
The Hyperpublic Programming Challenge - way66
http://hyperpublic.com/challenge
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thedob
We thought this would be fun to make and fun to work on for an hour or two.
Let us know if you have any feedback or questions.

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jordancooper
who else has done awesome challenges? Greplin had a cool one...seatgeek...who
else?

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zach
ITA has some clever challenges (including an archive of past puzzles):

[http://www.itasoftware.com/careers/work-at-ita/hiring-
puzzle...](http://www.itasoftware.com/careers/work-at-ita/hiring-puzzles.html)

But then that's the thing, a lot of places have these kind of programming
challenge puzzles.

What's the closest to a Putnam for programming challenges?

I know Facebook is trying to position their Hacker Cup this way, but it had a
rough start that makes you wonder if it's the best thing for Facebook to run
on its own.

It seems like there's an opportunity for a prominent and widely-sponsored
event run by a third party.

I presume the sponsors would love a window of exclusivity to see the best
results from recruitable competitors.

Even without the obvious recruiting benefits, it would at least capture the
imaginations of aspiring programmers worldwide.

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zbanks
I've also spent some time on <http://hacker.org>

Rather than focus on a specific "answer," you instead write algorithms to
solve various flash games based on NP-complete/hard problems. Its interesting
since there's always ways to improve. You can start out with a brute-force
solver, but as the levels scale your program won't.

They also recently added a "challenges" section, which is more about specific
coding tasks. Those are also pretty fun & scale well.

And yes, despite the domain name & poor design, it's actually a pretty serious
site. The same guy also did <http://goproblems.com/> , which is cool if you're
into Go (the board game, not the lang).

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sblom
I've published my python solutions for reference, kibitzing, critique, etc. on
github: <https://github.com/sblom/hyperpublic-challenge>

Anyone else published solutions? I'd love to see one in Clojure.

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mukyu
I wonder how many people solve it and then do not send in their key. I know
I'm not. I cannot be the only one that was more interested in doing the
challenge than the rewards.

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jah
At the risk of looking like a complete idiot, I think your solution to problem
#2 is incorrect.

Update: I was wrong. It's kind of scary how sure I was of my incorrect
solution.

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mdonahoe
do you say this because your greedy algorithm solution of 450225 didnt work?

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dexen
Thanks for the ``greedy algorithm'' hint ;-)

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ruthie_burda
oooo I want a free Dropbox pro account!!!

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jyri
This is great. We're working on a startup that could use an open location
database such as Hyperpublic. Keep it up!

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igoros
... a little too obvious?

Funny how all those accounts saying nice things about hyperpublic have been
created within the last hour.

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jordancooper
the dude who wrote that started jaiku...fyi

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rbrooklyn
Hey Hyperpublic, rad contest idea!

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CarolEatsAgain
Hey Hyperpublic, kudos for keeping things interesting

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davidmorgan
This challenge sounds fantastic! Great job -- I really want the prizes, too.

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noraabousteit
Awesome prizes - would love to win the the one month desks at Hyperpublic HQ
in NYC or (and?) one year free Dropbox account.

