
The Cult of the Bound Variable: ICFP Programming Contest (2006) [pdf] - codezero
http://boundvariable.org/press/tr-06-163.pdf
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codezero
I think I found this when I was reading a tutorial on JIT compilers:
[http://blog.reverberate.org/2012/12/hello-jit-world-joy-
of-s...](http://blog.reverberate.org/2012/12/hello-jit-world-joy-of-simple-
jits.html)

Which I found in a simpler tutorial:
[http://nickdesaulniers.github.io/blog/2013/04/03/basic-
jit/](http://nickdesaulniers.github.io/blog/2013/04/03/basic-jit/)

TLDR;

It describes a programming competition/challenge that involves building
programs in a self-contained VM that is built on its own programming language
and system, meant to have been "discovered" as an ancient computing platform
from thousands of years ago :)

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taejo
The 2007 ICFP-PC was similar (in that you got a big opaque data file and the
spec of a VM for it) and also very enjoyable. I was on the team that came
second and I think we understand only about half of what was in there during
the competition.

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sblom
An oldie but a goodie. Unbelievably good playground for playing with
functional languages. I had so much fun doing a bad job solving the
optimization challenges.

~~~
jweather
But don't let the "functional" part scare you off -- you can do this in any
language from assembly on up.

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jweather
This is a pretty epic programming puzzle. Closest thing I can think of is Eric
Wastl's Synacor Challenge.

~~~
sblom
The final puzzle in Synacor was BRUTAL, but overall, such a fun experience.

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kazinator
Unix shell programming: cult of the unbound variable.

