Talk:Spartan

Wow, this is the 1111th non-deleted article! Gameoflifeboy 05:29, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Modernity

The first sentence of this page currently reads:

A pattern is referred to as Spartan if it can be easily constructed with a slow salvo.

As far as I know, the current procedure for building patterns with slow salvoes is to use slmake. Then the definition, at least in its most useful form, is equivalent to:

A pattern is referred to as Spartan if it can be built with slmake.

This is slightly more workable as a definition, in that slmake is deterministic so this is actually an objective definition, but opens up a can of worms that the Snark and eater2 are Spartan by this definition. Certainly Dave Greene uses these liberally in self-constructing circuitry, so they're effectively Spartan now, but historically they weren't considered Spartan (and nor was the tub with tail, if I remember correctly!).

Shall we explain that the definition has somewhat changed over time: that it originally referred to well-separated constellations of still-lifes of no more than 7 bits, and now has gradually expanded as automated tools have improved?

Okay, this page is in a very bad inconsistent state (as dpkg would say); rectifying now...