This is a reminder that the ICFP Programming Contest 2011 will be starting in two weeks. See: http://www.icfpcontest.org/2011/05/contest-announcement.html
Participants would need to prepare some virtual (or physical) machine running Debian squeeze for amd64. See: http://www.icfpcontest.org/2011/05/judges-machine-and-system-environment.html (You would only need an environment compatible with the guest, not the host. There exists various virtual machine software such as VirtualBox and VMware Player.)
[Update on June 3: Participants would also need a WWW server to put their submission online (perhaps with an unpublished URL), which we will download (and install, after checking its sha512sum) in up to a few days after the contest ends.]
[Update on June 6: If you do not have your own server, just use any free service (if it is public, upload your submission just after the contest has finished: you will only have to submit the URL and sha512sum of your submission in advance).]
We look forward to your participation!
Is it ok to publish into repository on GitHub?
ReplyDeleteIf your submission is published only after the contest has ended, and if it can be downloaded with wget as a single archive file (details will be announced along with the task description), then yes. Otherwise, no.
ReplyDeleteDo the contest organizers download the file from our WWW server during the contest, too?
ReplyDeleteMaybe not (perhaps except for testing), because the main purpose of the download is to evaluate your submissions after the 72 hours have finished. If this would be a problem for you, please let us know again.
ReplyDeleteHaving to provide a web server might exclude some potential participants. Can't you accept a submission by e-mail (surely with a limited size for attached zip files)?
ReplyDeleteWe have added the following information to the original post.
ReplyDelete[Update on June 6: If you do not have your own server, just use any free service (if it is public, upload your submission just after the contest has finished: you will only have to submit the URL and sha512sum of your submission in advance).]
We hope this helps.
“Participants would need to prepare some virtual (or physical) machine running Debian squeeze.”
ReplyDeleteTo clarify, will the organizers release some program that participants should run on their machine to develop their solution? The alternative is that the organizers don't release any programs, and recommend us to set up such a computer only so that we can test our solutions to make sure they will run on your servers.
The primary reason is the latter: we would like to ask participants to test their programs on some environment compatible to ours before submission.
ReplyDeleteHowever, we also plan to distribute some executable to _help_ participants, though it is not _required_ for participation. Although we will provide binaries for a few major platforms (perhaps Linux, MacOSX, and Win32 - we will announce them along with the task description), you might need to use Debian squeeze in case you cannot run any of them.
don't miss 64 bit binaries - <3
ReplyDeleteIs it a Programming Contest or something else....
ReplyDeleteIt is _definitely_ a Programming Contest in the same sense as the previous ICFP Programming Contests. See
ReplyDeletehttp://www.icfpcontest.org/2011/03/links-to-previous-contests.html
please.:-)
Thank you for organizing! I have 2 questions.
ReplyDelete1. Are we able to know how we are doing well compared to the other contestants during the 72 hours ?
It seems like we solve the problem ourselves during the contest and we only know how we've done well compared to the other contestants after 72 hours and after you finish running all our submitted program. Am I right ?
2. I am going to setup Debian squeeze environment and try to be sure that my submitting program will work on your environment.
However, what will happen if my program won't work on your environment. (For example, there may be a standard Debian squeeze package which you will decide to install at the last one hour of the contest, and that package may affect my submitting program.) Are you going to trouble-shoot if the program submitted won't work? Or you just think that submission has simply failed?
We will answer your first question in the task description when the contest starts.
ReplyDeleteAs for the second question, we have announced:
http://www.icfpcontest.org/2011/05/judges-machine-and-system-environment.html
> In either case, we will do our best to run each submitted program. For this purpose, we may contact you (by e-mail to the address registered at the time of submission) after the contest has ended.
We hope this helps.
Should the debian image be a 32 bit or 64 bit machine? Some languages (notably Ocaml) have severe limitations on 32 bit machines.
ReplyDeleteSince we run your submission on 64-bit Debian squeeze, we strongly recommend you use the 64-bit version too. For details, see:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.icfpcontest.org/2011/05/judges-machine-and-system-environment.html
http://www.icfpcontest.org/2011/06/how-to-prepare-environment-for-testing.html
Thank you for answering previous questions!
ReplyDeleteI have another question.
If we are using interpreter language, and using third party library, how should we include it in our submission ?
I can think of 3 ways.
I would like to know which one is OK and which one is not.
A. Just write memo (README.txt or what ever) what specific library is required to run the program.
This way, contestant is very easy preparing the submission. But the judge needs a manual setup to run our submitted file.
B. Include the third party library in our submission. And those library should be located under $HOME when decompressing the submitted file.
This way, the judge may automate running submitted file. But the contestants may have to be careful where to install the library in their machine.
C. If the library package is available from the Internet, (e.g. CPAN for perl, gems for Ruby) write script that install required library from the Internet. The submitted file does not have to include the library itself, but the script is required.
B, please. Details of the submission procedure will be described in the task description, as announced in: http://www.icfpcontest.org/2011/05/judges-machine-and-system-environment.html
ReplyDelete