Learning isn't a linear process. It moves in fits and starts, with frequent plateaus. If you feel frustration building, that's a healthy sign that your engine is building up steam. Beware, though, that moving off of a plateau often means moving through a sudden decline in performance while you struggle with new ideas, or unlearn old ones. That, too, is normal and will pass.

Fare forward, traveler.

Thanks.

Things I know, but need to hear every once in a while, I suppose.

C-.

Unfortunately, I don't have any suggestions for a good project for you, but then, I don't have any for myself either.

Good luck and Merry Coding,
Scott

Funny thing is, I'm really on target with everything I'm working on. I'm coasting really, and that's what has me concerned. It's just a sinewave, I suppose, and I'm on the "Suck" (trough) side of it. *shrug*

C-.

What about a golf that will tell you what day of the week Christmas will fall on, given a 4-digit year? *shrugs*

------
We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

Don't go borrowing trouble. For programmers, this means Worry only about what you need to implement.

Stupid Doomsday algorithm. I dreamt about it all night last night, trying to come up with the abstraction that allows for dates for years 1400 +.

Got it, now to golf it. (Christmas Day is Always (Doomsday-1)). This is a great resource.

C-.

Ok. Here's the Golf. Given a 4-digit year from 1 through whenever, return 0-6 where 0 is sunday and 6 is saturday, for the day of Christmas.

I've got it at a cool 67. :-)

my @days = qw(Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
+);

my $day = f($ARGV[0] || 2001);
print $days[$day], $/;

sub f {
#234567890#234567890#234567890#234567890#234567890#234567890#234567890
+#234567890
$b=1;for(1..pop){$b++;$b++if!$_%4;$b--if!$_%100;$b++if!$_%400}$b%=7
}
[download]

------
We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

Don't go borrowing trouble. For programmers, this means Worry only about what you need to implement.

Nice. I got 56:

sub f {
#234567890#234567890#234567890#234567890#234567890#234567890
use Time::Local;(gmtime timegm 0,0,0,25,11,-1900+pop)[6]
}
[download]

_____________________________________________________
Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker.
s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;

37 chars.

However, I would say two things about this. First using ' istead of :: is so ugly that it isn't worth the 1 stroke saving. Secondly, although Perl Golf involves bending the rules as much as possible, using modules just goes against the spirit of the game.

# 39
sub xmas1 {
    use Date'Manip;Date_DayOfWeek+12,25,pop
}

# 41
sub xmas2 {
    use Date'Calc':all';Day_of_Week+pop,12,25
}
[download]

Update: I saved 2 chars by using May Day instead of Christmas. The politics of that may appeal to someone. :-)

# 37
sub xmas3 {
    use Date'Manip;Date_DayOfWeek+5,1,pop
}

# 39
sub xmas4 {
    use Date'Calc':all';Day_of_Week+pop,5,1
}
[download]

--
John.

Some simple squishing down to 49 char:

sub f {
#234567890#234567890#234567890#234567890#234567890#
$b=1;$b+=1+!$_%4-!$_%100+!$_%400for(1..pop);$b%=7
}
[download]

UPDATE - I was just compression what the parent post had, making sure my answer gave the same as that one, but not looking at the real answer. As pointed out below, '!' binds higher than '%', and thus the answer this gives is wrong. Adding parens, and the fix that japhy adds brings this to 53:

sub f {
#234567890#234567890#234567890#234567890#234567890#23
$b=1;$b+=1+!($_%4)-!($_%100)+!($_%400)for 1..pop;$b%7
}
[download]

-----------------------------------------------------
Dr. Michael K. Neylon - mneylon-pm@masemware.com || "You've left the lens cap of your mind on again, Pinky" - The Brain
"I can see my house from here!"
It's not what you know, but knowing how to find it if you don't know that's important

What are the golfing rules on modules? I always thought modules were kind of cheating, but then I saw a couple of them in the thread here. So I thought of using Date::Christmas, but that leads to an answer well over 60 characters, but then you could really cheat and release the same module with a shorter module and function name and easily beat anything here. Which is why I always thought using modules was sort of cheating (of course if you could sneak in a 'christmasday' function into perl's internals, that'd be cheating also, but impressive :-)

Are you guys using another version of perl than I am? At least here, the !-operator binds more tightly than the %-operator, so that (!$_%4 &c) just won't work.

... or am I just giving away your joke now ... ?

Anyway, I guess this would work (checking the calendar). 65 chars; based on yours:

sub f {
#234567890#234567890#234567890#234567890#234567890#234567890#234567890
+#234567890
for(1..($b=pop)++){$b++;$b--if$_%4;$b++if$_%100;$b--if$_%400}$b%7
}
[download]

... or my best, so far, at 52:

sub f {
#234567890#234567890#234567890#234567890#234567890#2
$b+=$_%400?$_%100?$_%4?0:1:0:1for 1..($b=pop)++;$b%7
}
[download]

Update: Checking the calendar again ...

The Sidhekin
print "Just another Perl ${\(trickster and hacker)},"

It comes in at 66 and cheats by using a module... but it was really just so I could take Time::Piece for a spin... I *really* like it! Perhaps this snippet doesn't highlight its strong points, but you should take a look at it. I will probably be cutting way down on my Date::Manip/Date::Calc/Time::Local/POSIX::strftime usage, in favor of Time::Piece.

sub f{
#234567890#234567890#234567890#234567890#234567890#234567890#23456
use Time'Piece;(Time'Piece->strptime("25Dec".pop,"%d%b%Y"))->_wday
}
[download]

-Blake

I have been looking through supersearch and found some similar threads in the past (without the Christmas bent, unfortunately). This and This thread are both asking for ideas on things to code, and have received more responses than your node has.

A few people recommended Sourceforge, which has a list of projects requesting help. This and This node propose the idea of having a projects area on PM. Also, This node points out that the code snippets in the NIST algorithms pages include virtually no Perl, which looks bad.

Last but not least, one of the Best Nodes is A plea by chromatic to get involved by writing test code for existing modules.

drinkd

I am only programming within my comfort zone. Nothing is challenging me, really, and although I've had some, what I think, are good ideas, none of them really motivate me to attempt anything new, or outside my current idiom. In other words, I'm in a dry spell, or maybe just the 'Code Duldrums'.

Wow, I hear that! ++cacharbe !

Just as it gradually dawned on me that I too was coming to an almost identical conclusion about myself, I saw your post. If I tried, I don't think I could have described what I'm going through better than you just did. It's like you were reading my mind.

Perhaps it IS, as you suggest, seasonal. Or, perhaps further it's somehow September 11-related....

Wherever it's coming from, it's (sadly) almost comforting to see, from the other responses you've gotten, that we're not the only ones.

dmm