Re: [FWP] Perl Card Games

[Amir Karger <karger@fermi2.chem.yale.edu>]

I'm replying to the digest. Is that not allowed?

> ------------------------------
> 
> From: Brand Hilton <bhilton@adc.com>
> 
> 'Course, if it was me, I'd just do
> 
>   use Algorithms::Numerical::Shuffle;
>   @cards = (0 .. 51); # or any number of them
>   @cards = shuffle(@cards)
> 

Abigail indeed uses the (non-clobbering) N-swaps method, adding in the
ability to handle ref'ed arrays in place (no memory overhead) or regular
arrays. I suppose that's why Abigail is a Perl Somebody.

I *could* steal this, although you should never underestimate the power
of the Schwartz. But it means if I ever created a really good module and put
it on CPAN, then people would have to download another module to use it. Not
a problem for one module, but what if I use six different existing modules?
Have others found this to be a problem with writing modules? Or do you just
figure if people want to use your module they should suck it up and download
the necessary prerequisites? CPAN *does* make it easy, after all (especially
the CPAN module!)

> ------------------------------
> 
> From: Matthew Bafford <dragons@dragons.duesouth.net>
> 
> Heh, that reminds me of the slot machine game I used to play on my ol'
> C64.  After a while I got tired of pushing the 'pull' button, so I just
> changed the code slightly to make the computer do it automatically.
> 
> That kinda took the last bit of fun out of it...

Um, that's implying that there's a bit of fun in it in the first place,
which may be true for seven-year-olds, but isn't really for us old people.

> HtAAoF!

Um, what's that?

[much snippage]

A couple minor points:

> my %cards  = (
>                2 =>  2, 3 =>  3, 4 =>  4, 5 =>  5, 6 =>  6, 7 =>  7,
>                8 =>  8, 9 =>  9, J => 10, Q => 11, K => 12, A => 13,
>              );

Oops! What about "10"? Otherwise your deck has only 48 or 50 cards.

> sub compare_cards { my ($a, $b) = map   {  /.(.)/     }     @_;
>                                   $cards{$a} <=> $cards{$b}        }

Once you add 10, which is two characters, this doesn't work :(

> sub score         { my  $c; $c += $cards{ (/.(.)/)[0] } for @_; $c }

Nice idea for resolving a tie. Another option would be a fistfight.

> while ( @deck ) {
>     push @a, splice(@deck, rand @deck, 1);
>     push @b, splice(@deck, rand @deck, 1);
> }

This neatly steps around the shuffling in place discussion. Of course, it
won't work for rummy, say.

[Instructions:]

> First the the deck of 52 (or 54) cards is shuffled and evenly distributed
> amongst the players (usually 2, but games of 3 or 4 also play quite nicely,
> although slightly differently).

I'm getting a vague picture from my early childhood of playing three-way
war. Of course, getting the computer to play three-way war is at least as
useless as having it play two-way war. 

I'm getting a slightly less vague memory of my friends in college who would
play MacRisk with all computer characters & see which personality (e.g. one
computer character type was aggressive, meaning it always attacked as long
as it could, another was more conservative, taking just one country at a
time, etc.) would win. Wow, college was pretty exciting.

> ------------------------------
> 
> From: Chip Turner <chip@zfx.com>
> 
> @a = (rand(@cards) % @cards, $_ % @cards), @cards[@a] = @cards[reverse @a]
>     foreach 0 .. ($passes * @cards - 1);

Btw, save bytes by not taking %cards for rand(@cards), which certainly gives
you a number from 0..@cards.

> @cards = map { $_->[0] }
>            sort { $a->[1] <=> $b->[1] }
>              map { [ $_, rand(1 << 31) ] }
>                (0 .. 51);
> 
> That has a certain aesthetic niceness to it.  I think someone did a
> similar one earlier.  

Yup. In fact, it's my original shuffle, except that you don't have to take
rand(1<<31), you can just use rand(). Then perl sorts the 52 floats from
between 0 and 1.


-Amir

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