Allowing "__" also allows import and that opens up pretty much everything, including text compression.

The idea here is to force code warriors to somehow compress code and/or text without ready-made solutions.

Maybe it's overrated at 5 kyu (I was aiming at 6), but it can't be changed now

I would say it sparks creativity, but given that imports and "__" are also prohibited, it only sparks creativity in a very narrow direction... which isn't very creative.

I'd rather make a single change: remove the prohibition against "__". This would allow a broader range of solutions, without (I think) making this less than 5 kyu.

Forfeited this one, I felt like I squeezed every ounce of performance out of my python solution that I could. Turns out I was getting through about 2/3 of the test cases. The other solutions I saw were heiroglyphs... very frustrating kata and I learned extremely little.

added tag

desription updated

ther is a python module named us with all the list and more... pity it isn't installed the code would be very short... ;)

It's the second line of a 4-lines description. IMHO it's clear enough.

P.S. without the constraint, the kata doesn't make sense.

500 char limit doesn't spark creativity, it is a serious constraint and significantly increases the difficulty. Please consider updating the text to reflect this as this is not at all clear.

The setup for this Kata in JS is ridiculously terse. A simple function that accepts two arguments (hand1, hand2) would have sufficed as a starting point. There is absolutley no need to prototype.

This is by far the most efficient solution I've seen in JS. This algorithm can solve a 100x100 spiral in ~0.5ms. Other solutions I've tested hover around 10-15ms range; this one blows those away.