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Programming IT Technology

Internet Problem Solving Contest 2004 101

Posted by simoniker from the looking-quizzical dept.
misof writes "The sixth year of the annual Internet Problem Solving Contest (IPSC) will take place on Friday May 21st. IPSC is one of world's largest online programming contests with over 600 teams from more than 50 countries participating last year. The main purpose of IPSC is to compare problem solving skills of people from around the world and, of course, to have fun. IPSC is not oriented on a specific programming language instead you are given the input data and may produce the output data by any means. (This could actually be THE way to show your friends the superiority of both your skills and your favourite programming environment!) The contest is open for everybody and we invite you to participate!"
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Internet Problem Solving Contest 2004 More

Internet Problem Solving Contest 2004

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  • All the smartest people... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Plaeroma ( 778381 ) <plaeroma.gmail@com> on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:39AM (#9201955) Journal
    ...in the world still can't fix the problem of stupid user syndrome.

  • I wonder (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BrianGa ( 536442 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:40AM (#9201959)
    I wonder if it's anything like Odyssey of the Mind [odysseyofthemind.com]
    • Somehow I doubt there's a bunch of programmers dressing up in costumes and putting on skits to demonstrate how their program works.

      I could be wrong, though...

  • T-Shirt? (Score:5, Funny)

    by fore1337 ( 573128 ) <fore1337&myrealbox,com> on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:45AM (#9201974)
    Can't I just get a T-Shirt, and *SAY* I participated?

  • convergant or divergent solutions (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Engineer Andy ( 761400 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:45AM (#9201977) Journal
    I would be interested in seeing the extent to which people with similar training come up with similar solutions based on using the standard toolkit they are accustomed to hauling out for any problem. The other outcome would be of people are sparked into thinking outside the box by the competition not being tied to the "this is the way the company does this sort of thing and so you shall follow this methodology".

    Thinking in my own field of engineering, if you gave people problems to solve outside of the work environment you would probably get a far more creative set of solutions than you would if people were set the same problem at work in the context of a project.

    • similar means, similar solutions (Score:5, Interesting)

      by davids-world.com ( 551216 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @05:24AM (#9202413) Homepage
      While most programming languages are turing-equivalent, they do shape the way we THINK about a problem.

      What strikes me in this contest is that it's not problem solving that is asked for, but "thinking in a procedural or object-oriented way".

      Contrary to the original post, I CANNOT use my "favorite" development environment. My favorite environment is the one that suits the task, and for many tasks, I prefer to use Prolog. The fact that they exclude logic formlisms and also the Internet as today's vital research medium means that this is not about solving novel (and hard) problems, but more about the old compare high school student's skills when given a well-known problem in a very restricted environment.

    • Re:convergant or divergent solutions (Score:5, Interesting)

      by The_reformant ( 777653 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @05:51AM (#9202463)
      I dont really think this has anything to do with the sort of training you receive in the workplace. These are abstract problems which are a prime candidate for testing an applicants knowledge of fundamental algorithms and how to select the best datastructure for the job.

      Looking at the sample set of problems the tiling problem and the dependancy problem should be able to be solved optimally (in terms of time complexity) fairly easily since they are both simplifications of well known problems in CS.

      The smiley face problem is quite interesting and i agree that this one could expose some really good creatinve thinking.

      All in all based on the sample problems I think this competition would be ideally suited to strong computer science students or recent graduates. Most people in the work place have totally forgotten all of the necesary kind of skills since in the real world they don't work quite so well

      To be honest it makes a change to have a situation that favours students over those with experience in the industry. Slashdot all too often slams graduates fresh out of uni simply because they make mistakes due to lack of experience in the field.
    • no-one ever got sacked for a weird design soliution in a project they work on at home.

      I write all kinds of weird things at home, some work, some don't, and some get shelfed for a couple of years.Unfortunatly? where I work I have to produce a useable product in a time-frame, so a reasonable predictable development model is needed.

  • Whitespace Language (Score:3, Funny)

    by SirChris ( 676927 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:46AM (#9201979) Journal
    What was the whitespace language from like 2 april fools' days ago. I'll use that.

  • Got Root? (Score:2, Funny)

    by naden ( 206984 )
    Either way you look at that .. thats a problem I'm definitely in for solving.

  • Prediction (Score:5, Interesting)

    by roman_mir ( 125474 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:51AM (#9202000) Homepage Journal
    judging by the number of entries and the percentages of countries per entries I predict that at least 3 places out of the first 5 will go to the Russian teams, one out of the first 5 will go to a Chineese team, and the last one out of 5 will be another East European team.

