erm, it might already be in the rules. But, could we set up a rule to keep threads in the programming section strictly on helping the person at hand? Instead of a) side tracking or b) going into a great big length arguement about which algorithm is best.

If people want to argue about the algorithm they should set up a new thread and simply point to it.

Hm... if you mean the primality testing thread, I think everything in it _is_ on topic, per se. However, the chatter should have stopped long ago, since people posting new things now are generally idiots who don't listen to the knowledgeable people saying that primality testing is a very hard problem.

I found that to be a very informative thread actually

Psion: We've told that guy what he wants to know (in fact I think we did his homework for him). Now we want to discuss prime numbers, discussing the ins and outs of them. To do computers at top universitys you need to be good at maths, thereforeit is useful to maths and its application in programming in detail.

It doesn't really matter if a topic deviates slightly from its original purpose... it will be locked fairly shortly anyway :-)