Quick bit of Emacs Lisp to automatically pick bowlers and assign them to lanes

pickteams.el

; Define bowler names and lane size, then run `create-bowling-teams-buffer' to display

(defconst bowlers
  '("Player 1"
    "Player 2"))

(defconst lane-size 6)

(defun create-bowling-teams-buffer ()
  (interactive)
  (pop-to-buffer (get-buffer-create "*Bowling Teams*"))
  (erase-buffer)
  (let ((random-list (create-random-list))
        (loop-count 0)
        (current-lane 0)
	(extra-bowlers 0)
        (current-bowler 0)
	(minimum-on-team 0)
        (num-lanes (/ (length bowlers) lane-size)))
    (if (> (% (length bowlers) lane-size) 0)
        (setq num-lanes (1+ num-lanes)))
    (setq minimum-on-team (/ (length bowlers) num-lanes))
    (insert-string "Total bowlers " (length bowlers) "\n")
    (insert-string "Lanes needed  " num-lanes "\n\n")
    (setq extra-bowlers (- (length bowlers) (* num-lanes minimum-on-team)))
    (while (< current-lane num-lanes)
      (insert-string "Team " (1+ current-lane) "\n")
      (insert-string "------\n")
      (setq loop-count 0)
      (while (< loop-count minimum-on-team)
        (insert-string (elt bowlers (elt random-list current-bowler)) "\n")
        (setq current-bowler (1+ current-bowler))
        (setq loop-count (1+ loop-count)))
      (if (> extra-bowlers 0)
	  (progn
	    (insert-string (elt bowlers (elt random-list current-bowler)) "\n")
	    (setq current-bowler (1+ current-bowler))
	    (setq extra-bowlers (1- extra-bowlers))))
      (insert-string "\n")
      (setq current-lane (1+ current-lane)))))
    
(defun create-random-list ()
  (let (num-list this-num)
    (setq num-list (make-list 0 0))
    (while (not (= (length num-list) (length bowlers)))
      (setq this-num (abs (% (random) (length bowlers))))
      (if (not (member this-num num-list))
          (add-to-list 'num-list this-num)))
    num-list))