Coding Efficiency

[Pete]

I'm with you on avoiding the microwave pasta. + 1

Pete

[TerryRitchie]

You know I always want write clean, efficent code, but my muddled brain always ends making thing way more complicated and I feature creep.

I start out thinking about doing this:

Code: (Select All)

FUNCTION GetMonth$(month)
    SELECT CASE month
        CASE 1: GetMonth$ = "January"
...
END FUNCTION

I end up doing this.

Code: (Select All)

month$ = "JanuaryFebruaryMarchAprilMayJuneJulyAugustSeptemberOctoberNovemberDecember."
DO
INPUT "Input a number between 1 and 12"; n%
i% = 1: m$ = "": DO
  n% = n% + (INSTR("JFMASOND.", MID$(month$, i%, 1)) > 0)
  m$ = _TRIM$(m$ + CHR$((ASC(MID$(month$, i%, 1)) * -(n% = 0)) + (32 * -(n% <> 0))))
i% = i% + 1: LOOP WHILE i% < LEN(month$) AND n% >= 0
PRINT m$
LOOP

LOL, that's a perfect example of the "clever" code I spoke of earlier. It's beautiful code in its own strange way but come back to it a year later and it looks like an alien took a dump in the source, especially if every single stage of it is not documented well.

Please don't think I'm making fun of your code. Just a perfect example of how some of our "feature creepy" minds work.

[justsomeguy]

LOL, that's a perfect example of the "clever" code I spoke of earlier. It's beautiful code in its own strange way but come back to it a year later and it looks like an alien took a dump in the source, especially if every single stage of it is not documented well.

Please don't think I'm making fun of your code. Just a perfect example of how some of our "feature creepy" minds work.

It was written as a joke and kinda as a challenge, feel free to make fun of it all you want.

Its fun to challenge yourself to code something obvious in an unconventional way.

[SMcNeill]

Here's a good example of coding efficiency which I dug up from the old forums.

Here's the original code:

Code: (Select All)

RANDOMIZE TIMER

WHILE player < 100 AND AI < 100 'pig from Rosetta  B+ started 2018-10-16

    turn = (turn + 1) MOD 2

    di = INT(RND * 6) + 1

    PRINT: PRINT "Player:"; player; "  AI:"; AI

    accum = 0 '<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< EDIT  one line instead of two

    IF turn THEN 'player

        DO

            IF di = 1 THEN

                INPUT "Player you rolled a 1, your turn is over, press enter..."; wate$

                EXIT DO

            ELSE

                accum = accum + di

                PRINT "Player you rolled a "; di; "your accumulated total is now "; accum

                INPUT "Do you want to (r)oll again or (h)old, Enter r or h > "; choice$

                IF choice$ = "r" THEN

                    di = INT(RND * 6) + 1

                ELSE

                    player = player + accum

                    EXIT DO

                END IF

            END IF

        LOOP

    ELSE

        FOR i = 1 TO 5

            IF di = 1 THEN

                INPUT "AI rolled a 1, it's turn is over, press enter..."; wate$

                EXIT FOR

            ELSE

                accum = accum + di

                PRINT "AI rolled a "; di; "it's total accumulated now is"; accum

                IF i < 4 AND accum + AI < 100 THEN  '<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<EDIT

                    PRINT "AI is rolling again."

                    INPUT "press enter..."; wate$

                    di = INT(RND * 6) + 1

                ELSE

                    PRINT "AI is holding with"; accum; "added to it's score."

                    INPUT "press enter..."; wate$

                    AI = AI + accum

                    EXIT FOR

                END IF

            END IF

        NEXT

    END IF

WEND

IF player > AI THEN PRINT "Player wins!" ELSE PRINT "AI wins!"

END

It's pretty simple to decipher what it's doing, and what type of game it is.

Yeah, Pig, I found it at Rosetta, I was curious if it was an interesting game.
You get to keep rolling a die and accumulating a score unless you roll a 1 then the accumulated score is lost.
If you don't roll a 1 you have option of holding or rolling again. First to 100 wins.

I have AI programmed to roll 4 times here.

