Re: Holiday parcel puzzle

use strict;
use warnings;
use 5.010;

my $max = 1000;
my %wins;

for ( 1 .. $max ) {
  my @parcels = ( 1, 0, 0 );
  $wins{hold}   += splice @parcels, rand @parcels, 1;
  $wins{switch} += $parcels[0];
}

say "$_:\t$wins{$_}" for keys %wins;
[download]

Update: Added spoiler tags

Update 2: Looking now at the OP's much more verbose code, I wonder if mine is not too concise, especially if the aim is to convince someone who doubts the actual odds.

Anyway, it was enough to convince me! :)

Comment on Re: Holiday parcel puzzle Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: Holiday parcel puzzle by cavac (Prior) on Dec 22, 2011 at 20:17 UTC
Nice one. Actually, way nicer than mine. BREW /very/strong/coffee HTTP/1.1 Host: goodmorning.example.com 418 I'm a teapot	[reply]
Re^3: Holiday parcel puzzle by Not_a_Number (Prior) on Dec 22, 2011 at 20:34 UTC
So do I win the 1000XP? :-)	[reply]
Re^4: Holiday parcel puzzle by cavac (Prior) on Dec 22, 2011 at 20:52 UTC
I i could give them to you, i probably would. But i'm just a humble Pilgrim, working in the Department Of Bugsniffing. My hope is, that, one day, i'll be promoted to Friar. If i'm very lucky, i might even get my own desk. BREW /very/strong/coffee HTTP/1.1 Host: goodmorning.example.com 418 I'm a teapot	[reply]
Re^2: Holiday parcel puzzle by JavaFan (Canon) on Dec 22, 2011 at 22:33 UTC
The problem with your "concise" solution is that it's unclear whether your program matches the problem description. If you don't care about the latter, here's an even more concise one: `use 5.010; say "Please wait while I run a simulation ...."; sleep 5; say "Elves have wrapped a billion parcels, calling FedEx ...."; sleep 10; say "Not switching wins 33.3% of the time"; say "Switching wins 66.7% of the time";` [download]	[reply] [d/l]