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I've had a couple challenges in mind that are somewhat along the lines of:

Do x in as many ways as possible, with as little code as possible.

However, I'm having a hard time settling on how to score this. I'd like a way that gives fair weight to the "many ways" factor while still very much encouraging a mentality.

I've already seen tags or suggestions for "code chess", "code bowling", "atomic code golf", etc - most of which seem to not have gone over well. Is this a similarly bad idea? Or is there already another name for it, and a standard means of scoring?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Can you objectively define whether two programs are solving the task in the same way? \$\endgroup\$ – Peter Taylor Nov 26 '13 at 12:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ @PeterTaylor Yes. Wouldn't be a really fair challenge if you couldn't. \$\endgroup\$ – Iszi Nov 26 '13 at 13:57
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  number of ways
-----------------   ?
 character count

Of course, it will need to be complicated enough that there are no 1-3 character solutions.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ If I'm reading this right, the higher score should win? My first thought was actually the inverse - characters/ways - and low score wins. Any thoughts on problems I might encounter, or should avoid, other than the 1-3 character thing? \$\endgroup\$ – Iszi Nov 25 '13 at 19:48
  • \$\begingroup\$ yeah, that's a high score wins metric. The inverse is just as good \$\endgroup\$ – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Nov 25 '13 at 21:00
  • \$\begingroup\$ Define "number of ways". If it's ambiguous, people will stretch it. Also, beware of cases where linear growth of code length causes superlinear growth of the number of ways. \$\endgroup\$ – John Dvorak Dec 29 '13 at 5:30

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