User talk:H. H. P. M. P. Cole/Book on OCA

A suggestion

I think you should document more about the general stuff and less about specific rules.

Only document about a specific rule when it's well-known, like HighLife.

Certain "hot" rules like LeapLife may seem well-known, but nobody knows about them if you take half a step out of conwaylife.com .

You can, however, for example make a chapter about cross neighborhood rules and document Factorio in there, because Factorio is well-known when compared to other cross neighborhood rules.

Here's some examples of rules worthy to be documented specifically:

- Grounded Life, HighLife, Pedestrian Life, EightLife, HoneyLife, LowDeath;
- Morley, Day & Night;
- Seeds, Just Friends;
- JvN29, Nobili32, Hutton32, Codd, Devore, WireWorld, Bliptile (Bliptile is worthy for being easily rediscovered);
- Evoloop, Perrier;
- Brian's Brain, Star Wars;

Only a few of these rules are included in your list, yet tons of those "hot" and "not-so-hot" or even "just published" rules fill up the list.

This makes your book feel more like a fashion magazine than an actual academic book.

No offense intended for any part of this suggestion. iddi01 09:21, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

• That's funny, though. I was also thinking that. There are four people in my group (me, Haycat, HerscheltheHerschel, and Para), and Para also thought the same thing as me and you (focus more on general stuff and document a rule when it is well known). Now, you make our view a majority. Do you mind if I PM the whole group (including you) about this proposal and see what everyone thinks? H. H. P. M. P. Cole - the factorialship's owner (talk) 10:28, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree that there should be more well-known rules, but we should leave in some of the more engineering-friendly rules (Thinking of Dominoplex, Einstein(Needs a double check), Determination and Harvest moon as they have vastly different reasons for engineering-friendliness). It needs to show the power of OCA, and most garden-variety rules and well-known rules, ironically, do not do enough justice to this importance. So, as variety is the spice of Life, why not add a sprinkling of such rules to show the power of 2-state rules? Also, I think that only WireWorld and Bliptile need a mention - Most of these rules are similar and easy to generate novel propeties. For INT, not so much. 34 Life is also worth a mention - It is well-known but explosive. I like the general stuff - Wolfram and margolus emulation are important, as well as how to rulegolf and things like that! Haycat2009 (talk) 12:23, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

JvN29 was the first discovered and explicitly defined CA AFAIK, hence this is a reason for its inclusion (similarly for Codd, as it had a similar purpose, it's a loop rule, and its much smaller than JvN29). Should we also include Serizawa, as this is a particularly old CA as well? Also, can we make a compromise between these two - talking about general stuff AND specific rules in the same book? If everyone is OK with this I will probably start on a chapter on rulegolfing INT rules (if everyone is OK with including that...). H. H. P. M. P. Cole - the factorialship's owner (talk) 13:05, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Sure! I think that all the rules I mentioned can be in too. JvN29 and Codd are pretty much the same. Why not we group them together? Haycat2009 (talk) 13:26, 27 March 2024 (UTC)