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Show HN: PyBites Code Challenges

63 points by bbelderbos 10y ago

bbelderbos 10y ago
Thanks for all your inputs, we just published our 2nd challenge: http://pybit.es/codechallenge02.html http://pybit.es/codechallenge02.html
js2 10y ago
See also http://www.pythonchallenge.com http://www.pythonchallenge.com (Though it's more about solving puzzles than what this code challenge seems to be aiming for.)
- jsequeira 10y ago
  @js2 - that site is awesome!! A different approach to challenges for sure. Will definitely give it a look this week!
christofosho 10y ago
I think I'll enjoy doing this. As a teacher with less free time, these tasks seem short and will keep my brain "puzzling" over code without the stress of a high priority project looming in the background. So far I've got a time of around 1 second on the first challenge. It's nice to be able to practice my profiling and see how low I can get it!
- js2 10y ago
  Hint: python -c 'help(max)'
  - alex- 10y ago
    Good tip, I defaulted to using sorted which is almost as fast (but not quite)
gravypod 10y ago
I don't like the solution template they propose because it will likely stall users from creativly solving the problem. I also don't think this is an idomatic solution to the problem in a pythonic way. You're going from file->list->for loop when you can just go file->for loop.
- jsequeira 10y ago
  @gravypod, that's actually a really good point mate! The last thing we want to do is limit creativity. Do you think it'd be more beneficial to just provide a blank file in the individual challenges rather than a template? This was our first real attempt at an open challenge. We were wondering how best to push it. The idea behind the template was to simplify it for the newer coders, almost like a hint. Definitely loving the feedback! It's the only way to learn!
  - gravypod 10y ago
    You could have optionally a file like you have. That's perfect for beginners and how my university actually starts some homeworks. For other people it might be good to use output matching since you won't be able to make a unit test to handle every method of solving the problem. Anyway I'll probably keep solving these, they are pretty fun. I'll just ignore the unit tests, it should be fine (famous last words).
    - bbelderbos 10y ago
      Thanks, creating two templates for the next challenge, a beginner and advanced one.
RodgerTheGreat 10y ago
If anyone is interested in something for comparison, here's what it would look like in k6 (http://kparc.com http://kparc.com): v: 1 2 3 4 5 8 10 l: "|"\"eaoinrtlsu|dg|bcmp|fhvwy|k|jx|qz" d: !/+,/l,\:'v t@*>(+/d@_:)'t:0:"dictionary.txt" First three lines are constructing the dictionary the template in this problem hands to you, and the last line loads the file and finds the item with the maximum scrabble dictionary score.
rurban 10y ago
This would be the readable perl5 solution: my %scrabble_scores = ( 1 => [qw( E A O I N R T L S U )], 2 => [qw( D G )], 3 => [qw( B C M P )], 4 => [qw( F H V W Y )], 5 => [qw( K )], 8 => [qw( J X )], 10 => [qw( Q Z )]); my $dict = "/usr/share/dict/words"; open my $d, "<", $dict or die "$dict: $!"; keys my %a = 26; # ranked alphabet for my $rank (keys %scrabble_scores) { for my $letter (@{$scrabble_scores{$rank}}) { $a{$letter} = $rank; } } my @maxscore = ('' => 0); while (<$d>) { my $score = 0; chomp; for my $c (split//) { $score += $a{uc($c)}; } @maxscore = ($_ => $score) if $score > $maxscore[1]; } print "$maxscore[0] => $maxscore[1]\n"; Arguable more readable than python

63 points by bbelderbos 10y ago

Thanks for all your inputs, we just published our 2nd challenge: http://pybit.es/codechallenge02.html http://pybit.es/codechallenge02.html

js2 10y ago

See also http://www.pythonchallenge.com http://www.pythonchallenge.com (Though it's more about solving puzzles than what this code challenge seems to be aiming for.)

jsequeira 10y ago
@js2 - that site is awesome!! A different approach to challenges for sure. Will definitely give it a look this week!

christofosho 10y ago

I think I'll enjoy doing this. As a teacher with less free time, these tasks seem short and will keep my brain "puzzling" over code without the stress of a high priority project looming in the background. So far I've got a time of around 1 second on the first challenge. It's nice to be able to practice my profiling and see how low I can get it!

js2 10y ago
Hint: python -c 'help(max)'
- alex- 10y ago
  Good tip, I defaulted to using sorted which is almost as fast (but not quite)

gravypod 10y ago

I don't like the solution template they propose because it will likely stall users from creativly solving the problem. I also don't think this is an idomatic solution to the problem in a pythonic way. You're going from file->list->for loop when you can just go file->for loop.

jsequeira 10y ago
@gravypod, that's actually a really good point mate! The last thing we want to do is limit creativity. Do you think it'd be more beneficial to just provide a blank file in the individual challenges rather than a template? This was our first real attempt at an open challenge. We were wondering how best to push it. The idea behind the template was to simplify it for the newer coders, almost like a hint. Definitely loving the feedback! It's the only way to learn!
- gravypod 10y ago
  You could have optionally a file like you have. That's perfect for beginners and how my university actually starts some homeworks. For other people it might be good to use output matching since you won't be able to make a unit test to handle every method of solving the problem. Anyway I'll probably keep solving these, they are pretty fun. I'll just ignore the unit tests, it should be fine (famous last words).
  - bbelderbos 10y ago
    Thanks, creating two templates for the next challenge, a beginner and advanced one.

RodgerTheGreat 10y ago

If anyone is interested in something for comparison, here's what it would look like in k6 (http://kparc.com http://kparc.com): v: 1 2 3 4 5 8 10 l: "|"\"eaoinrtlsu|dg|bcmp|fhvwy|k|jx|qz" d: !/+,/l,\:'v t@*>(+/d@_:)'t:0:"dictionary.txt" First three lines are constructing the dictionary the template in this problem hands to you, and the last line loads the file and finds the item with the maximum scrabble dictionary score.

rurban 10y ago

This would be the readable perl5 solution: my %scrabble_scores = ( 1 => [qw( E A O I N R T L S U )], 2 => [qw( D G )], 3 => [qw( B C M P )], 4 => [qw( F H V W Y )], 5 => [qw( K )], 8 => [qw( J X )], 10 => [qw( Q Z )]); my $dict = "/usr/share/dict/words"; open my $d, "<", $dict or die "$dict: $!"; keys my %a = 26; # ranked alphabet for my $rank (keys %scrabble_scores) { for my $letter (@{$scrabble_scores{$rank}}) { $a{$letter} = $rank; } } my @maxscore = ('' => 0); while (<$d>) { my $score = 0; chomp; for my $c (split//) { $score += $a{uc($c)}; } @maxscore = ($_ => $score) if $score > $maxscore[1]; } print "$maxscore[0] => $maxscore[1]\n"; Arguable more readable than python