23 Sep, 2008, Chris Bailey wrote in the 1st comment:
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After coming across the mud magic code challenge in the code repository I was wondering how many people would be interested in a code challenge. I've personally always had a lot of fun with them. So if anyone would like to start one up you can consider me an applicant. If nobody is willing to start one up, and there is enough Interest I could start one. =)
23 Sep, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 2nd comment:
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What is involved in a code challenge? Not familiar with the concept as related to MUDs. Is it like: "do something like this in as little time as possible"?
23 Sep, 2008, Chris Bailey wrote in the 3rd comment:
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Yeah that's the gist of it. Someone will either come up with all of the guidelines or it would be put up to discussion. Start and end date would be decided along with general rules and guidelines concerning content and submission. I was just thinking that it might be difficult for a lot of the mudding community to create an actual lite-codebase like they did in the 16k competition though.
24 Sep, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 4th comment:
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I'd probably be up for something, depending on when it is (i.e. does it interfere with work) and how long it would be.
24 Sep, 2008, Chris Bailey wrote in the 5th comment:
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I was thinking more along the lines of small things that wouldn't take long anyhow. Maybe the challenges could even be designed to be useful as well. We could for example have interested parties vote on a codebase to use and then vote on a feature to be added. Competition entrants would then try to implement that feature into the codebase and compete based on a number of predetermined factors. The better entries could then be released as snippets in the code repository =)
24 Sep, 2008, Lobotomy wrote in the 6th comment:
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Sounds like a deceptive way to get other people to get your code done for you. :thinking:
24 Sep, 2008, Chris Bailey wrote in the 7th comment:
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That was my plan exactly! Now I just have to convince the other competitors to love TeensyMud and drop their choice of interpreted languages and switch to Ruby!
24 Sep, 2008, The_Fury wrote in the 8th comment:
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Chris Bailey said:
That was my plan exactly! Now I just have to convince the other competitors to love TeensyMud and drop their choice of interpreted languages and switch to Ruby!


HAHA, you should have used a Jedi Mind Trick and we all would have happily went for your evil plan. As for TeensyMud, i already love it and have followed its development since it first started even tho i do not use it. I did come close you using it one time, but for some reason we went a different direction all together. Where else can you find a mud that now comes with more FARTS and bigger TITS among other giggles.
24 Sep, 2008, Chris Bailey wrote in the 9th comment:
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I wish I could do jedi mind tricks :(

What do you think about programming challenges Fury? It doesn't have to be anything like my aforementioned idea, I figure everyone that wants to be involved could decide the rules and what it's all about. I know that I like to take a break and work on different things from time to time.
24 Sep, 2008, kiasyn wrote in the 10th comment:
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Code me a sandwich.
24 Sep, 2008, Conner wrote in the 11th comment:
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Lobotomy said:
Sounds like a deceptive way to get other people to get your code done for you. :thinking:

You mean that's not the point to begin with? :surprised:

kiasyn said:
Code me a sandwich.

Oooo, me too! I'll take a reuben, hold the kraut, please… :cool:
24 Sep, 2008, Mabus wrote in the 12th comment:
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kiasyn said:
Code me a sandwich.

If we define sandwich as:
"A sandwich is a food item made of two or more slices of leavened bread with one or more layers of a filling.[1] The bread can be used as is, or it can be coated with butter, oil, mustard or other condiments to enhance flavor and texture."

And we state that:
1) Eating already exists as a skill (although not needed at all, as a sandwich could exist without eating).
2) Food items (FI) exist as items.

We could code a skill allowing the FI's to be stacked, and nutrition values (if they exist) added. Any taste message strings could be added to a single string separated by a symbol, and parsed and randomized later as the sandwich is eaten.

We would need various bread FI's (BFI), some filling FI's (FFI) and some condiment FI's (CFI).

Multiple FFI's should be handled, so we could have "ham and cheese" as a single FFI name. This would best be accomplished with either a material name in the FI file (example ham), or by a naming convention that always left the material name as the last word in the name string (example: a slice of cheese). Depending on the number of stacking of the FFI's a string could be built using the string ", " and the word string " and ".

The name could then be set to:
"a "+FFI.name()+" with "+CFI.name()+" on "+BFI.name()+" sandwich"

Though the condiment should be extra, so perhaps a:
String Cdmt="";
if(CFI!=null) Cdmt=" with "+CFI.name();

Making the name:
"a "+FFI.name()+Cdmt+" on "+BFI.name()+" sandwich"

Hope that helped.
24 Sep, 2008, Chris Bailey wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
class Sandwich
attr_accessor :bread, :meat, :cheese
def initialize(bread,meat,cheese)
@bread = bread
@meat = meat
@cheese = cheese
end
def serve
print "Your ",@meat," sandwich with ",@cheese," cheese on ",@bread," bread is done."
end
end

puts "What kind of bread would you like?"
bread = gets
puts "What kind of meat would you like?"
meat = gets
puts "What kind of cheese would you like?"
cheese = gets

Sandwich.new(bread,meat,cheese).serve


A very simple solution.
24 Sep, 2008, kiasyn wrote in the 14th comment:
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But I'm a vegetarian :(
24 Sep, 2008, KaVir wrote in the 15th comment:
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A few people have tried to organise this sort of thing in the past, but it's very difficult to attract enough interest to make it worthwhile - even the last MudMagic coding contest had only one entry, despite a $500 first prize and free exposure for the winning mud.

