
ICFP Programming Contest 2014 - thoughtpolice
http://icfpcontest.org/specification.html
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kenjackson
While I'm a fan of the ICFP, I do feel as if the questions are a bit too full
of themselves (for lack of a better term).

While I'm sure they are trying to remove ambiguity, but the way they are
couched and their length make them a lot less approachable than they should
be. I feel like in about 1/10 the wording and narrative complexity they could
create an equally interesting programming challenge.

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clamprecht
I agree, but I think that's part of the challenge - boiling down the problem
to its essentials, and ignoring the unnecessary stuff.

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drdaeman
No me, nothing beats ICFPC'07 ([http://save-endo.cs.uu.nl/](http://save-
endo.cs.uu.nl/))

The whole task was just formulated as "save Endo". A spec of Fuun DNA (a
virtual machine), Endo's DNA and a two pictures were provided. That's about
all contestants were told. Then, we had to discover Endo's DNA contained loads
of fun things inside.

Oh, ICFPC'06 was incredibly cool, too, but I didn't participated at that time
and only took the task years after that. Don't want to sound whining but other
years are more conventional (a complex, but mostly well-defined task) so less
fun in my opinion.

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thoughtpolice
In the interest of promoting friends/coworkers: The contest this year is a
really cool challenge, and was set up by one of my partners in crime, Duncan.
(Of course, ICFP is always a cool challenge and is always set up by good
people :)

Get a team together and start competing!

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eru
> (Of course, ICFP is always a cool challenge and is always set up by good
> people :)

I agree in general. Only that car engine / fuel challenge a few years ago was
really obtuse. (And when I met the guys who set it up, they were so happy
about it. ;o)

Lambda the Ultimate and the satelites were really cool!

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agumonkey
Enjoyed a lot watching teams live streaming their work on youtube. High value
time spender.

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lucvh
Do you know if any teams will be doing the same this year? Would love to
watch.

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agumonkey
I don't even remember how I got to follow them. Maybe through reddit

[http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2bngvp/the_icfp...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2bngvp/the_icfp_programming_contest_starts_friday_1200/)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2blpt6/icfp_contest...](http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2blpt6/icfp_contest_starts_in_less_than_24h/)

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owlish
So... what does ICFP stand for? I've looked on their site, Twitter, and
GitHub, but maybe I'm missing something obvious?

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akavel
One level up, at: [http://icfpcontest.org/](http://icfpcontest.org/)

 _[The ICFP Programming Contest 2014 is the 17th instance of the annual
programming contest series sponsored by The ACM SIGPLAN] International
Conference on Functional Programming._

~~~
owlish
Ah, missed that in the wall of text. Thanks!

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personZ
So the strategy for the GCC (the Lambda-man controller) is that you actually
build a compiler/pre-processor for it in some other tool, versus just
logically solving the problem with the given instruction set?

The details on the ghosts are dramatically clearer than the details on the
Lambda man.

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Fando
The only thing I know about functional programming is that I know nothing
about it.

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keenerd
(Posted about the contest an hour earlier, only got two votes. Oh well.)

If I am reading the problem correctly, there is no interactive component this
year? You get one submission and don't get to test it against anything else.

> It is not essential that the judges be able to run your code

So is this a beauty pageant?

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thedufer
> We request (but do not strictly require) that you include in your
> .tar.gz/.zip various additional material

That's the part they don't have to be able to run. They won't even try unless
your entry is in the running, it seems.

The .ghc and .gcc (the actual submission) does have to run, since that's
what's being scored.

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keenerd
It makes a little more sense if you don't think about the game as an assembly
of parts, which isn't really explained anywhere. For example there is some
strategy with trying to make the ghosts be as bad as possible, so they are in
a nice neat line immediately after a power pill.

As usual, kudos to the team for making a puzzle with so many layers.

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btczeus
For the love of Zeus use logarithmic graphs for the price!
[http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg60zczsg2012-01...](http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg60zczsg2012-01-01zeg2014-07-25ztgWzm1g10zm2g25zl)
It does a lot more sense, doesn't it?

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ska
It probably makes even more sense in the right comment thread...

