Clam Chawdas,
We’re planning out the activities for October and would like to hold a second contest at the end of the month (in addition to our traditional 10-Day Algorithm Challenge). We’re not really sure what to do so we are asking for your help. Here are some suggestions we came up with:
We’ve discussed some other ideas including a contest for shortest lines of code, though this promotes bad programming styles (hard to read/understand). We’d like to do something that encourages quality software development.
Any of the ideas above appeal to you? Any new ideas we haven’t thought of? Let us know (and have a nice weekend)…
Cheers,
Amit (Chef)
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Name : Anton Lunyov Age : 23 yrs Inst/Company : Institute of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics of National Academy of Science of Ukraine Userid : anton_lunyov |
Find out more about the person behind the username anton_lunyov
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September 18th, 2009 at 7:46 am
Hi
My suggession will be an ACM type conest with team of three. As the ICPC is round the corner, we would be benefitted by this.
I would also like to thank codechef for the great work. We are highly benefitted by the codechef chapter.
Thanks
September 18th, 2009 at 8:00 am
(1)An ACM-ICPC style competition
(2)A debugging competition - We give you a few problems with buggy solutions, the first person to correct them all so that they output the correct result (with the fewest amount of changes from the original code?) wins.
September 18th, 2009 at 8:05 am
Why not something like Code-Golf ?
May the shortest code win. It’ll be a bit different than the regular food on codechef’s menu.
September 18th, 2009 at 8:08 am
rotating cleartext function or
brute-force–resistant algorithm
September 18th, 2009 at 8:46 am
May be all of them
September 18th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Maybe an AI type contest, where two programs are pitted against each other and the plain old “survival of the fittest” rule to judge the winner!
September 18th, 2009 at 10:00 am
I think an ACM ICPC Style contest will be much nice
September 18th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
I agree, an ICPC style competition, with problems of similar level.
September 18th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Another vote for ICPC style contest. But wonder how we will be able to form teams. Other ideas:
1) Software design contests.
2) Problems that forces us to use adv. data structures like RB trees.
3) Mini projects that make us write moderately large amounts of code.
I feel 3) is important because
1) You get a better experience when you write a large piece of software.
2) You have to collaborate with others, hence learn to work in teams, learn to use source control etc.
Personally, I wonder if I will have so much time that I can compete in regular challenges as well as these!
September 20th, 2009 at 9:45 am
“A debugging competition ” … i’d love to pariticipate in this one.
September 20th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Some suggestion :
1. A debugging contest will be gr8
2. May be some RIA dev competitions.
3. A flash + php + mysql competition.
4. Wud luv another one of the GAMERs challange
Also long back it was announced that every month 1-2 problems will be dealt in detail here. We saw it going a few times but then it stopped. Plz keep it goin as it helps newbie algorithmists (like me) to get valuable knowledge.
thanx
September 21st, 2009 at 2:43 am
hey…
I guess you should have some non traditional contest this time …if you are planning something special.
You can have an overnight code modification contest ( call it an overnight moding contest - ‘m’ for modification
) . The idea will be to provide 4-5 piece of code which would compile successfully and have some output (valid).
The code had to be modified to achieve some other functionality .
Winning entry can be decided on the factor of change made to the code…. the lesser the better.
For example.
following code (solution for Life,universe and everything ..with 8 instead of 42)
i;main() {i!=8?scanf(”%d”,&i),((i-8)?printf(”%d\n”,i):exit(0)),main():exit(0); }
had to be changed to find 8 factorial..
i=1,f=1;main() {i!=4?i++,f=f*i,main():printf(”%d”,f),getch(),exit(0); }
Aim: When we work professinally , we have to deal with lots of legacy code..many a time , you need to understand
the code and modify it to add a new functionality ..sometimes an addition of functionality , and sometimes a
total change … may be this can be aimed towards that.
Looks like a wild idea (even setting questions might be a big challenge…) !!
September 21st, 2009 at 3:11 am
IMHO, ICPC contest is the best one to have. It’s a tried and tested formula. I think only Topcoder is better than this format
On second thoughts, the problems must be something that can be solved in 5 hours, else the winners might have only 1-2 accepted
Also shouldn’t “badge development competition” and “gamers challenge” be under DesignChef (which is under DirectI afaik)?
I think the Mini-challenge wasn’t so much fun with only 1 problem.
I think Codechef must really look at other contest formats and then make an informed decision. ( here is a list of well known programming contests http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Programming_contests )
I dont think a shortest code contest is a good idea, people knowing languages like Perl, PHP, Python will beat the c**p out of C++ and Java. This in no way implies they are better.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Hi,
I think an idea presentation/workout event will be good to come up new ideas for developing application on web.
Ideas should be related to “how to make easier to use web?”
Few ideas like that:::
1. Web interface using only html+CSS+javascript. No image, no flash. Keeping in mind total file size should me minimum.
2. Personal twitter application where a certain limited people can tweet.
3. webpage analysis and worth calculation based upon backlinks, members, readers, subscribers and all.
4. Monetization method based upon locality(ip based).
I hope now you got my point…..
September 21st, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Whatever you do, don’t make it a 5 hour contest like mentioned above, because then heaps of people won’t be able to compete due to timezones.
September 21st, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Maybe you could have a timed contest (2-3 hours), but have the clock start when the contestant logs in.
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:49 am
Another vote for ICPC style contest.I would love to participate. Make it a team of three contest.
September 25th, 2009 at 8:26 am
rotating cleartext function or
brute-force–resistant algorithm
September 30th, 2009 at 9:45 am
I give my vote to AI type contest.
Programs from two different users pitted against each other.
Something similar to this: http://www.bots.dcetech.com
I feel people will really like this.
And this is that 'something different' as well.
September 30th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Really liked the idea of something on the lines of a “mini-project” kind of contest where one has to write moderately large amount of code. This can also be clubbed with the idea of teams where one project is to be developed by one team- this way harnessing two-fold benefits.