So, can we expect to see lots of people with 58-char answers in the Roman to Decimal list after this? :)
53 strokes after the next article. :) It'll be interesting to see what effect this has on the game. I might add there's a good chance I'll lose the lead if one of the leading golfers combines my solutions with his/hers to produce a shorter one.
Based on the "99 bottles of beer" game though, I don't expect many folks to post my solutions under their name. After all, in that game, you can easily google for a 174-char solution (not posted by me) for 10th place on the leaderboard yet there are around 900 golfers with scores worse than that. Having said that, I just noticed there are twelve golfers on 174, which does seem rather a lot. :)
FWIW, here are my reasons for publishing my solutions now:
- In the code golf forums, I gave warning over a month ago that I'd like to publish my solutions and asked for advice (see the last post in this long "Close Challenges" thread) but received no reply.
- Most folks in this "Close Challenges" thread were in favour of closing challenges after a period of time. The site's founder (carldr) agreed in principle with the idea of "seasons" and closing the games and publishing all solutions at the end of season. I'm guessing that nothing happened because the site's owners didn't have the time to spare to implement the "seasons" idea (which I can sympathize with BTW; I don't want to spend too much time on golf anymore).
- I think waiting over two years has shown considerable restraint. :) I've wanted to publish for ages, but waited out of respect for the other golfers. Notice I have not published my (currently leading) solutions to the Saving Time game because it is "only" 250 days old. I do plan on publishing these though (update: they are now published here).
- The codegolf site is still on perl 5.8.8 yet states "All languages will be kept relatively up to date as new versions are released". They probably should upgrade to perl 5.10.x, yet if they do that say versus print and other issues will make the current games unfair.
- I prefer open source to closed source. :)
- There has been precious little written about the experience of competing in a code golf tournament. Hopefully, this node will provide entertainment for experienced code golfers (and help them improve their game) while providing insight to others about the fun of competing at golf and also serve as a warning re the danger of spending more time than you can afford on the golf course.
- I'm ready to move on from golf to other projects. Before I do that, I'd like to write down my golfing experiences while they're still fresh in my mind.
- The main reason though is that I put a lot of effort into this and I'd like to share with others while I still can. I'm getting old and my health is not the best, you see.
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The codegolf site is still on perl 5.8.8 yet states "All languages will be kept relatively up to date as new versions are released". They probably should upgrade to perl 5.10.x, yet if they do that say versus print and other issues will make the current games unfair.
Even if they change to 5.10.x, you need an explicit -M5.01 or -E: option to be able to use say, wouldn't you? The -e option is implicit so you can't just replace it to -E.
Also it might be better to keep the older versions of languages as alternatives there too, unless that takes too much effort, so as not to break solutions like that in The golf course looks great, my swing feels good, I like my chances (Part II) by replacing ruby 1.8 with 1.9.
I do agree that it would help to upgrade the languages though, in some other cases it can definitely help cut characters from solutions.
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