    I won't participate since I have work to do.
    • judging by the number of entries and the percentages of countries per entries

      Does it still count as a win for the country the team registered from if they outsource the actual work to India?

  • suck rules (Score:5, Interesting)

    by poincare ( 63294 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:52AM (#9202001) Homepage

    From http://ipsc.ksp.sk/rules.php

    Each team may use only one computer or one terminal (one keyboard and one monitor).
    You can't have a distributed team working through the internet.

    It is forbidden to use systems for symbolic computation (e.g. Mathematica, Maple, Matlab) and special libraries (e.g. LEDA).
    Most of the programming languages listed (Pascal, C, C++, Java, Basic, Smalltalk, Lisp, Logo, Perl, Python) have symbolic libraries, but it looks like you can't use those and'll have to reinvent those wheels. Hmmmm.

    • Re:suck rules (Score:5, Funny)

      by tesmako ( 602075 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @03:11AM (#9202169) Homepage
      That is just sadistic, they state problems that just scream 'Please use prolog to crunch me!' and then forbid symolic manipulators (read: prolog). It's like a drinking contest where you cant use your mouth :P

    • Re:suck rules (Score:3, Informative)

      by gunix ( 547717 )
      That sucks!
      Are you supposed to win if you can write the basic datastructures, trees, etc, faster than anyone else?
      That's not a very interesting competition then.

      Half of the work is to understand the problem. The rest is to tell a computer to do stuff to find the solution. It shouldn't matter how you tell it to do stuff. The point is that you should try to learn as many tools as possible and be allowed to use them.

      • Re:suck rules (Score:4, Informative)

        by pjt33 ( 739471 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @03:35AM (#9202212)
        As I read it, they're not prohibiting you from using libraries for basic datastructures like trees, but from using libraries for things like symbolic algebra and graph algorithms. The example given, LEDA [mpi-sb.mpg.de], contains basic datastructures but it also contains MSTs, max flow algorithms, BFS, convex hull, ... The competition is about problem solving, not real-life programming, so it's perfectly reasonable to let people use their favorite language rather than require them to do some research into which libraries are available for the languages permitted.
        • This is exactly a reinventig-the-wheel competition then! If you are not allowed to use the XYZ algorithm in some library, then the competition is just about who can implement the XYZ algorithm.

          If you know that you should use the XYZ algorithm (==problem solving) then you should use the best XYZ algorithm you know of. If you don't know of any, then you should write one yourself. Unfortunatly, it will take some time, but you will learn a lot by doing so.

          If you don't know about the XYZ algorithm, well, you h
          • Firstly, if you can't just pull a library off the shelf, it forces you to think about alternative, heuristic, approaches. Secondly, it's testing your ability to (optionally derive and) implement algorithms rather than simply your ability to select a language which has libraries with good documentation.

            Incidentally, if you write tens (yes, I know that 54545633 / 532 is larger than that) of getter and setter methods per class, I think you need to study OO a bit more.

    • Re:suck rules (Score:2, Interesting)

      by imbaczek ( 690596 )
      They state the rules and have no way of really enforcing them, so...

  • Cool, but.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:59AM (#9202020)
    During the competition, do not read e-mails and www pages except the e-mails from the IPSC and the IPSC www pages.

    Don't think I could do it...

    Not even slashdot??!

  • SUperior programming language (Score:5, Funny)

    by pdxdada ( 684092 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:59AM (#9202021) Homepage
    This could actually be THE way to show your friends the superiority of both your skills and your favourite programming environment!

    All the hours of practice, the computer science degrees, all the long dateless Friday nights coding, I now know they have led up to this contest. Why I can program anything, except for this emotion you call "love."

  • Glaven (Score:5, Funny)

    by lewko ( 195646 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @02:00AM (#9202024) Homepage
    This could actually be THE way to show your friends the superiority of both your skills and your favourite programming environment!

    Friends?


    • with friends like these, who needs enemies?

    • Re:Glaven (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Friends like L.I.S.A.? That's what I named my computer after I saw Hackers.
      Friends like Mrs. Sticky? That's what I named my inflatable girlfriend.
      Friends like Mr. Winky? He's a one-eyed monster! Arr!
      Friends like Ramen? My noodles sometimes talk back to me after I've neglected to eat for a few days.

      Don't laugh. I'm being serious. These are my best friends.

