Re: [SPOILER] Solution for QOTW 23

> print $_ = "()" x shift;
> print while s{^  ( \(+ )  ( \)+ ) \(  }
>              {"()" x (length($2) - 1)
>               . "("  x (length($1) - length($2) + 2) 
>               . ")" 
>              }xe;

A couple of people have referred to this as golfing.  But it really
isn't golfing; I don't think much of the idea of golf.  I wrote the
program this way because I thought it was the clearest way I could
think of to express the algorithm I came up with.  If the code is
opaque, I think it's because the algorithm is subtle, not because it's
been obfuscated.

Here's a synthetic version that uses an array instead of a string; I
don't think it's easier to understand.  just the opposite, in fact:

#!/usr/bin/perl -l

@a = ('(', ')') x shift;

while (1) {
  print @a;
  my ($open, $close) = (0, 0);
  $open++ while $a[$open] eq "(";
  $close++ while $a[$open+$close] eq ")";
  last if @a == $open+$close;
  for (0 .. $close - 2) {
    $a[$_*2+0] = '(';
    $a[$_*2+1] = ')';
  }
  for (0 .. $open - $close + 1) {
    $a[$_ + 2*($close - 1)] = '(';
  }
  $a[$open+$close] = ')';
}