Solving the web most popular code shortening competition in Python.

“Code shortening” is the “sport” where participants strive to achieve the shortest possible source code that solves a programming problem by exploiting all the tricks and quirks of the language.

The SIZECON on SPOJ is one of the oldest and most popular code shortening problems on the web with a bizarre twist, only character above ASCII value 32 are counted for the penalty. During the talk we will take a journey into some frightening depths of the Python language in order to write shorter and shorter solutions to SIZECON until, exploiting a number of truly mind-blowing tricks, we will reach the current record solution of 28 characters (above ASCII 32!).

I promise I’ll show you the most obfuscated, contrived and sick python code you have ever seen and (hopefully!) will ever see. I invite participants to give SIZECON a try and check their score against the Python2 and Python3 SPOJ rankings.

Slides: http://slides.com/alessandroamici/solving-the-web-most-popular-shortening-contest-with-python