“Simple” Programming Homework

Question

Your friend has been caught sleeping in class again! As punishment, his computer science teacher has assigned him homework, knowing that he will not be able to solve it due to not having paid any attention.

The assignment seems deceiving simple at first; all that is required is to output the string:

John Doe

Unfortunately, the teacher is intent on making the simple assignment much more difficult. Since your friend was not listening when the teacher explained the concept of strings and numbers, the teacher forbids him from using any number character (0-9) or the quotes (", ', `).

Can you help your friend solve this problem with the shortest code possible, and save his computer science grade in the process?

Try to find the shortest code in each language!

_{Note: it is encouraged to try to solve this problem in languages where string/character literals exist but cannot be used due to the restrictions (most mainstream languages are like this, e.g. C++).}

Answer 1

C, 41 bytes

#define p(x)puts(#x)
main(){p(John Doe);}

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# converts a token passed to a macro to a string literal.

Answer 2

PowerShell, 51 bytes

#John Doe
(gc $PsCommandPath)[+$x]-replace(echo \#)

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PowerShell, 59 54 bytes

$x++;$x++
-join((echo John),(echo Doe).PadLeft($x+$x))

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PowerShell, 56 bytes

-join((echo John),[char](++$x-shl$x+++$x+$x),(echo Doe))

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PowerShell, 57 bytes

-join((echo John),[char]([char](echo !)-++$x),(echo Doe))

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PowerShell, The Most Trivial Solution™, 10 bytes

(I'm sorry, I said I wanted to avoid trivial solutions, but I did not know this was possible, and felt that this method might benefit PS solutions to other challenges)

{John Doe}

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Answer 3

JavaScript (V8), 80 77 76 65 40 34 20 bytes

_=>/John Doe/.source

Turns out the _=> might be required.

History:

/John Doe/.source

Oh there's a trivial way to do it. I just wasted an hour :/

31:

(/John Doe/+[]).slice(-~[],~[])

Finally found a way to get rid of that pesky toString :p

37:

/John Doe/.toString().slice(-~[],~[])

Why use the function thing at all?

62:

(function John_Doe(){}).name.replace(/_/,/ /.toString()[-~[]])

I probably should have thought about using / / sooner...

73:

(function John_Doe(){}).name.replace(/_/,{}.toString(x=true)[x-~x-~x-~x])

I wasted twenty minutes trying to do this character by character then remembered this.

Golfed three bytes by using -~x, which is the same as +2.

Answer 4

Vyxal, s, 16 bytes

\J\o\h\nð\D\o\eW

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Explained

\J\o\h\n    # Push the characters J, o, h and n
ð           # Push a space
\D\o\e      # Push the characters D, o and e
W           # Wrap everything into a list. The s flag joins on newlines

Answer 5

Python 3, ^{55 43} 28 bytes

Saved 12 bytes thanks to Makonede!!!
Saved 15 bytes thanks to ovs!!!

print(*dict(John=[],Doe=[]))

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Answer 6

CW for languages where the program John Doe is valid

Feel free to add to this list if you find a solution in another language.

NOTE: Text editors have been excluded as there are way too many of them.

///

Charcoal

GS2

HTML

Keg

PHP

Quine

Text

Answer 7

05AB1E, 5 bytes

”„ÐÒ«

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”„ÐÒ«  # full program
”„ÐÒ«  # push "John Doe"
       # implicit output

Answer 8

Perl 5 -M5.10.0, 15 bytes

say q(John Doe)

Try it online! I don't know whether -M5.10.0 is optimal, I just cargo culted it from a random Perl answer.

Answer 9

Java, 166 bytes

$->{class John_Doe{}final char o=Byte.MAX_VALUE/Byte.MAX_VALUE,t=o+o,f=t+t+o,T=f+f,u=T*T-f,s=f*(f+o)+t;System.out.print(John_Doe.class.getSimpleName().replace(u,s));}

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Java, 192 bytes

a->{final char O=Byte.MAX_VALUE/Byte.MAX_VALUE,T=O+O,t=T+O,F=t+T,S=F+T,Z=F+F,Y=Z*Z,o=Y+Z+O,J=S*Z+T+T,h=Y+T+T,n=Y+Z,$=Z*t+T,D=F*Z+Z+F+t,e=Y+O;System.out.print(String.valueOf(J)+o+h+n+$+D+o+e);}

This uses Byte.MAX_VALUE/Byte.MAX_VALUE to obtain the number 1 and then uses it to construct the ASCII codes of all the characters in the string. final is needed so that casts from int to char are not necessary.

