/-\ndrew writes:

>  1. Ala Qumsieh               210.77     0.95   Stack (operator)

> Why is Ala the fastest? Probably because of all that push'n'pop'n.

Ahem ... yeah .. that was my plan ... yeah ... to submit the fastest
solution regardless of my position on the leaderboard .. yeah ..
Hey, that brings to mind yet another Perl competition: The Perl 100 Meter
Dash.
The winner of course is the one who submits the fastest solution.
How about if this substitutes next month's PG challenge for a try?

> Notice that Ala is the only golfer who used 'reverse'.
> Now, push/pop are pretty fast, faster than shift/unshift.
> However, the golfing price for all that push'n'pop'n is that
> butt-ugly 'reverse' adorning the end of Ala's solution.
> To avoid the reverse, you might create the operator stack
> with shift/unshift (as I tried in my first submission).

I did that, and shaved a couple of strokes which would've brought me down to
208 on the leaderboard; not a pretty sight. Plus, I promised that my next
submission would be on a different horse, and I hate to break my promises :)

> To eliminate the unshift eyesore, I soon switched to a
> string-based stack manipulated by Regexes. To see push'n'pop'n
> done well, see Alma Media's 119.62 (where they push both numbers
> and operators onto the stack, I think).

Interesting. I tried that approach too. When I *almost* reached a working
solution, I checked the length of my code, and it turned out to be 160+.
Depressed, I tossed it away and never looked back at it :(

--Ala

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