So if you're serious about this, you have to really push the idea. My ideal contest would be as follows:

1) Properly organised. An unknown mudder promoting a contest on a GeoCities website isn't something I'm going to risk investing my time in. I'd want to see this promoted on a known mud site, with at least the backing of people I've heard of before.

2) Well documented. MudMagic did a good job of this - the requirements were clearly and thoroughly laid out in advance, so you knew exactly what needed to be done.

3) Creative freedom. The requirements shouldn't be so rigid that every entry is the same - there should be plenty of room for creativity.

4) Codebase independant. If the contest were specific to (as a random example) Smaug, then people who favour other codebases would be less likely to enter, and the resulting entries would be of limited use to non-Smaug muds.

5) Relatively small. I think the main problem with the MudMagic contests is that they involved a lot of effort. If they'd instead required perhaps 2-5 hours work, I suspect participation would have been much higher.

6) Worthwhile. I'm not going to enter a contest just for the hell of it - there needs to be some benefit. The strongest motivator for me is when the entry is actually useful for my mud, but I also like getting free exposure (eg banners and other forms of advertising).
24 Sep, 2008, David Haley wrote in the 16th comment:
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kiasyn said:
Code me a sandwich.

Err, no?

(followed by the obligatory:) sudo code me a sandwich

(gotta love xkcd)
24 Sep, 2008, Chris Bailey wrote in the 17th comment:
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Kavir -

Proper Organization - I would consider myself relatively unknown but as I stated before I would be much happier with someone else hosting it so that I can enter! If nobody else is interested I would take up the torch, Am I too unknown for you KaVir? If so, which I suspect, I would try to recruit a panel of partners with a name people recognize. Setting up a website for the contest would be relatively simple and I'm sure whomever would run the contest would be equally interested in a well structured and organized event.

Documentation - I agree, this is *extremely* important to me. Without a clear understanding of what is required people are less likely to enter and more likely to be angry at the results. I would imagine that it would be helpful for interested parties to vote on the rules and guidelines for the contest and they will be laid out well before the start of the contest. The rules will of course be generalized enough not to tip off entrants as to the content required before the start date. Polling through the aforementioned website perhaps?

Freedom - How much freedom should be given KaVir? I have little experience with challenges like these and I'm unsure of the benefits of being open ended. While I agree that there should be room for creativity I'm not sure how to balance this aspect out properly. If it's too "open" then people could have 95% of their entrance piece done before the start of the contest. If it's too rigid, as you said, we would have a pile of identical entries. Does anyone else have an opinion on this matter?

Codebase independence - Despite what I said earlier, I agree with you here. It really isn't fair to make it specific because people are typically much more knowledgeable about the codebase that they use regularly(if they do use one). If the challenge revolved around Smaug, users of the Smaug codebase would have an unfair advantage of users of Tiny. Perhaps primary challenges could be free from codebase restraints and the previous idea that I had could be supplemental to garner more interest in the website and idea itself? I'm imagining daily or weekly challenges with little reward other than ?prestige? within the sect.

Small - Once again I agree with you. I think that the majority of the programmers in the mudding community are incapable of producing a lot of large applications on their own. I could be completely mistaken about this, it is just an opinion formed from 12+ years in the mudding community. Most of the mud programmers I've seen are more skilled at modifying the work of others.

Worthwhile - Very true. I imagine if the project were to gain enough interest to attract applicants it might be able to solicit sponsors to help with rewards. I wouldn't plan on it, and I myself will start setting aside a dollar a day, starting today, to donate as a reward just in case this actually gets off the ground. I understand that this isn't much but you must understand that I don't have much. Who do you think should be contacted in regards to advertising donations?
24 Sep, 2008, Conner wrote in the 18th comment:
Votes: 0
kiasyn said:
But I'm a vegetarian :(

Which means the 'meat' would have to be substituted for a vegetable based approximation such as "veggie burgers" use. Personally, I'm Jewish which is why I specified a reuben. So the ham & cheese example offered fails on both counts but the solution proffered by Chris appears to do the trick. :wink:
24 Sep, 2008, Fizban wrote in the 19th comment:
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I think it'd be interesting and I'd enter for fun and to learn perhaps, but not with any real intention of winning.
24 Sep, 2008, Vassi wrote in the 20th comment:
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Fizban said:
I think it'd be interesting and I'd enter for fun and to learn perhaps, but not with any real intention of winning.


Ditto.

Though a part of me really thinks its a little weird to promote language freedom, I mean, there are certainly things that can be done more easily in one than another, how would you judge that? Still, it's the kind of thing that is neat because you define x problem and suddenly you have Y solution in Z number of languages. (Like stackoverflow or similar sites, except mud related)


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