Ideas needed

[Eibro]

I want to get a large pool of programming challenges for the speed-coding contests. I intend on running one this weekend... but I'm having a hard time coming up with / finding suitable problems. If anyone has any websites where I might be able to find some, or if you have some yourself... please post them.

Thanks!

[dizolve]

Hrm.... well

1) Client/Server chat software
2) Maybe... like domain lookup? console display of owner/name servers for a domain..

I'll post more if I come up with any.

[Magos]

Originally posted by dizolve
1) Client/Server chat software

For a 20-60 minutes speed coding...? Hmmmm...

[Travis Dane]

Also that sound like a very OS and Compiler specific task, Don't
think alot of people know how to do this.

[Eibro]

All I can think of right now is re-writing one/some of the standard library functions/templates as a contest.
Some of them would certainly be a real challenge.

[ygfperson]

how about... perfect number finders?

[Travis Dane]

'Bout writing your own string class?

[RoD]

y not take a program, simple, thats commonly done (but not hello world) n have the challenge to write the most effiecent, smallest sized exe, basic coded version of it.

[Travis Dane]

Originally posted by RoD
y not take a program, simple, thats commonly done (but not hello world) n have the challenge to write the most effiecent, smallest sized exe, basic coded version of it.

What's the use of C++ when we have to write the smallest and
fastest code? No use for OOP, Polymorphism, Structs,
Namespaces, Hell!, Why not just write it on assembly?

[RoD]

becuz its a c++ forum...duh :P

[Travis Dane]

Originally posted by RoD
becuz its a c++ forum...duh :P

Ehm, Did you read my post? If you're going for speed size then
you can't use any of C++'s great ability's!

[Codeplug]

An expression evaluator is always good. Lots of good stuff to judge on, including correctness. For example, when this string is processed:
"4 + (3 - 1) / 2 * 3"
the result should be 7 (treating division and multiplication as equal precedence and evaluating left to right).

You could "kick it up a notch" by making a functional-script-parsing type program. An example script might be:

f(x) = 4 + (3 - 1) / 2 * x
g(y) = 3 * y

evaluate: g(f(3))

Parsing this file would spit out "21". We can keep things simple by having a very strict format and say that the program will always be given a valid script file.
We can make it easy to test (by the judges) by declaring an entry point like:

double evaluate(const char *script_filename);

This may not be a good candidate for speed programming, but it's a great excercise in problem solving.

gg

[Codeplug]

Another idea along the lines of re-implementing something, namely strtok(), but for STL/C++. The design approach can be part of the contest or give the design and let the implementation be the contest.
A couple of design's come to mind, a token iterator for a string, or extending string and adding tokenizing methods.

This could be a good speed coder.

gg

[RoD]

Originally posted by Travis Dane
Ehm, Did you read my post? If you're going for speed size then
you can't use any of C++'s great ability's!

He didnt say to use any of c++'s great abilities he said speed.

[*ClownPimp*]

These two are good since these problems are from past speed-coding contests

http://acm.uva.es/contest/past.html
http://icpc.baylor.edu/past/icpc2003...ls/Report.html

if you get desperate you can look here. Many many problems, but also many many very hard problems. Youll have to look through a bunch to find some suitable for our contests.

http://acm.uva.es/problemset/