[codeslush]

I, too, looked at the challenge and originally had the same thought. However, upon a second reading, it seems that there is a lot of room to misunderstand the requirement, which is almost certainly where the difficulty appears.

For example:

1. "Your task..." is not directly correlated to the outputs requested. 2. Item 3 in the SS ranking isn't clear. Specifically, "besides 1" could mean "besides 1" literally, or "besides 1" - where "1" means "one of the above," or even something else.

I was about to attempt to do it, just for fun, but then decided against it because the challenge itself had too much ambiguity in the requirements. That's very likely intentional - but since I'm not looking for a job, didn't need to waste my time playing "a game!" Maybe the successful answer rests in seeking/understanding the real requirements???

[Natsu]

Any ambiguity in item 3 is not a problem, because no matter how you parse it, the number of letters will always be a positive integer.

[wcarss]

This is to both you and your parent reply -- have I completely misread statement 3?

'3. If the number of letters in the product's name shares any common factors (besides 1) with the number of letters in the customer's name then the SS is multiplied by 1.5.'

To me, this says that if len(pname) is split into prime factors, and at least one of those is found in the list of prime factors for len(cname), then you multiply your SS by 1.5. The "besides 1" remark is obvious, because 1 is technically a factor for every number. I'm not quite sure how the math pedants come down on that, but this is just common sense.

Negative or positive shouldn't really affect this (I guess it could be construed as "-1" instead of "1" in the factor list, but.. you've really got to bend over backward to make that into a problem), and it's completely not ambiguous. The "besides 1" could not reasonably be taken to mean "besides the first statement", as the two statements deal with very different subject matter.

Am I crazy here? Did I miss something?

[codeslush]

You're fine, I'm the crazy one...err...ignorant one! I was just wrong. In viewing some of the other comments on this thread, it's clear to me that milo would have done a fine job of filtering me out! :-)

FWIW, I looked at the problem differently - I interpreted "factors" completely the wrong way. I'm humble enough to say that my bad interpretation is based on my own lack of education in mathematics. I have none! Zero, outside of what you get in high school. I'm definitely not the low-level algorithm guy. My lack of math skills has not held me back professionally, but I get healthy doses of humility, like this, on occasion. "One day" I want to go back and study math and see what I've been missing all these years.

I wanted to give you the respect of a reply since you took the time to comment.

[Natsu]

I think you're doing the right thing, but you did miss something :)

Oddly enough, I think that the algorithm you need here was also on HN a while back.

[wcarss]

Uh, I didn't mention the algorithm at all. As someone else mentioned, the hard part of this problem is finding an optimal solution; there's some minor stuff with keeping information together and building a modular program, but what I said is completely unrelated to that.

As we're entirely just discussing the spec, and not the secret hidden hardness of this problem, could you tell me what I missed? If you're concerned for their confidentiality, then email it to me at [e-mail]

Disclosure: I'm not planning to apply to this job or to complete this challenge, because I have other things to program for fun, and an internship / school to keep me busy. I'm strictly curious about our different interpretations of what seems (to me) like an unambiguous spec, and I'm prepared to be totally wrong on my reading of it.

[Natsu]

I'm referring to yet another algorithm. It probably won't matter for numbers that small, but the ancient Greeks invented a better way.

And yes, even it was discussed on HN recently.

[wcarss]

Ah, you mean the algorithm re: factors. Okay, thanks.