in reply to IBM Cloud Challenge.

Thanks for pointing this out but - honestly - this whole challenge is utterly pointless. Writing a programme to calculate factorials without any additional requirement (like arbitrary large number or such) is not proving anything. If one knows that the input is between 1 and 15 the best solution is probably a lookup table. And there is an explicit formula that states the solution to two simultaneous equations, so programming a full blown algorithm for solving them is a waste of time as well.

It looks really like a lure to get people to apply for trial accounts...

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Re^2: IBM Cloud Challenge.
by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Jul 22, 2015 at 07:26 UTC
    It looks really like a lure to get people to apply for trial accounts...

    Indeed. I guessed that going in; but was interested enough to see what was on offer.

    The trouble is, their sign-up is broken; which kind of defeats their purpose.

    I still think it will be interesting to see what the winning code looks like (they offer Python and Ruby + the usual compilers); and compare with the best Perl could offer.

    With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday'
    Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
    "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
    In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.
    I'm with torvalds on this Agile (and TDD) debunked I told'em LLVM was the way to go. But did they listen!
[reply]

      BUky wrote:

      The trouble is, their sign-up is broken; which kind of defeats their purpose.

      Ha! That is sooooo characteristic of IBM. To quote a former colleague, "For every 12 people here, 1 of them knows what he's doing."

[reply]

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