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Answer 10

JavaScript, 32 bytes

_=>(/John Doe/+[]).slice(-~_,~_)

When the function is called without arguments, the first argument will be undefined and ~undefined produces -1.

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Thanks to tsh for the idea

JavaScript (V8), 39 bytes

print(...Object.keys({John:[],Doe:[]}))

print uses a space to separate arguments when printing.

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Answer 11

Windows Batch, 13 bytes

echo John Doe

Answer 12

Jelly, 8 bytes

“®ƊʠỌḂŒ»

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The “ at the beginning isn't defined as a quote in the challenge, so Id say this is valid.

Answer 13

PowerShell Core, 19 bytes

Write-Host John Doe

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Write-Host John Doe  # full program
Write-Host           # output...
           John Doe  # literal

Answer 14

Bubblegum, 10 7 bytes

-3 bytes by @tsh.

´H&ÒF

Try it online! This program gets converted to base 256, then to base 96, and each digit \$n\$ gets replaced with the \$n\$th printable ASCII character. Hexdump:

00000000: 0bb4 4826 02d2 46  ..H&..F

Answer 15

Notepad / Gedit, 15 keystrokes

SHIFT+J
o
SHIFT+LEFT ARROW
CTRL+C
RIGHT ARROW
h
n

D
CTRL+V
e

Notepad / Gedit (Boring solution), 8 keystrokes

J
o
h
n

D
o
e

Answer 16

brainfuck, 91 bytes

-[------->+<]>+.[-->+++<]>.-------.++++++.-[->+++++<]>-.++[->++<]>.[--->+<]>+++.----------.

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Answer 17

Julia, 38 bytes

print(:John,Char(ceil(π*π*π)),:Doe)

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Answer 18

Java (JDK), 134 bytes

class John{public static void main(String[]z){System.out.print(John.class.getName()+(char)Float.SIZE+Doe.class.getName());}}enum Doe{}

Java (OpenJDK 8), 131 bytes

interface John{static void main(String[]z){System.out.print(John.class.getName()+(char)Float.SIZE+Doe.class.getName());}}enum Doe{}

This is an everything java solution - count in the whole file, header and footer. No tio.run link because it depends on the class name, which must be John in this case. In Java 8+ you can make it an interface and omit public in the main method for -3.

Float.SIZE and Integer.SIZE return 32, the char code for a space. In this case, getName(), getTypeName(), getSimpleName(), and getCanonicalName() will all return just the desired name part of the class/enum. You can make John an enum for -1, but it would require an extra ; at the start to declare the enum objects, +1, making it equal length.

You can run this to verify whether it prints the correct String (and that the space character is an actual space, because doing (char)0, for example, will leave a blank spot without it technically being a space):

interface John { // or class
    public static void main(String[]z) {
        System.out.print((John.class.getName() + (char) Float.SIZE + Doe.class.getName())
            .equals("John Doe"));
        }
    }
enum Doe{}

Answer 19

Pxem, 10 bytes of file name + 0 bytes of content = 10 bytes

• Filename: John Doe.p
• Content is empty

What a low effort.

Answer 20

Deadfish~, 70 bytes

{i}dds{i}c{iiii}dddc{d}iiiciiiiiic{{d}ii}iic{iii}iiiiiic{iiii}iiic{d}c

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It somehow beats Java!

Answer 21

Vyxal, 8 bytes

«:L∞I\«ǐ

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Explanation:

«:L∞I\«   # Base-256 compressed "john doe"
       ǐ  # Convert To Title Case
          # Implicit output

Vyxal doesn't support capital letters in compressed strings, which is why the ǐ command is needed.

Answer 22

PHP, 8 bytes

John Doe

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John Doe  # full program
John Doe  # no leading <?, so outputs source

Answer 23

Python 2, 56 14+8=22 bytes

print __file__

Must be saved in a file called John Doe in the root directory. However, the path may not even contain a single / for this to work. Therefore, this file's full path should be only John Doe, and not /John Doe or C:/John Doe. Theoretically possible but not sure how in practice.

NB: Adding the lengths of the file name and the code was somehow the shortest approach I could find to this challenge (in Python).

Answer 24

Bash, 13 bytes

echo John Doe

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echo John Doe  # full program
echo           # output...
     John Doe  # literal