ICFP Programming Contest 2014

[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.

[clamprecht]

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

[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!

[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!

[agumonkey]

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

[lucvh]

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

[owlish]

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

[akavel]

One level up, at: 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.

[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.

[Fando]

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

[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?

[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.

[btczeus]

For the love of Zeus use logarithmic graphs for the price! http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg60zczsg2012-01... It does a lot more sense, doesn't it?

[ska]

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