Re: The golf course looks great, my swing feels good, I like my chances (Part I)

[robin]

In case you're curious as to what my early-lead 60-stroke solution looked like, here it is:

y/DCLXVIM /4 DCLX9/,$\=s/( )?\d/9x($&+!$1)/egfor(<>)x4;print

This is quite a different algorithm from yours, I think.

I enjoyed the few days I was thinking about this challenge, but I don't have the tenacity to keep whittling away month after month like you serious golfers.

[eyepopslikeamosquito]

I just noticed a very similar Roman numeral golf recently concluded at golf.shinh.org. Adjusting ySas' winning Perl solution to that game for this one produces this 58 stroker:

s/(M)|D/4x@-x5/eg,s/C4//,$\=y/LXVIC4/DCLXM/for(<>)x3;print

which has a similar form to robin's early-lead 60 stroker above -- though it uses a different algorithm. Both these solutions are very beautiful, very Perlish, and quite astonishing (at least to me).

I especially enjoyed ySas' ingenious use of @- above. I've never seen @- used like that in golf before and am tempted to give it a name, "ySas' device". By way of explanation, note that adding parentheses around (M) above adds one more element to the @- array when the (parenthesized) M matches. That is, the number of items in @- is used to differentiate between a matching M (two items in @-) and a matching D (one item in @-); this fits like a glove here because one and two happen to be the required multipliers.

Update: By applying ideas from ySas' solution, we can reduce Robin's original 60-stroker:

y/DCLXVIM /4 DCLX9/,$\=s/( )?\d/9x($&+!$1)/egfor(<>)x4;print

to 58:

s/M2//,y/DCLXVIM/1MDCLX2/,$\=s/\d/2x$&x5/egfor(<>)x4;print

[eyepopslikeamosquito]

Dazzling. Delightful. Intricate. That is, by far, the most beautiful of the many Roman to Decimal solutions presented in this node IMHO. Paraphrasing Abigail:

Your golf solution is like exploring a large medieval castle, surrounded by a dark, mysterious forest, with something new and unexpected around each corner. There are dragons to be conquered, maidens to be rescued, and holy grails to be quested for. Lots of fun. By comparison, my golf solutions look like a Louis-XVI castle and garden to me. Straight, symmetric, and bright. There are wigs to be powdered, minuets to be danced, all quite boring.