Future Contests: Speed Coding

We set a date for the challenge, and everyone interested joins a chat room (possibly IRC), once there, the problem is described and the coders are to create a working model as quickly as possible.

The entries would be judged on the following criteria:
Speed - Above all, the quicker the better.
Fidelity - How closely the program conforms to the project guidelines. This is worth just as much as speed.
Portability - Not everyone is going to be using the same operating system or compiler. For judges to mark your entry, it has to compile!
Efficiency - This will not play a major role in the score... the goal is to come up with a quick solution, not come up with the most elegant/efficient solution.

The contests would take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour of coding... judges would be on-hand to answer any questions on the current problem. These would be run frequently (maybe a few times per week) and wouldn't interfere with the main programming contests.

Anyone interested? Questions? Post...

Nice idea, but few questions:

1. What exactly the programmers should build in 1 hour? this will be discussed in mIRC?

2. In case that we have 2 programmers that finished in same time, who will win? the more elegant code, more efficient?

Anyway, I think it's a good idea, and in this type of contest, I think more people will participate.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Vber
Nice idea, but few questions:

1. What exactly the programmers should build in 1 hour? this will be discussed in mIRC?

2. In case that we have 2 programmers that finished in same time, who will win? the more elegant code, more efficient?

Anyway, I think it's a good idea, and in this type of contest, I think more people will participate.

---

1. Yes, the judge will choose a problem and inform the participants of the criteria, etc.

2. Obviously many things come into play here. Speed is not the only thing participants will be marked on... but it is the most important.

Me and a friend tried something similar last night... I found it extremely fun and challenging. The speed factor adds a somewhat exciting aspect to the problem.

Ok, so this time I think I'll participate, I think it will be interessant.
Let's wait for more answers, and see what people think.

i wouldn't mind judging, but speed isnt for me :P

Quote:

---

Originally posted by RoD
but speed isnt for me :P

---

For me neither, I like to calmly think of the best approach for
the problem, Not doing it under stress.:)

i may participate, depending on the kind of programming challanges.. i don't plan on winning any awards, but i think it'd be good practice..
although by the looks of it, i may win by default :p

I might take a stab at it. How would people submit the code to the judges?

I really want to participate, so please schedule the contests on weekends!

Travis Dane, RoD.. I really think you guys should try it. It's an amazing way to hone your programming and logic. The quicker you can oust small problems, the quicker you can get to thinking about larger ones.

Hmm, how will code be submitted...
Email perhaps? No... hmmm Upload to FTP... that sounds like a good idea. Or, even create an online submission form.

I'll get an IRC channel registered and setup with a bot in the coming week. I'll try to get one running next weekend if there's enough people willing to participate.

Interested people:
Sang-Drax
ygfperson
MadHatter
Vber

If you guys need help to create a code submission form, I'm here to help too :)

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Eibro

Hmm, how will code be submitted...

---

If the contest is being held on IRC, then isn't IRC the obvious choice?

Pasting where? pm the operators? and now we'll paste and it will be like that:

Code:

---

<vber> #include <stdio.h>
<vber> int main(void) {
<vber>  printf("blahh\n");
 [....]

---

You get me?

Count me in. I love contest programming.

Vber: You realize it is possible to send files over IRC, right?

Quote:

---

Vber: You realize it is possible to send files over IRC, right?

---

right, but if more than one judge want to look at the code at the same time, to check some parts of the code? one start to send to the other and so on? it's easier than to join on a simple url?

i'd rather judge it, but if u don't want me to i'll compete.

The problem is that whey'll most likely end up writing some
alghoritm (Wich i'm not good at:p ) because we can't do anything
specific like Win32,DirectX or OpenGL cause alot of people will
drop out.

Sounds cool. I want to participate in a contest and I never have enough time, but if this is a "speed contest" then I'm sure I could pump something out.

Count me in.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Polymorphic OOP
Count me in.

---

now i'm sure to lose :( oh well... second place isn't so bad.. or third.. maybe... :p

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Travis Dane
The problem is that whey'll most likely end up writing some
alghoritm (Wich i'm not good at:p ) because we can't do anything
specific like Win32,DirectX or OpenGL cause alot of people will
drop out.

---

Well the whole point of the contest would be to learn how, and implement it.

An example of an extremely easy one which I did: Create a program which takes two filename arguments, infile and outfile. infile contains words, one per line. What the program needs to do is output each word in which all letters are adjacent to eachother in the alphabet to outfile. Case insensitive, plus identical adjacent letters are ignored.