      Sincerely,
      A happy loner in teh parents basement

  • The most superior coding environment... (Score:4, Funny)

    by djcreamy ( 729099 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @02:07AM (#9202042) Homepage
    PHP? pfffft. Perl? pfffft. C++? pfffft. Hell I don't know even know of any more languages. Not that any of them matter. I can finally prove to the world that HTML is more than just font and table tags. HTML really is all you need to know. And I use Microsoft Frontpage. I'm SO gonna win.

  • Change of plans, guys... (Score:5, Funny)

    by shigelojoe ( 590080 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @02:15AM (#9202061)
    The competition has been outsourced to India.

  • Internet Problem Solving? (Score:3, Funny)

    by tmk ( 712144 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @02:24AM (#9202078)
    I hope the participants code - a new AOL software - an Outlook-Skin for TheBat - a new IRC protocol and - WinXP Servicepack 3
    • [14:45] <Animaether> New IRC protocol ? What's wrong with current ones ?
      [14:47] <Animaether> Hello ?
      [14:48] * tmk has quit (split: *.undernet.org *.undernet.org)
      [14:48] * shigelojoe has quit (split: *.undernet.org *.undernet.org)
      [14:48] * djcreamy has quit (split: *.undernet.org *.undernet.org)
      [14:48] * lewko has quit (split: *.undernet.org *.undernet.org)
      [14:48] * pdxdada has quit (split: *.undernet.org *.undernet.org)...

  • will take place on Friday May 21st. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Concerned Onlooker ( 473481 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @02:35AM (#9202096) Homepage Journal
    Thanks for the advance notice.

    • Friday May 21st at 2 pm GMT+2. 1 hour from now. Happy coding to any US teams pulling an all nighter for this.

      Actually, the sample problems looked interesting. 1 and 3 wouldn't be too bad. 1 could be solved by a list of packages each with a list of dependancies, and remove dependancies as you find them. Hash table it if you need better speed. After the last package is added to the list, anything with 0 dependancies can be added. To deal with multilayer dependancies, whenever you clear out all dependa
  • I wonder which one of the gazillion cable or satellite channels will carry this competition?

    Maybe it will be on ESPN9.
    This may just be the one thing I was waiting for to justify the expense of expanded cable.

    And who should we get to announce the action? I vote for Steve Ballmer (Monkey Boy), that will get the crowd going and cheer on their programming teams.

  • ..."Problem Solving Contest on Internet"

    for a moment i thought we had to solve Internet problems :)

  • Problem Solving Skills (Score:4, Insightful)

    by xyote ( 598794 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @05:20AM (#9202403)
    There's lots of different types of problem solving skills. Some are innate. Some are learned. And practice makes a big difference. What remains to be seen is whether there is any definitive correspondence between "slam" problem solving and real life significant accomplishments. There could be other more important factors. In other words, being terrible at these kind of contests may not be a good predictor of being good at things that count.

  • Question.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ashot ( 599110 ) <ashot@mols3.14159oft.com minus pi> on Thursday May 20, 2004 @05:55AM (#9202472) Homepage
    It says that you only need to provide solutions for the two datasets, and that doing it by hand is ok, so whats to keep me from just displaying the matrix for sample problem 2 in a graphics problem, printing it and counting off the number of smiling faces? Even the difficult problem set is not that large..
    • yeah, thats absolutely correct solution ;) and I think most people actually done it that way (the sample problem was "recycled" from 2002 contest I Think)

  • Internet??? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Kindaian ( 577374 )
    Internet Problem Solving Contest????

    And then the team can only use one terminal and not use the internet???

    ROFL...

  • And the prizes? (Score:3, Funny)

    by The I Shing ( 700142 ) * on Thursday May 20, 2004 @06:07AM (#9202505) Journal
    I heard that second prize is you get a tv aerobics instructor to go with you to your next sci-fi convention and pretend to be your girlfriend.

    First prize is William Shatner records the outgoing message for your answering machine.

  • I won something like this... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Cytlid ( 95255 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @07:26AM (#9202758)
    ... in high school. It was about 1990 and called something to the effect of "International Computer Problem Solving Contest". Of course then it wasn't about the Internet at all, and the programming was done in Basic on 286's. Think our school had one or two 386's at the time. They gave you something like 4 hours to solve 5 problems... and they were pretty hard (well for me being a sophmore at the time). You could work in teams, a friend of mine David and I were a team, we took first place for the school in answering 3 questions in the allotted time. Had we done 4, we would have gone to the national level. One of the downsides, I can remember we were only allowed to use one computer.

