Coding Challenges Proposals

[Isaac]

Concept:
I think it would be fun for us to have our own challenge where we have to use math and logic to solve a problem. The participants of this challenge can be anyone who can creatively use their chosen tool or method for problem solving. So a person using excel, C++, or even an abacus should all be able to participate and creatively solve the challenge's problem in their own way.

Submitting:
Jeff would receive all solutions, in a PM (Private Message), and judge them to see who did the best job.

Challenge's problem:
The possible problems should be submitted to Jeff, who will ultimately decide what the challenge's problem will be.

My favorite types of challenges involved a large quantity of data and giving some kind of answer that my supervisors would use to make a decision. In the past, my supervisors would reach some sort of limit, either by lack of hardware or creativity, and would ask me to solve it. These were fun. However, I think we shouldn't force participants to download a 3GB text file. Instead the problem should rely on creativity rather than system resources.

! ! ! ! !Please do not start emailing Jeff problems unless he or someone else decides to be in charge of this.

Time limit:
After interest in a challenge is established, Jeff will announce when the challenge will start and end(, preferably over the span of a week or weekend). The challenge starts when the problem is posted, by Jeff. It ends when ever Jeff says so.

Conclusion:
First let's establish if there's any interest in this.

If you're interested, please let it be known! Thank you!

[fliptw]

I'm pretty sure Jeff can post challenges once he find the time to do so.

[Isaac]

Oh yeah. Also I didn't mean to make it sound like I'm telling Jeff what to do. It's just an idea.

[snoopy]

I have two ideas of challenges, going on the game theme:

The first is pretty easy: Make a "clue" tracking program. Have a set up where you can input cards seen and each person's guesses and the responses given. For extra cool-ness, it can give real-time percentages for each possibility. For regular coolness, it can show eliminated cards, possible owners of each card, and positively identified cards.

Second: on the card theme: I'd be interested in a euchre playing/counting program. You input your hand, and the up-card; it then gives you percentages on calling. As the game plays out, you input the tricks, and it gives you recommendations on which cards to play. As the game plays out, it should also track trump cards, and where they are likely to be.

[Jeff250]

Isaac, I've been meaning to do something like this for a while where we all work on some small coding challenge and invite a variety of programming languages. What I've had in mind has the following changes: 1) I don't judge anything/there are no winners/no official end date. 2) Everyone posts their code publicly. 3) You can respond with as many solutions as you want and improve upon someone else's solution (or your own) instead of writing one from scratch. 4) Basically, the point wouldn't be so much competition but trying to iteratively find the best solutions to a small but non-trivial problem in a variety of languages.

Snoopy, I'm not familiar enough with these games yet to say much about your proposals, but before you officially offer them up, I'd recommend making sure that the challenges aren't too time consuming.

[snoopy]

I'm not familiar enough with these games yet to say much about your proposals, but before you officially offer them up, I'd recommend making sure that the challenges aren't too time consuming.

The second would probably take too much time. I think I could build something to cover the first in a (relatively) short amount of time, so I don't think it'd be too bad. The interface could take anywhere between a very short amount of time and a very long amount of time, depending on how it was done.

[Isaac]

Yeah, I'm interested in any of those challenges, snoopy.

[Jeff250]

Sounds good.

[Isaac]

Thanks for breaking these threads up!!!