Okay, so I’ve been trying to get into this whole “code golf” thing. It’s basically where you try to write a program that does something specific, but with the fewest characters possible. Sounds kinda nerdy, I know, but it’s actually a pretty fun challenge. Today, I decided to tackle the “2024 golf ko” problem.
First, I spent some time just looking at the problem. I needed to understand exactly what it was asking for. I read through the description a few times, making sure I got all the details right. It’s all about manipulating some numbers and outputting a specific result, but the devil’s in the details, you know?
Then, I started brainstorming. I thought about different approaches, different programming languages I could use, that sort of thing. I mostly use Python, so I naturally leaned towards that. But I also considered some other options, just to see if there was a more “golf-y” way to do it.
After that initial planning, I fired up my text editor and started coding. I began with a pretty basic solution, just to get something working. It wasn’t pretty, and it definitely wasn’t short, but it was a starting point.
Once I had a working version, the real fun began. I started refactoring, trying to squeeze out every unnecessary character. I looked for clever tricks, like using list comprehensions instead of loops, or using shorter variable names. Every little bit helped.
- I tried using one-liners where I could.
- I removed all the extra whitespace.
- I shortened variable names to single letters.
- I replaced if with a turnery condition.
I kept iterating on this, going back and forth between the code and the problem description. I tested it a bunch of times, making sure I didn’t break anything while I was trying to make it shorter. It was a bit of a back-and-forth process, but it was satisfying to see the character count go down.
Finally, after a good amount of tinkering, I got it down to a pretty small size. I was happy with the result! It’s not the absolute shortest possible solution, I’m sure, but it’s definitely a lot more “golfed” than my original attempt.
It’s a cool feeling. You get to be all creative and stuff.
