I have an idea for the programming section. It is a competition that will be held for the programmers/developers. It will be organised once in a year. The competition will be divided into three: Veteran, Regular and Amateur. In each of the divided competition, the participant will compete for the gold, silver and bronze medal, which are 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively. Each participant will face a series of challenges to solve based on their difficulty level. After some time they will all submit their solution in code format and the code will be analyzed and studied by the judges which will award marks based on the marking scheme. The score is anounced and ranks are given. It would be just like an olympics game. [b]AIM[/b]1)To recognize great and upcoming programmers 2)To increase the knowledge and help programmers know how to solve challenges. 3)etc. The winners can be awarded based on payment by participant or by a sponsor. It will require front page audience and the problems that will be given will be close to real life challenges. This is not just for competitive purpose but for educative. My head is not really clear now (am sleepy), but this is all i can write. Please i need your views, opinion and amendment if necessary. Thanks all

Nicey.. Fastest & Shortest code wins.. More like a 'Code Golf'.

Judinho59: Nicey.. Fastest & Shortest code wins.. More like a 'Code Golf'.

I was also thinking, we could award extra people based on their use of things like oop, etc

Hi elvis10ten, It is a good idea. Concerning the grading, it should be automated to capture time and output of given input to the program being tested. Doing it this way, would eliminate the suspected bias or sentiment that would be introduced by the appointed judges.

But the most important thing here is who would sponsor the competition Any other thing is secondary ...

Javanian: But the most important thing here is who would sponsor the competition Any other thing is secondary ...

We will be looking at our ogas at the top. Even if there is actually no reward(cash), there is alot to gain tho. Just like mrs nairaland and mr nairaland.

i love the idea.

Cool!
How do we get started?

Nice...
Hope to learn stuffs from here too!

idea's great.

Sound a pretty cool i.d.e.a.

Here is an example of how its going to be: A given month would be chosen for the competition lets say september. The competition will run for 1 month. The first two weeks will be the elimination stage, which will hold on tuesday, thursday, saturday. The amount of participant that will emerge from the elimination stage = n/2. Where n = number of total participant. Then the final two weeks will be the final stage, where the last standing coders compete again in the same number of days as the elimination stage. Each day in both stage will be followed by a couple of challenges with a time limit to answer them. After solving each challenge, your solution will be submitted to the judges who will then analze, study and run your code. Scores will be awarded based of different factors. The next day will be a free day and the next will be a challenge day. After the first two weeks the judges will sum all scores of the coders and decide who leaves and who don't. After that the competition will go into the final stage, where the winner of the various difficulties will emerge, it would follow the same principle as the elimination. The losers will also compete in a one day challenge to decide the best among them. After that the judges will be given three days to decide the winners and their corresponding award and rank. All the challenges will follow a set of rules There is alot to gain from this competition, cash price(maybe), get noticed, get noticed by an employer, learn new ways, meet with different people and above all, have fun.. I LOOK FORWARD TO HEARING FROM OUR OGAS/BOSS OF THIS SECTION AND OTHER PROGRAMMERS HERE. Please help me answer this, its there any chance this can work ?, how do you think it should go ?, where do you think we can get Money or sponsors to run this ?, do you like the idea ?, what do you think should be amended ?, how can you help us achieve this ?, and any other help.

*Watch'n from sidelines like Wenger*

[color=#990000][/color] I like the idea! It will be beneficial for beginners like me!

1) who will sponsor the competition?
2) Who will be the source of the programming projects?
3) Who will be the judges?

kodewrita: 1) who will sponsor the competition?
2) Who will be the source of the programming projects?
3) Who will be the judges?

2 & 3 ain't that difficult tho.. Guys like you can handle that..

kodewrita: 1) who will sponsor the competition?
2) Who will be the source of the programming projects?
3) Who will be the judges?

Numbe® 1 is the main thing! The cóntestants may alsó register for the competition with a tóken, maybe 5 thousand naira!

Judinho59:

1, 2 & 3 ain't that difficult tho.. Ogas like you and Seun can handle that..

#fixed Thank me later

mista yeancah:
Numbe® 1 is the main thing! The cóntestants may alsó register for the competition with a tóken, maybe 5 thousand naira!

