Unified input/output functions for all languages (Code Golf)

Platform Evolution
#1

After spending a whole lot of time golfing, I began wondering about the very different lengths of the input and output functions accros languages.

From ruby having access to a simple gets of 4 characters, to JavaScript requiring 10 for readline(), it makes sense why the variety of languages is so restricted on top of the leaderboards.

I obviously understand the fact that each language has it’s specifics, and that it would be impossible to have each function have the same length, but I do believe that it could bring everyone on a more equal foot if “custom” Codingame-specific input and output functions were implemented for each language.

Please let me know what is your opinion on this, or if you have any alternative in mind in order to optimize this issue. :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#2

I don’t think it is technically possible to modify languages especially for codegolf …

#3

I was thinking more of something in the lines of importing a library by default or something like this

#4

What about other necessary functions like printing?
Python: print()
Java: System.out.println()

It’s hard to know where to draw the line and I think if you start modifying languages it will become less accessible for newbies.

#5

And if you modify the input/output, someone would ask to modify something else, etc… it will never end.

#6

Moreover, it would make sense only for shortest clashes, because with other codegolf puzzle the points are computed separately for each languages. So it doesn’t matter if a language needs more characters than another to read the input.