Re: Holiday parcel puzzle

[Not_a_Number]

in reply to 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;

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! :)

[cavac]

Nice one. Actually, way nicer than mine.

[Not_a_Number]

So do I win the 1000XP?

:-)

[cavac]

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.

[JavaFan]

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";