HHC 2014 Programming Contest

[Jeff O.]

(09-30-2014 01:20 AM)Joe Horn Wrote:  EDIT: OOH OOH, I found it! (Doing so caused an avalanche in my room, but I digress).

Thanks for the information. (Sorry about the avalanche.)

I developed a couple of wp34s versions based on a couple of methods to attack the problem. Happily, they both produce the correct results for the test cases and all other years I have tried from the complete list. One version is 83 steps and reasonably fast. (If the year has no PPDs it finishes in about 1.5 seconds. If there are PPDs, they are displayed sequentially during pauses, so execution time is extended by the pause time for each date.) Second version is 50 steps, but it is much, much slower than the first version, taking about 20 seconds for years with no PPDs. Scanning through the above posts without reading in detail (to avoid hints or ideas), I see that Eric's version is 50 steps and Paul's is only 44. I doubt that my slooowww 50-stepper is comparable to those, so I think I have a ways to go. Guess I’ll keep messing around for a while (for the fun it - which is the point, right?) to see if I can come up with a better way.