En op 05 mei 2002 sprak Tor Hildrum:
> What about making a category for the rest of us?
> Us mortals. Us who write code like this:
> foreach $person (@names) {
> print "$person\n";
> last if $person=~/Dr /;
> }
>
> I know most of you would probably use about 10 strokes for this(which is
> pretty impressive since @names alone is 6 strokes :) ).
print map a.../Dr /,@names
is the shortest I can make it (warning, untested!)
> But, there are probably some like me, who started programming with Perl, and
> aren't really ready for 'one-liner madness' yet. People like me doesn't
> really fit into the scope of the beginners category. Trust me.
> I could of course submit my solutions to the beginners category, but I don't
> see any reason when I'm 200 strokes behind number 20 on the list.
Is there a reason not to submit?
> It seems to me like the beginners list is scoped completely wrong. Or maybe
> it is supposed to be scoped for beginner Perl Golfers, and not beginner Perl
> programmers?
It is true that I suspect that some of the beginners list shouldn't be
there. However, I'm not the one to judge that, they'll have to do that
themselves. When I was a beginner, there was no special category for my
kind, so I had to play with the adults. And when the second tournament
had a beginner's category, I couldn't really enter that... Ah, those
were the times...
> I am currently joining in on the Perl Golf fun, solving the holes you
> provide. But, I haven't submitted any solutions yet. I don't see the point.
> Is the official contest only for the truly elite, or could you make a
> category for us truly beginners?
We, the referees, are enjoying ourselves tremendously, not only watching
the veterans, but also watching some of the beginners, who start at a
400 stroke round, and slowly work their way to midlist. So I'd say there
would be no problem for you to enter either list.
But the most important thing is to enjoy yourself whilst playing. If you
don't enjoy golfing in these circumstances, perhaps we should consider a
"Newbies" category.
> How much extra work would this cause for the referees? Shouldn't be to hard
> to check 'our' straight forward code. And, how nice it would be if I could
> for once understand the winning solution for a category. :)
It wouldn't be much work.
After the competition is ended, all submitted solution are made public.
I hope the top golfers will explain their code then, and else you can
ask the mailing list.
If you want, I could take one of the longer solutions, and show how I
would have shortened them step by step, showing some of the useful
functions and golf tricks along the way. If you submit your solutions, I
might use yours for that, if you wouldn't mind.
Eugene