Example of infile:
aBcd
bDsf
mEow
aBcDeF
aaaa
bbcbabcde
fdsj

Outfile:
abcd
abcdef
aaaa
bbcbabcde

Of course, this is a little on the simple site, i'll try to pick ones which are a little more difficult.
Edit: Oh, and i'm in #cprogramming.com on DALnet, come on and show your support.

how exactly will this be done? will there be a set time each day/week/month that people can come and there will be a contest? or will there just been an announcement each time there's going to be one?

tried last night to go to #cprogramming.com, but couldn't connect.. maybe i'll try again tonight.

I'll announce the next contest ahead of time. I can tell you there will be one next weekend (not this weekend) i'm going away for the week. See my post on the #cprogramming.com thread about connecting to DALnet

Quote:

---

Originally posted by MadHatter
now i'm sure to lose :( oh well... second place isn't so bad.. or third.. maybe... :p

---

took the words right outta my mouth! Dammit poly...go home or something :P

I'm glad you think so highly of me :), but I'm sure there are people here more experienced than me who you should fear even more, if they choose to compete, that is.

more talented maybe, but dude your fast, and you know it. BTW, totally awsome your going to digi, i know fear your l337 vibe :P

Come on, This is redicilous. Sure Polymorph owns, But what
tells you he does on the contest task? I was under the
impression polymorph rocked on complicated things such as
polymorphic OOP programming (Duh....). And as whe'll most
likely end up writing some kind of alghoritm, Polymorph has a
good change to win.....wait a minute....i was supposed to
convince the opposite! *giving myself a kick in the ass*

lamo, i don't have and never used IRC...

Quote:

---

Originally posted by RoD
lamo, i don't have and never used IRC...

---

Get out from under the rock RoD! If you're new to IRC i
suggest you use mIRC .

Took me forever to get to icq also, check it out when i get home

Quote:

---

Originally posted by RoD
Took me forever to get to icq also, check it out when i get home

---

Cute, Might this be the reason why nobody is in the
cprogramming.com?

i'm in programming class, can't do jack atm.

no way i can code in this, i broke my left arm n only have one typing hand.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by RoD
no way i can code in this, i broke my left arm n only have one typing hand.

---

Yep, The dillhole fell of his chair! Can you believe it!

when did i fall??? u guys keep saying that, wtf did i miss!?

Quote:

---

Originally posted by RoD
when did i fall??? u guys keep saying that, wtf did i miss!?

---

Aaah nevermind, Are we going to hear a contest date anytime
soon?

Next weekend, speed coding in #cprogramming.com. I was away all this weekend, that's why there was no contest. Also, i'll try and get a regular contest started soon.

Speed coding in #cprogramming.com on DALnet at 10PM GMT, Saturday February 23rd. Anyone who wants to judge, get your name in. If you want to compete, simply show up, a list of names will be compiled at runtime. :)

I liked the speed coding contest.

I'd like more contests like that one.

Yea, I definately enjoyed it too (though it took me 6 hours to complete the damn thing ;))

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Sang-drax
I liked the speed coding contest.

I'd like more contests like that one.

---

Duh, If you already know how to do it;)
Hope next time we have something more universal so noone
has an advantage by knowing how to do it and knowing all
of HTML tags...

You didn't have to know all HTML tags.
My entry just assumes that everything inside <> is a tag.
That way is better, because the program doesn't have to be updated when a new HTML standard is released.

Eibro should have specified that the document title was the text between <title> and </title>, but that was confirmed in the chat during the contest.

Also, Eibro was online during the contest and ready to answer your questions.

I'm still puzzling how you got it finished so damn quick!
I guess we'll see...

What was the contest about? I missed the chat session.

We had to design a html interpreter. A html file was read into argv[1] and was to be searched indicating each html tag found, and how many times. I think that was it i may have forgot something.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by RoD
We had to design a html interpreter. A html file was read into argv[1] and was to be searched indicating each html tag found, and how many times. I think that was it i may have forgot something.

---

That's right, And therefor i had a big disadvantage because i
don't deal with algorithm's (at least these kinds) that much.
I could've have easely created it but if drax finished already i'm
not going to waste my time writing one.:p I will compete in the
next one hoping to have a subject more to my liking.

This was it

Quote:

---

Your goal is to create a program which analyzes an HTML file and outputs statistics about it.
Input will be a filename, passed as the first parameter to your program. Eg. htmlanalyze.exe filename.txt Output will be printed to stdout (most likely the screen, unless redirected)
Output will consist of:
• File name
• File size
• Document name
• Number of tags
• Number of times each tag is used

---

I took the idea from this board, and dumbed it down a bit to be suitable for this type of contest.
Edit, I still need 1 more judge to judge these results.

