
CodeFights thinks competitive programming could be popular - Tiks
http://www.businessinsider.com/codefights-thinks-competitive-programming-can-be-a-spectator-sport-2015-9
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fennecfoxen
I think you're looking for Core Wars:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_War)

[http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/~anton/cw/corewar-
faq.html](http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/~anton/cw/corewar-faq.html)

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fennecfoxen
Postscript: You have to love a FAQ that's so old it contains bits like this.

 _11\. I do not have FTP. How do I get all this great stuff?

There is an FTP email server at bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu. Send email with a
subject and body text of "help" (without the quotes) for more information on
its usage. Note that many FTP email gateways are shutting down due to abuse. _

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wingerlang
Wouldn't that be like giving someone a logic-puzzle and have people ... watch
them do it?

Doesn't seem like a competitive spectator thing at all, and I'm a coder
myself.

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flipp3r
I'd say the same thing, if I were the owner of a company that does stuff with
competetive programming.

No way this will be as popular as any normal game you can watch on Twitch.

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nesu
Think about Master Chef and Hell's Kitchen. Who would really want to see
people cook something that they won't be able to taste? Viewers need to rely
on the judges' opinions about the food and that's it. And yet a lot of people
watch those shows, not only for the food, but for the 'process' involved in
cooking. It's really the drama and emotions involved in the episodes that
people crave and keep those shows alive.

How about America's Next Top Model? Or The Apprentice? Most viewers of these
shows are neither models nor managers. Perhaps when coding has become as
ubiquitous as cooking, business, or fashion (which will happen most likely),
coding as a spectator sport will make more sense.

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hitsurume
OMG He's making a loop. hold on hold on, we got a function!! * BOOM * Crowd
goes wild.

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marak830
A little different but wasnt there a kickstarter a while afo for a game based
around coding but against ai? Ill have to try and find out what happened to
that!

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nairboon
Sounds similar to screeps an MMO strategy game that opened a couple months
ago: [https://screeps.com](https://screeps.com)

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tveita
There's already the ICPC with prizes and everything, and as fun as it can be
for the participants, it is definitely not a spectator sport.

You can watch the world finals from May at
[http://icpclive.com](http://icpclive.com) if you want, but let's face it, you
don't.

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lugus35
It's quite fun actually. First challenges are simple bug correction tasks. I
hope next challenges will be more "creative".

