[giancarlostoro]

I am still wondering how the two Perl ones work with two missing words in the code.

[maxander]

Since each hand beats two other hands, you only need three possible outputs to beat any opposing hand.

[avip]

The conclusion does not follow...

(the missing condition is that every hand is beatable)

[personjerry]

There are 5 possible hands

Each hand beats 2 distinct hands

With 3 distinct hands you can cover up to 6 distinct hands which is a superset of all possible hands

3 * 2 > 5

[avip]

And yet...

  A --> D | E
  B --> D | E
  C --> D | E
  D --> C | E
  E --> D | C

QED

[personjerry]

Um, this isn't a general math problem; We're not solving for all possible sets. We're solving this problem in particular:

  A --> B | C
  B --> C | D
  C --> D | E
  D --> E | A
  E --> A | B

[paggle]

The question is not clear. You don’t need to output the string “Rock or Spock”, you need to output either the string “Rock” or the string “Spock”.

[dragontamer]

Rock: 4-letters (Mod4 == 0)

Paper: 5-letters (Mod4 == 1)

Spock: 5-letters (Mod4 == 1)

Lizard: 6-letters (Mod 4 == 2)

Scissors: 8-letters (Mod 4 == 0)

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There are no 3-letter or 7-letter words (aka: Blah % 4 != 3 given the inputs). So they just left the 3rd index (4th word) empty.