Talk:Code golf

Done

Ahh I was just about to do this exact redirect then I saw it was already done! Neddyy (talk) 11:56, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Examples?

We need examples of Code golf. Zbuhman (talk) 04:49, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

• • phpGolf: http://phpgolf.org
  • CGolf: http://shiva.norgrind.net/~tom/cgolf/
  • CodeGolf (Perl, Ruby, PHP, Python): http://codegolf.com

Echofish1 (talk) 19:49, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

International Obfuscated C Code Contest (since 1984) https://www.ioccc.org/ SirWumpus (talk) 10:39, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

GolfScript?

Maybe mentioning GolfScript would be a good idea? Echofish1 (talk) 08:14, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Agreed - added a section on languages designed for golfing, including Golfscript and Flogscript. I think there are a couple of others, like goruby, but I don't know enough about them. Maybe someone else can improve. Also, there is no existing Golfscript article page, so I started one in my user namespace. Not sure if it'd be considered notable enough for Wikipedia, though. Destynova (talk) 14:09, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

The mention of Flogscript should probably be replaced with a more modern golfing language, like Jelly or Brachylog. 69.218.220.5 (talk) 10:16, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Brevity

Golfing is usually not about implementing a certain/specific algorithm but merely to find the shortest program that solves a task. It is not uncommon that there are several algorithms for the same task where participants will choose the one which can be implemented with the fewest key stroke. It is also not uncommon that slower algorithms require less key strokes. -- Feuermonster (talk) 21:44, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Impact on the craft and discipline of programming

Has anybody studied the impact of code golfing on important metrics of programming, such as PQRST (Precision, Quality, Readability, Speed, Testability) etc?

Some thoughts:

• A sceptic might suspect that the impulse to write ever more compact (i.e. space-efficient) code could become habitual, and spill over into "real" programming work; and that if it did, it would almost inevitably lead to detrimental effects on, in particular, readability and hence on both the code's functionality and the maintainability of the code legacy of such (sadly, misguided) programmers.
• An optimist might consider that the programmer's desire to write better code would spill over into "real" programming work; and lead almost inevitably into an improvement in the professionalism of all such programmers, such that their work would be functional, efficient, readable and maintainable!

One might argue either way - or differently - but does anyone have any concrete evidence on this issue?

yoyo (talk) 04:19, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Dedicated golfing languages

It might be time to create a new page for dedicated golfing languages since as of now there are at least 4 of them that are used on a regular basis on golfing sites. -- 2A02:120B:C3DE:7AA0:112F:9629:441E:9564 (talk) 15:55, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

External link

Last external link doesn't need black text on end, right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.254.148.29 (talk) 13:48, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

sourcing for golflangs

@Themoonisacheese: Hi, I reverted your recent edit. So basically, we can't use a source that is someone's queries that they ran on chat StackExchange. We need a reliable independent source, e.g. via google scholar or a tech news article that discusses golf langs and their popularity. Caleb Stanford (talk) 18:09, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

@Caleb Stanford I'm well aware. unfortunately there is none, and it's unlikely there ever will be. Honestly, code golf as a whole barely passes GNG to begin with, so it's unsurprising a sub-topic like golflangs has no RS, much less about which ones are notable.

I have used this source because while it's not a source from a reliable news publication, in my view it falls under WP:SPS; As a long standing community member on Code Golf Stack Exchange, DLosc is an expert on the history of golfing languages (of course, the "recognized as such" part falls a bit flat when the entire subject matter is unsourceable). The information is also entirely objective: It's a compilation of raw statistics as returned by Stack Exchange Data Explorer, which anyone may verify (and in fact, get up to date numbers).

The "Dedicated golfing languages" section is used as a redirect target for some of these languages ( Vyxal, 05AB1E, GolfScript), so i'd rather have some citation with their names rather than no citation at all and going "jelly is notable because WP:BLUE". can we compromise on leaving this source and keeping the citation needed tag? ^{themoon@talk:~$} 18:34, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. Well, I guess you're welcome to solicit a 3rd opinion, but I doubt a chat SE link (even from a prominent SE user) is going to pass mustard for inclusion. My understanding was that WP:SPS usually covers blogs, etc., not chat logs - are chat logs actually considered "published"? The other concern with chat logs is that the information wouldn't have confirmation of notability/relevance - i.e. if it hasn't received secondary coverage, then why are we covering it here? (maybe WP:DUE etc.) Happy to try to do a search on some of these... I'd aim to find reliable sources mentioning the languages. I'm a little worried re: unsourceable content, unfortunately just means we can't cover it at all, even if it's useful. Thanks! Caleb Stanford (talk) 20:44, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

For what it's worth, stack exchange chat transcripts are public by design (and licensed CC-BY-SA 3.0), specifically to allow more informal and iterative conversations to be searchable and indexable. The goal probably wasn't to be usable as a reference on wikipedia, granted, but they're just about the best place on the stack exchange network one can share stats and findings like this while keeping the rest of the network the "right" amount of formal it's known for.

I understand the worry for UNDUE coverage. you're welcome to try to search for these languages (the reference you removed says your best bet is probably Jelly, unfortunately it shares a name with a scripting engine released by the Apache foundation and a dish), but in all my hours of searching, i have found 0 sources that properly qualify as RS that mention any of these languages or even "golfing language" in general.

I haven't gone back in the edit history, but I suspect the "dedicated golfing languages" section exists because the standalone pages for golfing languages were merged into this page for lack of GNG.

Surely you can understand the predicament: WP:BLUE that new and notable languages were released after the last language for which we have a barely passable source, Jelly, was released, but no reliable source mentions a specific one (I happen to personally know that the history gets very muddy right after 2015 and doing history work there is really hard). We can't exactly write "there are other notable languages, figure out what they are". ^{themoon@talk:~$} 21:31, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

I understand your predicament. If the situation is as you say though with 0 RS on the topic, that doesn't bode well for your position. I think a lot of people come to Wikipedia with the idea: I want to help contribute to a body of knowledge, improve coverage of things that are not covered, etc. And their criteria is: "Is this information valuable?" Well unfortunately a lot of the time, even info that is valuable just doesn't have enough coverage to be included. Wikipedia is a tertiary source, it's not for archiving information that hasn't yet been standardized or tabulated in some other form. Caleb Stanford (talk) 04:27, 20 January 2026 (UTC)