Exercise 2.6 – The game of Nims/Stones

Here's a solution, but it departs from the "basic outline" prescribed in the 6.189 Homework 2 handout by handling both players in a single loop. When I tried to use two separate loops, it got messy because there was a lot of duplication of code, including watching for the end game condition, ready to terminate execution from either loop after all the stones had been taken. Does anyone have a solution that uses two loops without a lot of repetition of code?

http://ideone.com/kLQ5Zf

The solution is written for Python 3..

Question

Exercise 2.6 – The game of Nims/Stones

Here's a solution, but it departs from the "basic outline" prescribed in the 6.189 Homework 2 handout by handling both players in a single loop.  When I tried to use two separate loops, it got messy because there was a lot of duplication of code, including watching for the end game condition, ready to terminate execution from either loop after all the stones had been taken.  Does anyone have a solution that uses two loops without a lot of repetition of code?

http://ideone.com/kLQ5Zf

The solution is written for Python 3..

anonymous · Answer

I think that if you are going to use a loop for each player, you are going to repeat code. However, I think that it can still be easy to read (though I know I should have commented my solution). You can view my Python 2.7 solution here: http://pastebin.com/sW0SrkdL. I had another version where I used a function to handle the players' turns, but I can't find it.

anonymous · Answer

Thanks.  If you find your other version, please post that one here as well.  It would be interesting to look at the variety of solutions that people have developed.