Okay, let's see if we can at least produce a "top ten" list of patterns that most need to be updated. Unfortunately I still don't have a whole lot of time to focus on this, but I can borrow time from somewhere in the next couple of weeks to help sort out at least a small list of updates.Andrew wrote: October 31st, 2026, 10:13 pm Maybe just post any corrections in this thread? I'm happy to wait until mid November to do the final 5.1 builds.
We'll try to turn oscillator-stamp-collection-15August2024.rle into a new oscillator-stamp-collection-XNovember2026.rle version (e.g., with non-nausea-inducing chucklebaits!) as soon as possible, hopefully within the next week.
We can also track down muzik's previous large amount of good work on OCA patterns, some of which I never managed to get checked in. A summary is here. It will need a careful review to see what has already been added and what hasn't; I believe the whole Unusual-Growth-Rates folder accidentally never made it into Golly's repo.
We really ought to try to get some up-to-date 2026 constructions into 5.1; it has been a really big year for technological advances. E.g.,
- the solifuge spaceship and maybe GilGil's printer technology based on it
- the LifeViewer-sized Demonoid using oncoming glider gun construction arm technology
- the new smaller "r2x" improvement on the waterbear, which has been sadly underreported
- a leaf bug 2c synthesis, or maybe the gun
- a stamp collection of the recent progression of unsynthesizable still lifes and oscillators
- maybe a collection of the known true-period glider guns below the Herschel universality point, now including p38, with gaps for the few remaining unknowns
- engineless 3c/7 rake and other recent 3c/7 technology
- a (2,1)c/6 technology stamp collection incorporating recent discoveries
- russellsprouts' CGoL Langton's Ant simulator
- ENDW's omniship
- the smallest of the unidimensional spaceships
- a hyperoptimized RCT demo pattern (as a Lua script)
-- Drat, that's over a baker's dozen items on the list already and I've barely started combing through the last year's discoveries. And previous recent years aren't properly represented in Golly's core collection, either, of course. It's a really big project to come up with anything like a decent representation of the last half-decade of new developments. Also, that's not even attempting a comprehensive review of Golly's current patterns, looking for blatant and subtle anachronisms.
Help Wanted!
Can anyone officially claim one or more of the above items, OR find another specific item that you personally are expert in, if you think it's more important than anything on my list? And then produce commented patterns that are actually ready be checked in to Golly's repo, and post them here -- in the next couple of weeks?
It would be a huge help if several people did a little bit of this work each, without a lot more posts showing up here about vaguely described pattern curation work that ought to be done (but then nobody actually does it). RESTATING FOR EMPHASIS: the required order of operations is 1) post here to claim specific subset of work; 2) do the work; 3) post the work here -- all within a week or at most two.
I hope everyone can see how suggestions for things that could be cleaned up and checked in -- such as my own list above! -- are really pretty darn useless at the moment, compared with actual posted patterns where the commenting work is all completed.
