While I'm sure they are trying to remove ambiguity, but the way they are couched and their length make them a lot less approachable than they should be. I feel like in about 1/10 the wording and narrative complexity they could create an equally interesting programming challenge.
The whole task was just formulated as "save Endo". A spec of Fuun DNA (a virtual machine), Endo's DNA and a two pictures were provided. That's about all contestants were told. Then, we had to discover Endo's DNA contained loads of fun things inside.
Oh, ICFPC'06 was incredibly cool, too, but I didn't participated at that time and only took the task years after that. Don't want to sound whining but other years are more conventional (a complex, but mostly well-defined task) so less fun in my opinion.
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2bngvp/the_icfp...
http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2blpt6/icfp_contest...
[The ICFP Programming Contest 2014 is the 17th instance of the annual programming contest series sponsored by The ACM SIGPLAN] International Conference on Functional Programming.
If I am reading the problem correctly, there is no interactive component this year? You get one submission and don't get to test it against anything else.
> It is not essential that the judges be able to run your code
So is this a beauty pageant?
That's the part they don't have to be able to run. They won't even try unless your entry is in the running, it seems.
The .ghc and .gcc (the actual submission) does have to run, since that's what's being scored.
As usual, kudos to the team for making a puzzle with so many layers.
Get a team together and start competing!
I agree in general. Only that car engine / fuel challenge a few years ago was really obtuse. (And when I met the guys who set it up, they were so happy about it. ;o)
Lambda the Ultimate and the satelites were really cool!
The details on the ghosts are dramatically clearer than the details on the Lambda man.
