Santa Hole 3 (rev.pl) Post Mortem

This is the hole that won it for Eugene.
In fact, he was the only golfer to find a 13-stroke solution.
As you might expect, just about everybody chose the obvious FAQ
solution.

I almost did not include this hole; I only put it in only because
I was originally designing Santa's course for beginning Perl
programmers at work and thought it was instructive. Never in
my wildest dreams did I expect the FAQ solution to be bettered.

That this hole proved decisive underscores the unpredictable
nature of golf.

The hard luck story on the hole belongs to Ronald J Kimball.
He opened with:
#!/usr/local/bin/perl -n
$l="$_$l"}{print$l
for a score of 21, which he quickly improved to 20 with:
#!/usr/local/bin/perl -n
$l=$_.$l}{print$l
Some time later he improved it to 15 with:
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
print reverse<>
and offered the ironic comment:
"I was obviously trying too hard on rev.pl...  :)"
No Ronald, you were not trying hard enough, you almost had it!

*** Hole 3 (rev.pl) ***
--- Eugene van der Pijll ------------- 13
#!/usr/bin/perl -p
$\=$_.$\}{
--- Vladi Belperchinov-Shabanski ----- 15
#!/usr/bin/perl
print reverse<>
--- Ala Qumsieh ---------------------- 15
#!perl
print+reverse<>
--- Anthony J Breeds-Taurima --------- 15
#!/usr/bin/perl
print reverse<>
--- BooK ----------------------------- 15
#!/usr/bin/perl
print reverse<>
--- Brad Greenlee -------------------- 15
print reverse<>
--- Csaba Raduly --------------------- 15
#!perl
print reverse<>
--- Damian James --------------------- 15
print reverse<>
--- Dave O'Neill --------------------- 15
#!/usr/bin/perl
print reverse<>
--- Evan A Zacks --------------------- 15
#!/usr/bin/perl
print reverse<>
--- Ian Phillipps -------------------- 15
#!/usr/bin/perl
print reverse<>
--- Ian Boreham ---------------------- 15
#!/usr/bin/perl
print reverse<>
--- Japhy ---------------------------- 15
#!/usr/bin/perl
print reverse<>
--- Jerome Quelin -------------------- 15
#!/usr/bin/perl
print reverse<>
--- Jonathan E Paton ----------------- 15
#!/usr/bin/perl
print+reverse<>
--- Yanick --------------------------- 15
#!/usr/bin/perl
print reverse<>
--- Karsten Sperling ----------------- 15
#!/usr/bin/perl
print+reverse<>
--- Keith C Ivey --------------------- 15
#! /usr/bin/perl
print reverse<>
--- Mark Suter ----------------------- 15
#!/usr/bin/perl
print reverse<>
--- me-01@ton.iguana.be -------------- 15
#!/usr/bin/perl
print reverse<>
--- Michael G Schwern ---------------- 15
#!/usr/bin/perl
print reverse<>
--- Michael Lambert ------------------ 15
print reverse<>
--- Piers Cawley --------------------- 15
#!/usr/bin/perl
print reverse<>
--- Richard Proctor ------------------ 15
print reverse<>
--- Rick Delaney --------------------- 15
#!/usr/bin/perl
print reverse<>
--- Rick Klement --------------------- 15
print reverse<>
--- Robin Houston -------------------- 15
print reverse<>
--- Ronald J Kimball ----------------- 15
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
print reverse<>
--- Scott Wessels -------------------- 15
#!/usr/bin/perl
print reverse<>
--- Simon Drabble -------------------- 15
print reverse<>
--- Tim Ayers ------------------------ 15
#!/usr/bin/perl
print reverse<>
--- Tony Payne ----------------------- 15
#!/usr/bin/perl
print reverse<>
--- Aaron D Marasco ------------------ 16
#!/usr/bin/perl
print reverse <>
--- Josh Shulz ----------------------- 16
print reverse <>
--- anonymous ------------------------ 16
#!/usr/bin/perl
print+reverse+<>
--- anonymous ------------------------ 20
#!/usr/local/bin/perl -n
$l=$_.$l}{print$l
--- Zed Lopez ------------------------ 21
@a=<>;print reverse@a
--- anonymous ------------------------ 21
#!/usr/local/bin/perl -n
$l="$_$l"}{print$l
--- anonymous ------------------------ 24
#!/usr/local/bin/perl -n
END{print$l}
$l="$_$l"

• Santa Hole 3 (rev.pl) Post Mortem by Andrew.Savige