Omnimaga
General Discussion => Other Discussions => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: JWinslow23 on July 12, 2014, 03:12:10 pm
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I would like to propose a monthly contest on Omnimaga: Code Golf.
Code golf is basically solving a certain coding problem in the fewest amount of bytes possible. For example, a golfed primality tester in TI-BASIC would be:
Input N:0:If N and not(fPart(N:2=sum(seq(not(fPart(abs(N)/I)),I,1,abs(N:AnsThe score then would be 43 bytes (technically, 43+length of name, but for calc-language purposes, the name is not included in the score). Lowest score wins.
(note this isn't as speedy as it could be, but speed would not count against you)
If possible, have it work for as many possible test cases as you can while still making it short.
Anybody could submit challenges (so long as you give test cases as well). Hopefully we can allow all calc languages, as well as computer languages (so long as you can test them, and you can show us the results of the test cases).
Who would I talk to in order to get something like this started here?
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Sounds cool :) I usually code up silly optimized things during summer break (because too much spare time), so this is right up my alley!
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Just post a thread and there you go.
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And here I was hoping it'd be a bit more complicated than that. XD
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A contest would probably go in this forum section: http://www.omnimaga.org/contests/ . Also, remember that contests tend to not be as successful when they are started by newer and less active TI community members, especially after what happened with TI-Concours 2014, so it probably won't get as many members as Omnimaga or Cemetech contests, but if you organize it properly, if you are around regularly (meaning active on Omni forums daily for questions/submissions/etc) and everything is made clear from the start, then it will hopefully be successful. Another thing that will make it more successful is if the theme is original: Avoid number guessing games, quadratic solvers, IRC bots or such stuff.
Examples of Omnimaga contests that were not organized by the staff that were successful: Cage Matches (lasted about 5 runs) and 2012 Apocalypse Contest.
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I remember the cage matches. Those were fun. The short time kept it light, so there wasn't much at stake and you didn't need to plan months in advance.
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Indeed, especially considering people usually don't participate to long contests unless there are prizes.
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I don't really know why the TI Concours was mentionned here because as you said, it's a short contest without prizes, without a said organization, just for the fun, while the TI Concours was meant to be something serious it failed to be. Can you fail at not being organized, short, without prizes and just for the fun ? :P
Anyways, sounds like fun :)
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The only way that would fail if it's not organized and there's nothing at stake is that if nobody participates.
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Well it depends on what you call failing. This would be a fail for the organizer, but not for the contestants since no one would be disappointed.
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I will try to be on regularly, but there will be no prizes. There are never prizes for code-golf competitions. :P
EDIT: Ummm...I can't post in the contest thread. Help? :/
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The contest subforum appears to be newtopic-locked for regular members. Do what I did and post it here: http://www.omnimaga.org/other-calculator-discussion-and-news/
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OK, here it is, the first Code Golf contest!
http://www.omnimaga.org/other-calculator-discussion-and-news/code-golf-contest-1/
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I don't really know why the TI Concours was mentionned here because as you said, it's a short contest without prizes, without a said organization, just for the fun, while the TI Concours was meant to be something serious it failed to be. Can you fail at not being organized, short, without prizes and just for the fun ? :P
Anyways, sounds like fun :)
Yeah I mentionned it in case JWinslow had planned to organize a large contest or something. Basically the author vanished or became very hard to reach, there was plenty of miscommunication among volunteers, pointing fingers and all of this prevented prizes (which were donated by TI-Planet or their partners, if I remember correctly) from being sent in time. This pretty much alienated everyone including the volunteers so the contest pretty much lost all of its supporters. Of course with a smaller contest like what JWinslow23 plans, though, this shouldn't be as hard to manage, although if he vanishes for three weeks from Omni in the middle of the contest this can compromise it. The contest subforum appears to be newtopic-locked for regular members. Do what I did and post it here: http://www.omnimaga.org/other-calculator-discussion-and-news/
You should report the issue to http://ourl.ca/issue
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Whoo, I love size-optimized programming :D Never heard of code golf but it sounds like a great idea. Reminds me of that 20-lines-of-JavaScript competition somewhere on the internet for which someone wrote a working FPS (http://www.omnimaga.org/web-programming-and-design/wolfenstein-in-17-lines-of-javascript/), though I guess the process is reversed (smallest program given an idea vs. best idea given a program size).