RE: Some contests?

I like the idea and the less work I would have to do to make it happen the better. This means that your ideas for contests are key. Ideally if someone else (possibly the one who suggested the contest) graded/scored them that would be great.

Game oriented: Tournament type of setup for scoring. I think of nate and my AI class where we had to do that sort of thing with kalah. Each player could have a class which had a selectMove method. A game controller would then keep track of board position,score, and check validity of moves.
Level of correctness. Given a problem which program outputs the most correct answers. Benchmark them to break ties.
Subjective: ie Obfuscated Code or Perl Poetry.... which one is coolest? Regular voting would probably work... although we'd probably want to limit the time which people could vote on code... possibly how many votes a user got for a given contest... we would probably also want to hide the identity of the author of the code.
Perl Golf: shortest code that solves a particular problem wins

Then there are just the questions of how code is submitted? Who can see submissions and when? How does scoring work for a particular contest?

vroom | Tim Vroom | vroom@cs.hope.edu

Comment on RE: Some contests?

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RE:(2) Some contests? by swiftone (Curate) on Jun 05, 2000 at 21:03 UTC
Okay, how is this for a setup: Two new sections are created: Contest Ideas Contests Where Contests acts as a "front page" to Contest ideas...Any idea that is voted enough gets bumped up from Contest Ideas to Contest, just as Seekers questions can move onto the Monastery Gates. Once the page has moved, the contest has begun. (I guess we could specify a starting date in the original idea as well as an ending date). Users can vote in the following threads until an ending date. (so each contest idea has time until start, time until end, and voting period). hmm, this is sounding more complicated than I wanted. Maybe just a Contest area, and Someone with high enough level can edit the top level post to mention that the contest is "officially" ended when that happens. (users can, of course, continue to post). I think I like the second idea better. Simple.	[reply]
RE: RE: Some contests? by jjhorner (Hermit) on Jun 05, 2000 at 21:54 UTC
However we work the contest, we need to make sure the solutions aren't easily available to other contestants. Perhaps the solutions could be posted in a private section and the section not opened to contestants. If someone views the solution page, they are disqualified from competing? Just my $0.02. J. J. Horner Linux, Perl, Apache, Stronghold, Unix jhorner@knoxlug.org http://www.knoxlug.org/	[reply]
RE:(3) Some contests? by swiftone (Curate) on Jun 05, 2000 at 21:58 UTC
That won't work, as anyone could simply not log in, or log in under a different ID to see those solutions. It depends if you want this to be competative or cooperative. I'm all for allowing posting anytime, viewing anytime. The worst someone could do is use other's code without giving credit. Their post will still be later.	[reply]
RE: RE:(3) Some contests? by jjhorner (Hermit) on Jun 05, 2000 at 22:07 UTC
Some contests may not be about the first solutions, but about the smallest, the best, the fastest, etc. I want these to be brain busting competitions, with the potential to teach the most. Most of all, though, I want these to be fun and exciting. J. J. Horner Linux, Perl, Apache, Stronghold, Unix jhorner@knoxlug.org http://www.knoxlug.org/	[reply]
(zdog) RE: (2) Some contests? by zdog (Priest) on Jun 05, 2000 at 21:51 UTC
I really like the Perl Golf idea, where you have to have Perl do something with the least amount of code. I think it helps people practice and emphasizes program speed, which I find to be important, but rarely focus on it enough. -- zdog (Zenon Zabinski) Go Bells!!	[reply]
RE: RE: Some contests? by Adam (Vicar) on Jun 05, 2000 at 19:55 UTC
Hehe, I think every AI class has to have some contest like that. :) In mine it was a Wumpus agent. (Actually we had two, the other boiled down to a traversal algorithm for a vacuum cleaner.)	[reply]