Car model name score calculator based on XKCD #1571 : "Car Model Names"

xkcd_car_model_names.py

import sys
# values for 0-9 a-z as specified in the comic, with an additional 0 for
# unrecognized characters.
values = [60, -74, 6, 55, 35, 74, 6, -58, -67, -37, -14, -5, 27, -21, -45, 5,
          27, -44, -21, 64, 32, 12, 19, -46, -80, -27, 40, 8, 15, -18, -68,
          41, -20, 126, -90, 83, 0]


def to_index(c):
    """ Determines the index to look at in the `values' list given a character c
    """
    i = ord(c.lower())
    # numbers
    if 48 <= i <= 57:
        i -= 48
    # letters
    elif 97 <= i <= 122:
        i -= 87
    # unrecognized
    else:
        i = 36
    return i


def score(in_str):
    return (sum([values[to_index(c)]for c in in_str]) /
            (10 * len(in_str)))


# This script can either be used by calling `python file.py modelname'
# in which case the script will compute the score and terminate,
# or it can be called with no argument in which case it will loop
# and multiple model names can be proposed.
if len(sys.argv) > 1:
    print(score("".join(sys.argv[1:])))
else:
    while True:
        in_str = input("Enter a name to evaluate: ")
        print("This scores ", score(in_str), " as a car model name.")

This code is released under the .