ICFP Programming Contest 2002

An anonymous reader writes "Has no one noticed that the ICFP Programming Contest is about to get underway by the end of the week? The prize this year is $1000 and a trip to the conference, which is acutally in the US this year, as compared to Italy last year." What's the ICFP programming contest? See our previous mentions of this open-to-all contest, now in its fifth year. The acronym parses to International Conference on Functional Programming, by the way.

ICFP??

[b_pretender]

I thought it stood for:

I Can First Post

Wait... you'd rather NOT go to Italy?

[PeteyG]

The prize this year is $1000 and a trip to the conference, which is acutally in the US this year, as compared to Italy last year."

I like the U.S. and all... but come on! I live here! How many programmers do you think have never even left the country? Or continent? Italy and other foreign countries are adventures of culture and experience just waiting to happen!

Is this like the geek-urge to stay indoors... except on a country-sized scale!?

Re:Wait... you'd rather NOT go to Italy?

[RevAaron]

Maybe I'm just a little more appreciative, but I'd love a free trip anywhere. I live in the US, but I've not seen much of the country I call home- I'd love a chance to see more of it. A lot of the people my age that I know had families that could afford going on a few week-long trips a year, but in my family, we only really took one week-long camping trip every summer, within the state. I loved those trips, and would love any opportunity to see anything I've not before, especially in the US! :)

Re:Wait... you'd rather NOT go to Italy?

[Mr. Sketch]

The prize this year is $1000 and a trip to the conference

Actually, if I recall, they will only provide transportation and registration for the conference to students, not professionals. So if a professional won the second place prize at $250, it wouldn't really be in their best intrest to claim it since it would require a plane ticket to the conference (~$200), hotel for two nights $119*2=$238, and conference registration $350 (non-member price), which comes to a grand total of $838, so even if they won the $1000, they would only come out ahead by $162 which wouldn't be worth the vacation days necessary to take the trip anyways.

(Note: The prices for the conference registration and hotel rooms were taken from the conference website [brown.edu])

Be careful what you code

[trentfoley]

Since the conference is in the U.S., make sure that your program submission does not violate any U.S. laws. Dare I say, DMCA? Or, perhaps this event could be another chance to push the limits of U.S. ip laws. Anybody feel like writing an mp3 encoder or decoder that is different enough yet compatible? We could sure use one :)

Yeah, I know. Write it myself... Now, where did I put that trs-80 manual?

Re:Be careful what you code

[Violet Null]

Too bad the task is assigned by the contest and not picked by the coder, then, innit?

Real world issues ...

[zangdesign]

Do problems like these ever occur in the real world? Why not a programming contest that solves real world issues - like optimizing payments for that overly large hospital bill? optimal routes to a pizza shop? or automated routing methods for maximum kills in Quake based on changing input data?

I think I see the problem. Somebody else better come up with real world programming problems (reordering 10 million record databases with field conversion and translation from flat file to relational).

Sure, but real-world problems are usually boring!

[Tom7]

Generally, real world issues are pretty boring! The International Real World Programming Contest is aka A Job.

The problems are not that esoteric, though. One year we did a raytracer, and there have been a few optimization problems that could easily have come up in real software.

Re:Real world issues ...

[RevAaron]

Why would someone want to design, code, test, and debug for a few days straight for the sake of solving the problem itself if it were something boring like that? If you want to do that kind of stuff, you get a job, where they pay you to deal with rubbish. It makes perfect sense to me to solve fun and interesting problems in a contest for pleasure.

The skills gained by participating in a programming contest like this definately have some indirect real world benefits, though.

Perhaps we should change the rules of soccer and other fun activities to ones that would benefit "real world" jobs. Instead of kicking around a ball, perhaps it'd be more beneficial if in soccer people sat in office chairs, drank coke, and played with a golf-ball sized soccer ball on their desk. Definately much more real world. ;)

Re:Real world issues ...

[zangdesign]

Actually, I would say sponsor sports events with real world equivalents

10, 20, and 50 meter Knife Throwing - target is a co-worker with a target on his back

1, 2, and 30 minute Coffee Chug - survivors of the caffeine overload get ... well, to survive.

Fastest Flamer - not what it sounds like. First person to flame a positive remark about opponent's OS of choice gets the gold. Extra points for making them cry or commit suicide. All entries must be typed.

And the best prize of all

[soulcuttr]

The team winning the Judges' Prize will be awarded

• Peer recognition: The contest judges agree to state at least once during the presentation of the awards that the winning team is comprised of a group of "extremely cool hackers."

Finally somebody besides my parents to tell me how cool I am! :)

-Sou|cuttr

Why even try, you have not a chance.

[KoF]

Just to let you all know right now. we (kof and darink) are going to win this thing. we have been training for many days and have built up the needed amount of diet coke to win well before the monday deadline. no one else stands a chance.

i will allow you all to behold our greatness once the results are out...