When doing code golg I feel that is is a separate puzzle per language. Seeing a feedback entry called “Add a code-golf rank by language” means that there are others that see this also as separated per language. This is also the reason why I dislike the cross language possibilities with system calls to execute something in another language.
I really dislike the system() call posibility Mainly due to the fact that you are not coding in language X (javascript or pascal or whatever) but in another language. It defeats the game: trying to get the maximum out of a specific language in terms of to functionality per byte. This could be defeated by disallowing executing external processes.
If the game code golf is really about getting the best creativity in using specific language these thing must be fixed so the real wizards come on top and not only the ones that take a single langage (like bash and perl) and reuse that code to all other languages rendering those result lists moot. This kills off the very enthausiasm some people might have and code golf might give.
Hi,
This message is off-topic, but if I remember correctly, when Clojure was first introduced on CodinGame, someone won 1st place in Clojure (thus winning a T-Shirt) by writing a Python solution and executing it in Clojure using the same kind of workaround as system(). Which was clever, because there were a lot less people coding in Closure than in Python, making it easier to win. Plus people who were actually trying Clojure were struggling because it’s kinda hard.
That was fun.
But ultimately, yes, I agree with you that a program should stay in the language it’s announced.
I can’t agree more. At the very least they should disable some functions like system() and such when it’s obvious the code isn’t written in the actual language but something like bash and such.
Currently @Plopx has done an amazing job getting the shortest bash answer, but then, and because he doesn’t have a choice if he want to be first right now, he has to system(hisbashcode) into every other language.
And honestly I find it sad that he need to do that while it could be interesting to see how each language have its unique approach to the problem.
I know I’ll be more motivated to code golf if there weren’t such “easy” way to cheat. I don’t want to bash golf, I want to golf in the language I choose.
This is important. People shouldn’t be able to cheat the leaderboards by adding a few characters in one language to execute the shortest solution in a different language.
