

FizzBuzz golf challenge ... - RiderOfGiraffes
http://golf.shinh.org/p.rb?FizzBuzz

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tptacek
Am I missing something or does this totally miss the point about fizzbuzz
testing?

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RiderOfGiraffes
It depends on what you think the point of FizzBuzz testing is.

We use the FizzBuzz (or equivalent) test to get candidates warmed up to the
interview, thinking about programming and design and technical issues. A good
60% can't even get it working, so that lets us terminate the interview early.
For the remainder, we ask various technical questions that arise naturally.

On of the questions we sometimes ask is this: Suppose you're trying to fit the
code on a really small embedded processor. In truth, of course, you'd have to
write it in assembler, but let's assume we already have a C interpreter. How
small can you make the code?

This isn't a stretch. Some of the systems I used to work on were small (in
implementation) for exactly this reason. We wrote a miniature interpreter,
then wrote the working code in something nicer to program in. It was possible
to save overall space that way.

The ROM in the BBC micro had a built-in BASIC interpreter (of course), but if
you look closely, some of the OS on the ROM were written in BASIC. I've been
told it was for reasons of space.

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billpg
My standard response to this sort of challenge.

I've just invented a language where if you give it an empty source file, it
produces an executable that (the challenge's requirements). Here's the
source... ""

Zero characters.

(It's not funny any more, if it ever was.)

~~~
jerf
Somewhat more seriously, that page did introduce me to:
<http://www.golfscript.com/golfscript/>

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iamstef
woop 57 characters, now will you hire me?

