Clojure + Bowling Kata

Just the other day (yesterday) Uncle Bob had a post about Learning Clojure. He implemented a bowling scoring kata. So Dan P. and I decided to try it ourselves, but since we're from Boston we implemented candle pin bowling rules:

As we were talking through designs for this, and as we talked about scoring frames, we realized that there were three cases:

1. Strike – score the first ball, plus the next two ‘bonus’ balls, then remove the first ball (the strike) from the list, then continue scoring.
2. Spare – score the first two balls, plus the next ‘bonus’ ball, then remove the first two balls (the spare) from the list, then continue scoring.
3. No-mark – score all three balls in the frame, then remove them from the list, then continue scoring. (Remember: candlepin!)

In all these cases you want to score three balls, the only difference was in how many balls you remove from the list before you continue scoring (i.e., how many balls were in the frame you are removing from the yet-to-be-scored list). So this is what we came up with: http://github.com/zdsbs/candlepin-bowling/tree/master

(ns scorecard)

(defn third [rolls]
    (first (next (next rolls))))

(defn first-two [rolls]
    (+ (first rolls) (second rolls)))

(defn strike? [rolls]
    (= 10 (first rolls)))

(defn spare? [rolls]
    (= 10 (first-two rolls)))

(defn remove-strike [rolls]
    (rest rolls))

(defn remove-spare [rolls]
    (rest (rest rolls)))

(defn remove-normal-frame [rolls]
    (rest (rest (rest rolls))))

(defn remove-frame [rolls]
        (if (strike? rolls)
            (remove-strike rolls)
            (if (spare? rolls)
                (remove-spare rolls)
                (remove-normal-frame rolls))))

(defn score [input-rolls]
    (loop [rolls input-rolls score 0 frame-counter 0]
        (if (or (empty? rolls) (= 10 frame-counter))
            score
            (recur 
                (remove-frame rolls) 
                (+ score (first rolls) (second rolls) (third rolls)) (inc frame-counter)))))

And the tests:

(ns scorecard-test
    (:use clojure.contrib.test-is 
        scorecard))

(deftest test-third
    (is (= 3 (third [1 2 3 4]))))

(deftest test-first-two
    (is (= 3 (first-two [1 2 3]))))

(deftest test-remove-frame
    (is (= [3 4 5] (remove-frame [0 1 2 3 4 5])))
    (is (= [3 4] (remove-frame [10 3 4])))
    (is (= [5] (remove-frame [6 4 5]))))

(deftest test-remvo-two-frames
    (is (= [] 
        (remove-frame 
            (remove-frame [0 1 2 0 0 0])))))

(deftest test-scores
    (is (= 0 (score [])))
    (is (= 6 (score [1 2 3])))
    (is (= 15 (score [1 2 3 4 5 0])))
    (is (= 19 (score [10 1 2 3])))
    (is (= 17 (score [5 5 1 2 3])))
    (is (= 300 (score [10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10])))
    (is (= 19 (score [5 5 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 ])))
    (is (= 21 (score [10 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 ]))))

Also check out:
Stuart Halloway's implementation. Besides just an implementation, he has a great discussion on how to approach the problem in a functional way. (his implementation is much nicer than this one)
Uncle Bob's son over at 8th light also wrote up an implementation

Git Commands Part I

I'm always forgetting a very useful git command, so I'm posting it here in the hopes that: a) writing it down will help me remember and b) if I forget again, at least I can just goto my blog.

git add -u
(if you're like me and you rename or delete files without calling git rm git add -u takes care of staging the changes)

and thank you Stack Overflow: git rm multiple files that have already been deleted from disk

Oh and if you're pushing a Java project into a git repository, the .git/info/exclude file is very useful to ignore all the generated .class files.

Block Editing in Eclipse Galileo

Eclipse now has block editing hooray!

Ummm, what's the key binding for it? There's nothing in eclipse help, nothing in cmd-shift L, too many of my google searches took me to a crappy reddit page which doesn't tell you what the key binding is. Eventually someone decided to be helpful with this post. The key binding on OS X is cmd-alt-a

Anyway, hooray for block editing. Boo for wasting time looking for the keybinding, I hope this saves someone some time.

Hawthorne Effect

Apparently my post on measuring things was really about the Hawthorne Effect. Which in brief is: The simple action of measuring peoples productivity will increase their productivity. If you read that article though, there are lots and lots of criticism, but I prefer the BS approach, it's a cool idea, let's run with it!

I've been enjoying trying the Pomodoro Technique and have noticed a change in my productivity. Honestly, I'm not following it strictly, I haven't even read much of the website, but I did download a little app and I'm measuring tasks. I'm guessing one of two things is a result of the change in productivity:

1. The Hawthorne Effect has some merit and by measuring my tasks, and measuring my goofing off, I'm improving the amount of time I'm staying on task
2. There's something about a change in process that makes you notice inefficiencies in the way you do things

For the time being I'm going to assume #1 is true :) and that the Hawthorne Effect probably isn't valid in a general sense. You can always game metrics / measurements etc. etc. But on a personal level, if the metric you're measuring is of value to you, if you don't game your own personal game, then I think those metrics do have value and the Hawthorne Effect does apply. Or at least that's the BS I'm slinging today.

This post took 30 minutes to write, I'm now taking a 5 minute break.