Board Game Leaderboard

A Go function signature like func highestScore(scores []int) int says three things: the function's name, the type of value it accepts (a slice of ints), and the type of value it hands back (a single int). Inside, return best is what sends that value out to whoever called the function. Writing your own small functions like this — instead of inlining every calculation directly in main — is what keeps larger programs readable, because main can just say best := highestScore(scores) and trust that the details are handled elsewhere.

Worked example

Here's the same leaderboard function used on a two-player game:

package main

import "fmt"

func highestScore(scores []int) int {
	best := scores[0]
	for i := 1; i < len(scores); i++ {
		if scores[i] > best {
			best = scores[i]
		}
	}
	return best
}

func main() {
	players := []string{"Tao", "Wren"}
	scores := []int{14, 20}

	best := highestScore(scores)

	fmt.Println("Board game leaderboard:")
	for i := 0; i < len(players); i++ {
		marker := ""
		if scores[i] == best {
			marker = " <- WINNER"
		}
		fmt.Printf("%s: %d%s\n", players[i], scores[i], marker)
	}
}

Board game leaderboard:
Tao: 14
Wren: 20 <- WINNER

highestScore returns 20, and the loop in main marks whichever player's score equals that returned value.

Your turn

The starter program's highestScore function is meant to track the biggest score in the slice, and main is meant to mark whichever player matches that score — but one comparison in each place is backwards. Fix both marked lines.

If something goes wrong

If highestScore returns the smallest score instead of the largest, check the comparison inside its loop — it should replace best only when it finds something bigger, using >. If no player (or every player) ends up marked WINNER, look at the comparison in main's loop — it should match scores that are equal to best, using ==, not scores that differ from it.