develooper Front page | perl.golf | Postings from February 2007

Re: New Golf

Thread Previous | Thread Next
From:
Yanick Champoux
Date:
February 4, 2007 11:01
Subject:
Re: New Golf
Message ID:
200702041421.46132.yanick@babyl.dyndns.org
On Saturday 03 February 2007 21:22, Andrew Savige wrote:
> --- ô Great Ton wrote:
> > In article <1167919268.082027.74790@i15g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> >
> > 	"Robin  Houston" <robin.houston@gmail.com> writes:
> >> On the subject of new golf, I wonder if you golfers all know about
> >> http://codegolf.com?
> >>
> >> The rules are not quite the same as traditional Perl golf: the most
> >> important difference is that the whole of the shebang line counts
> >> towards the size, which effectively penalises the use of switches
> >> by seven strokes ("#!perl" + the newline) and makes the }{ business
> >> less useful.
> >
> > That's the major issue stopping me.
> > A 7 stroke penalty to use options is just too much.
>
> Agreed.

	You know, I'm pretty sure that if I was to visit some remote region of  
Scotland, I'd find a pub. In that pub, I'm fairly certain I'd find a 
congregation of old geezers, comfortably seated at a table in the back and 
craddling pints of bitter in diverse states of draininess. And if I 
discreetly, very discreetly scoot close to that group and perk my ear, I'd 
probably hear them passionately bemoan how those darned foreigners are 
butchering that old, venerable sport that Golf is...


	(I'd like to say that this parallel was meant to bring in the point of 
acceptance and tolerance of diversity, but the truth is, the mental image of 
everyone present wearing kilt just cracks me up ;-)  )

	
>  Challenges are always open
>
> This regrettable rule ruins the game of golf because:
>
>  1) It robs you of the joy of the post mortem: the joy of learning new
>     Perl tricks, the joy of discovering what the heck ô Great Ton was
>     up to, and perhaps the greatest joy of all, the joy of teasing
>     `/anick about making a blunderific Mr Magoo ... again.

	As if you ever needed to see my code to tease me in the first place. ;-P

	True, the Codegolf challenges does bereft the contestants of all those fun, 
not to mention educative, collaterals. But, on the other hand, they do allow 
for contemplative golfing. Without a time limit, one can grow one's solution 
like a bonzai tree. Slowly nipping a character here, binding an algorithm 
there, and generally returning to it whenever one feels the need for a little 
code Zen.

>  2) It imposes no limit on how much time you spend on a challenge.
>     Though perhaps not a problem for well-adjusted folks, I fear an
>     obsessive personality may spend far more time than they can afford
>     on a challenge, resulting in chronic distress in their personal life.
>     With the traditional one week tournament, at least you are strictly
>     limited in how much time you waste.

	Pfah. Humbug! Golfing is not *that* addictive. You just have to-- hey, did 
they posted a new entry this morning? Ooooh... A Roman-to-decimal rehash of 
the Fonality tournament. Aah.. Emm... Do you mind if we pursue this 
conversation later on? I suddenly remember I have things to do...


Joy,
`/anick

Thread Previous | Thread Next


nntp.perl.org: Perl Programming lists via nntp and http.
Comments to Ask Bjørn Hansen at ask@perl.org | Group listing | About