Sir, did you call 5k token?

Javanian:

Sir, did you call 5k token?

lol dont tell me u cant afford it if required.
Pay 5k and winner goes with 100k. So if u are d winner, u have 95k left

Javanian:

Sir, did you call 5k token?

Yes now! 5k will be okay na! Its affórdable!

Javanian:

#fixed Thank me later

Oh!! Thanks!!

Ajibel:

lol dont tell me u cant afford it if required.
Pay 5k and winner goes with 100k. So if u are d winner, u have 95k left

So if you lose, you lose 5k

kodewrita: 1) who will sponsor the competition?
2) Who will be the source of the programming projects?
3) Who will be the judges?

2 and 3 can be easily done. 1 can be done only by the ogas at the top and seun or the participant.

Judinho59:

So if you lose, you lose 5k

hehehehe...dont think like a loser bro

why not go by the way of using sponsors. we have a lot of marketers here that would jump at the offer of free publicity.

Nice idea....
It can definitely work!

Infact, I was just thinking of the future of Computer Contests... That is Artificial intelligence...
Where we write programs that compete with each other... (Its in existence but not so popular)
Infact starting with a simple Tick-Tac-Toe game"

BACK-TO-THREAD
Technically, with enough motivation, I am in!
Though, I think I prefer the method of submitting the source code to server for Automatic Compilation, running and judging.

For a start, my suggestion is this::
1. make use of an Online Judge That provides customization of contests... The best I know of so far is by a Google staff Ahmed Aly
http://ahmed-aly.com/

OR

get a small VPS @ Linode.com... And we can write a full-fledged Contest automation tool in Python.... We design a basic contest portal that communes with the contest-server... And then registered and approved users to submit there::: (If someone pays for the VPS and manages it... With enough motivation, we @ Nairaland could HOPEFULLY, FREELY start developing such server software from scratch)... though, it would take SEVERAL months..... Cause WE HAVE a HELL of DIFFERENT JOBS, RESPONSIBILITIES and SPARE time.

In my former PC, I wrote a VERY basic one in Python before...
It passes your code to g++ for compilation, Just fires up your program "./a.out", Kicks off a Microsecond precision timer... Then spuriously feed inputs from a file to your console program via stdin.... And has another handle sapping off stdout to a list of string... When Your program returns an exit 0 status, it compares the the REQUIRED OUTPUT file to your outputs... and returns the execution time and The point of output mismatch.


The First Option is our fastest catch to this!...
Theres alot to worry with as usual... the first is pushing in funds...

It would be nice for those our ogas being talked about to try soliciting sponsors like MTN, GLO, NIIT or any other IT related organization that would not mind a little more popularity. It might be a good try, not like anything is guaranteed. It is just kind of safe to believe that IT related organizations or institutions would appreciate the eandevor somewhat more. Just my opinion though.

ABOVE ALL. i believe this competition should have rules so that people are not cheated (afterall we know that Nigerians like to cheat a lot especially in unsupervised task like this)

we should strive to follow good coding techniques like commenting every line of ur code, solving problems in elegant ways and other technical details that guys who have taken the pains to study programming concepts knows. it shouldn't only be focus on speed and shortness of code alone.

Programming is not all about learning how to use a computer language but thinking of using computers to solve real life problems with maintenance in mind.

so good software engineering principles should be part of the marks to be awarded to outstanding entries. that is my humble contribution.

romme2u: ABOVE ALL. i believe this competition should have rules so that people are not cheated (afterall we know that Nigerians like to cheat a lot especially in unsupervised task like this)

we should strive to follow good coding techniques like commenting every line of ur code, solving problems in elegant ways and other technical details that guys who have taken the pains to study programming concepts knows. it shouldn't only be focus on speed and shortness of code alone.

Programming is not all about learning how to use a computer language but thinking of using computers to solve real life problems with maintenance in mind.

so good software engineering principles should be part of the marks to be awarded to outstanding entries. that is my humble contribution.

i remember saying there will be rules. But the main rule is the shortest and fastest. This will help minimize brute forcing.