    Anyone know if this is related? I didn't see any mention of it on the site, maybe it's a coincidence?

    • I've also participated in similar team programming contests .. but this one sounds different.

      Instead of being given X hours to do Y tasks, you're simply given X hours to find something cool to do with the input data.

      It's much more like a let-the-creativity-flow thing then a problem solving contest.

    • ACM Contest (Score:4, Informative)

      by kingj02 ( 698534 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @11:03AM (#9204821) Homepage
      The ACM Contest [acm.uva.es] is similiar; it's linked at the bottom of the IPSC website. You have 5 hours to do 6-9 problems. Most are a real pain and brute force usually won't work... it needs to be time and memory efficient. But it's fun. Their website has a ton of problems, like 10,000+, and you can submit to there online judge... it always gives me something to do on Friday/Saturday nights.
  • The first problem seems laughable. Have I missed something? The problem is to parse a dependancy tree, and output the number of dependancies that can be fulfulled. Can't that be done in about three lines? - a teeny script to convert the input file into a Makefile (simply add a few colons?) and then run something like 'make -n | wc' on it.
  • Sheesh... The contest starts at 12:00 noon GMT+2! I live in Canada in Toronto, and that's like 5:00 am? Ick.

  • Compare around the world? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Fjord ( 99230 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @09:08AM (#9203538) Homepage Journal
    Problems will be posed in English. During the contest, all communication between IPSC and contestants will be in English. If you are not able to communicate or read in English, you can invite an interpreter to help you with translations.

    Not exactly fair towards non-English countries.

    I also find the no www rule to be kind of bad, only in that it is impossible to enforce.

    • Re:Compare around the world? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      BTW, the organizers are non-English too. I bet you wouldn't be happy if the problems were in Slovak, which is their mother tongue. English is a compromise.

      The unenforcable www rule is derived from a similar ACM ICPC contest. In fact a whole team of fifty PhD. software engineers with three computers each could work in every problem and the IPSC staff wouldn't notice, so it's all about being fair.
      • I bet you wouldn't be happy if the problems were in Slovak, which is their mother tongue.

        I guess I'm saying I'm not exactly happy with the fact that it's English only. I understand it's a compromise, but a winner of this competition can't really claim to be best in the world, just best among English speakers or those that can get good (possibly technical) interpreters.

        In fact a whole team of fifty PhD. software engineers with three computers each could work in every problem and the IPSC staff wouldn't n
  • Just go back to SneakerNet! It will solve the problem with the internet and America's obecity problems at the same time.
  • ...the International Practical Shooting Confederation.
    http://www.ipsc.org

    Any practical shooters out there in /. land? ;)

    Noah Yetter
    USPSA# A50113
  • "If an employee has at least one Hour of Service during a Plan year commencing on or after October 1, 1989 and has received credit for five (5) or more Credited Years of Service, or has not received credit for five (5) or more Credited Years of Service but his aggregate Credited Years of Service completed before his Break in Service exceed the number of his consecutive Break in Service Years, has a Break in Service, then such Employee's Credited Years of Service completed prior to his Break in Service shall

  • IPSC Problem to Solve for 2004 (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    From http://ipsc.ksp.sk/ [ipsc.ksp.sk]:

    We have encoutered problems with delivering registration e-mails to the following teams: Incubation, Shandong Province Team in Informatics 1#, asar, Orenburg SU 2, Runtime Error, KP, GuoXiaoPeng, kutaisi1, TDT, Haaak. You have just probably misspelled your e-mail address when entering it in the registration form. If you do not provide us with a valid e-mail address, we will not be able to deliver you responses of the online judge as well as announcements during the contest. Please
  • In some cases, the computing time may differ. Sometimes, a complex problem can take up to 10sec to solve on one CPU, while it immediately gets solved on another. There are differences between the CPUs, their speed and such, so unprevilaged people without good CPUs are at a disadvantage. Also, the time gives disadvantage to some people, especially for those the other side of the world. Some people would still be in school, and others will be forced to do it through night (eg. for me, it'd be from 3:00 AM to
  • so the site's now slashdotted two hours into the competition.. even the google cache's having trouble on me today :/
  • Ah well, I couldn't start until 6 CET as I was working. Still managed to run off three of the puzzles and I would have gotten B2 as well if it wasn't for running out of time by about a minute!:(

    Hope they continue to do this, but it would be better (for me anyway :)) if they could do it on a saturday or something.
  • The contest is over. So why is this being published??

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