I can try to help after work tonight if i get in before 9:30, do my best.

Results:

Quote:

---

Sang-Drax:
Speed - 5/5
He completed the program in little over 30 minutes, no one else was even close thos this mark.
Fidelity - 4/5
Although a very good entry, this program is not without bugs:
Any tags with numeric characters (eg. <h1> <h2>) are all counted as one tag. He used isalpha() to parse the tag name from parameters.
Uppercase tags and lowercase tags are counted as two different types of tags.
Instead of outputting total number of tags, the program outputs total number of different tags.
Portability - 3/3
Code compiled on mingw without errors or warnings, on CodeWarrior without errors or warnings (or so I hear) and on MSVC++ 6 with 92 warnings. (The warnings were due to a compiler bug)
Total: 12/13

*ClownPimp*
Speed - 4/5
Entry was submitted about an hour after the contest started
Fidelity - 4.5/5
Doesn't output total number of tags
Similar to Sang-Drax's submission, the program differentiates between upper and lower case tags.
Portability - 3/3
Compiled on mingw with no errors and no warnings, compiled on MSVC++ 6 with 103 warnings (Again, bugs)
Total: 11.5/13

Sh0rt
Speed - 3/5
Entry was submitted sometime that night... I can't remember when. Lets just say very late.
Fidelity - 2.5/5
The program doesn't print Document Title, Filename or Filesize. Output is cluttered with predefined tags (mostly marked with a count of 0). Two things this program did which others didn't is correctly print total number of tags, and count uppercase/lowercase tags as the same tag.
Doesn't output tags which are not predefined in the source code.
Portability - 1/3
Windows specific functions are used (SetConsoleTitle), as well as non-standard functions like getch() and depricated headers are included in the source (vector.h)
I had to modify the source quite a bit (considering its size) to get it to compile on mingw.
Total: 6.5/13

Travis-Dane
Speed - 3.5/5
Entry was submitted an hour and a half after the contest commenced.
Fidelity - 1/5
Has very few predefined tags in the source code. Works on a system of predefined tags. Doesn't print to stdout.
Doesn't print filename
Doesn't print document title
Doesn't print total number of tags
Doesn't print filesize
Portability - 2/3
Uses conio.h and getch(). Other than that, compiles fine on mingw and MSVC++ 6
Total: 5.5/13

---

Congratulations Sang-Drax, you win. Entries are attached.

Hehe, it was a fun contest, I guess I should've used isalnum() instead.

I have a question regarding HTML:

is "< br>" considered a valid tag (ie with a space right after the <) ?

My submission doesn't count these tags as valid, but I rememberd and fixed that along with the case problem after I had submitted. That was after some time had passed though, so there were no reason to resubmit.

If anyone is interested, here's a better version with some bugs fixed.

It doesn't ignore tags within <!-- --> though.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Sang-drax
Hehe, it was a fun contest, I guess I should've used isalnum() instead.

I have a question regarding HTML:

is "< br>" considered a valid tag (ie with a space right after the <) ?

My submission doesn't count these tags as valid, but I rememberd and fixed that along with the case problem after I had submitted. That was after some time had passed though, so there were no reason to resubmit.

---

Hmm, If I wasn't so damn lazy I'd send it a page through the W3C HTML validator to test that.
Oh well, it's not like I used any test pages which had anything resembling an invalid tag.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Sang-drax
Hehe, it was a fun contest, I guess I should've used isalnum() instead.

I have a question regarding HTML:

is "< br>" considered a valid tag (ie with a space right after the <) ?

My submission doesn't count these tags as valid, but I rememberd and fixed that along with the case problem after I had submitted. That was after some time had passed though, so there were no reason to resubmit.

---

< br> is a valid tag, under w3 and others.
Same with other tags, < body>, < html> and so on.

why wasnt my entry listed!

Quote:

---

Originally posted by RoD
why wasnt my entry listed!

---

LOL...

:rolleyes:

It was the best one and he knowssssssssssssss it

when is the next contest going to be?

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Josh Kasten
when is the next contest going to be?

---

Probably this weekend.

Tommorow, same bat time, same bat channel. That's Saturday February 8th, #cprogramming.com on DALnet. 10PM GMT.

There's a text compression contest on the cprogramming.com main site. Is that still running?