game data

game_data.rb

require 'pry'

games = [
  {
    home_team: "Patriots",
    away_team: "Broncos",
    home_score: 7,
    away_score: 3
  },
  {
    home_team: "Broncos",
    away_team: "Colts",
    home_score: 3,
    away_score: 0
  },
  {
    home_team: "Patriots",
    away_team: "Colts",
    home_score: 11,
    away_score: 7
  },
  {
    home_team: "Steelers",
    away_team: "Patriots",
    home_score: 7,
    away_score: 21
  }
]

scores = {"Patriots" => [0,0],
          "Broncos" => [0,0],
          "Colts" => [0,0],
          "Steelers" => [0,0]}
games.each do |game|
  if game[:home_score] > game[:away_score]
    scores[game[:home_team]][0] += 1 
    scores[game[:away_team]][1] += 1 
  else
    scores[game[:away_team]][0] += 1 
    scores[game[:home_team]][1] += 1 
  end
end
scores = scores.sort_by{|key, val| -val[0]}
scores.each do |key, val|
  puts "#{key} #{val[0]} wins, #{val[1]} losses" 
end

Some duplication could then be removed by created a variable to hold the value of a default_score:

default_score = { wins: 0, losses: 0 }

scores = {
  "Patriots" => default_score.clone,
  "Broncos" => default_score.clone,
  "Colts" => default_score.clone,
  "Steelers" => default_score.clone
}

We need to call the clone method on our default_score hash so that they aren't all pointing to the same Hash object. If we didn't call clone on the default_score Hash, we would be change the scores for every team any time that we updated any team.

For example:

scores = {
  "Patriots" => default_score,
  "Broncos" => default_score,
  "Colts" => default_score,
  "Steelers" => default_score
}

scores["Patriots"] #=> { wins: 0, losses: 0 }
scores["Broncos"] #=> { wins: 0, losses: 0 }

scores["Patriots"][:wins] += 1

scores["Patriots"] #=> { wins: 1, losses: 0 }
scores["Broncos"] #=> { wins: 1, losses: 0 }

You can read more about mutable and immutable objects at http://rubylearning.com/satishtalim/mutable_and_immutable_objects.html

Spending a little extra time to think of descriptive variable names can sometimes dramatically improve the readability of your code.

For example, if we change the variables key and val here

scores = scores.sort_by { |team, record| -record[:wins] }

scores.each do |team, record|
  puts "#{team} #{record[:wins]} wins, #{record[:losses]} losses"
end

If we're just looking at those pieces of code, we don't need to leave this spot to try and figure out what key and val are going to represent.