And so, in the quest to produce ever smaller and fewer lines of code, I came up with this monster:

Code: (Select All)

_TITLE "Pig 5 (Rosetta task)" ' B+ started 2018-10-17 Steve McNeill finished 2018-10-19

WHILE player < 100 AND AI < 100

    IF Who$ <> "   Player" THEN Who$ = "   Player" ELSE Who$ = "   AI"

    FOR i = 1 TO 100

        di = INT(RND * 6) + 1

        IF i = 1 AND di = 1 THEN accum = 0 ELSE IF i = 1 THEN accum = di ELSE IF di = 1 THEN accum = 0 ELSE accum = accum + di

        IF di = 1 THEN PRINT CHR$(10) + Who$ + " rolled a" + RTRIM$(STR$(di)) + CHR$(10) ELSE PRINT CHR$(10) + Who$ + " rolled a" + RTRIM$(STR$(di)) + ", the accumulated total is" + STR$(accum) + CHR$(10);

        IF di = 1 THEN INPUT " The turn is over, press enter...", wate$ ELSE RANDOMIZE TIMER

        IF di > 1 AND Who$ = "   Player" THEN INPUT "   Do you want to (r)oll again or (h)old, Enter r or h"; choice$ ELSE IF di > 1 AND (i < 3 AND accum + AI < 100) THEN INPUT "   AI is rolling again, press enter... ", wate$

        IF di > 1 AND Who$ = "   Player" AND choice$ <> "r" THEN player = player + accum

        IF di > 1 AND Who$ <> "   Player" AND (i >= 3 OR accum + AI >= 100) THEN AI = AI + accum

        IF di > 1 AND Who$ <> "   Player" AND (i >= 3 OR accum + AI >= 100) THEN INPUT " AI is holding so accumulated amount is scored, press enter", wate$

        IF (Who$ <> "   Player" AND (i >= 3 OR accum + AI >= 100)) OR (Who$ = "   Player" AND choice$ <> "r") OR di = 1 THEN EXIT FOR

    NEXT

    PRINT CHR$(10) + "   Player =" + STR$(player) + "  AI =" + STR$(AI)

WEND

PRINT Who$;" wins!"

 

Now, is anyone able to decipher and sort out that obfuscated mess??

Sometimes less is just a mess.

[Pete]

Funniest use of RANDOMIZE TIMER I've ever seen. I mean what kind of hillbilly meth-head would ever code it that way?

Pete 

[SMcNeill]

Funniest use of RANDOMIZE TIMER I've ever seen. I mean what kind of hillbilly meth-head would ever code it that way?

Pete 

One looking for short lines count, without wanting it to take up a line all by itself.  LOL!  

Like I said, it may be a lot few lines of code, but to go back and look at them now..  I had to to do a search to find RANDOMIZE to even know what the heck you were talking about there! 

If someone told me to take that second code, and fix it cause there's a glitch in it, I'd have to spend three days now trying to sort out just what the heck it's supposed to do, and WTH did I code it so stupidly!

[bplus]

@Steve, Nice condensing of game in LOC and without :, colons!, is impressive but...

I don't particular care for scrolling horizontally, so making less lines but longer ones ??? bad trade-off in my book.

But that is style, this thread is about efficiency and this:
   

I am not sure this is more efficient??? I totally agree it is messy as far ease of reading goes.

[SMcNeill]

It's Lines-of-Code efficient.  That's what I was mentioning in the first post -- which form of efficiency does one usually code for?  Program efficiency?  Disk space efficiency?  Line count?  Reusability?  Ease of coding/maintaining?  

That's very efficient on line count, but fails as far as everything else goes.  Less is not always better, I don't think. 

---

I don't particular care for scrolling horizontally, so making less lines but longer ones ??? bad trade-off in my book.

As for that complaint.  Pah!  Use a smaller font, and a wider monitor! 

[bplus]

Yeah wider monitor! as soon as I drop cable from my Spectrum bill, should have that in 6 months!

[Pete]

Not all of us are lucky enough to have a have a chubby chaser 2000 monitor like Steve. Mine just allows fat ASCII fonts, which is efficient for my eyesight, but doesn't really solve the problem at hand, horizontal scrolling.

I think Steve actually added a neat dimension to this conversation. I mean unless your program is completely and forever finished... code for your code still exists, but you ****ing died, how can you consider it holistically efficient if it takes you three days debug it or reacquaint yourself with it? So neat concept, code that is both efficient to run but is also efficient to work with.

+1

Pete