you need it, p97 is:

find the last ten digits of this prime number: 28433 x 2^7830457 + 1

sfabriz