Discussion JASS Contests

[tooltiperror]

Hey, would JASSers in the JASS Help forum be interested in little JASS contests?

It would pretty much involve doing small challenges, such as writing mathematical code or designing a simple AI, or for finding the best solution to a problem. The rewards would be small, such as rep from me (+3 or +4 I think) as well as everyone else who +reps for the spirit of competition.

The contests would be scaled smaller because of the smaller reward.

It would be a good way to improve at JASS.

This is just sort of an interest check. So if you're interested in doing this challenges, please post. And ask questions, of course.

 

[Dirac]

I approve this, but i'm very new to JASS so winners can count on my rep

 

[Sevion]

Maybe. If the challenges interest me.

 

[Nestharus]

Eh, I think interesting challenges would be a bigger thing to people than +rep... stuff that's creative.

Here's an interesting challenge I once had for a programming class... an algorithm to find right triangles up to sides of 20 = ). The one with the least amount of iterations won : p.

One guy did it in exactly the number of triangles there were. I had like 1 extra iteration prob from a useless check ;D.

But yea, obviously need to be really interesting challenges... another small thing that took place on THW recently was a debate on the best way to add commas to a number for a string. Some were advocates of using substrings and I was an advocate of using math. In the benchmarks, the math algorithm won.

Other fun more advanced things you can do are like finding the closest units within range (kd-tree, range tree, or perhaps a derivation of the kd-tree?), or the best way to do a rotating circle (and the best way is not polar projection, it is actually using vector fields).

But yea, I think posting contests on these algorithms would help the community in the amount of resources it has, help people become better at coding, and be interesting to some who really care about it = P.

The first challenge could be a rather simple one: the best possible implementation of a self balancing binary search tree ^)^.

Try to focus on little resources that are currently not written =), like quick sort or binary trees or avl trees or b+ trees or b- trees and etc =). Mix it up between collections and algorithms =P.

Also try throwing in some interesting challenges like the best way to loop through infinite stacks of stacks (string parser shows one way to do this in docs btw).

 

[tommerbob]

I like this idea. Like Dirac I'm also still new to Jass, so from my perspective, I think it would be cool to see contests that are geared toward n00b Jass users; contests that are designed to help us learn it.

Maybe have like tiered Jass contests? Tier 1 for people like me or Dirac, and Tier 2 for more experienced users. I'm not sure if I even like it myself, or if its even worth the effort to do. That's just an idea I'm throwing out there.

But in a nutshell, I like this idea.

 

[tooltiperror]

>Nestharus
I like the maths idea, but I also don't want this to become just math. JASS isn't always about having the best math, sometimes it's about having a unique solution to a problem or thinking out of the box, or breaking out of a paradigm.

>tommerbob
I don't think we'll need tiered contests. They're not going to be as hard as Nestharus described them.

 

[Dirac]

JASS isn't always about having the best math

I don't really know what to answer to that.
Do we need the approval of mods to start this contest?

 

[Laiev]

I don't really know what to answer to that.
Do we need the approval of mods to start this contest?

Yes

 

[tooltiperror]

Yes

No

Nothing stops a user from hosting a small contest. Hosting one with prizes is different.

First contest ideas:
1) Design a snippet using provided documentation.
2) Four footmen are fighting in an arena, I provide the dummy map and a library template. Each player gets two footmen, expressed with foo[0] and foo[1]. You can not do things like add to their damage etc
3) Create a timer attachment system with an interesting interface that serves a purpose that T32 and TimerUtils do not already.

 

[Laiev]

@Tooltiperror

I was talking about one with reward -.-

 

[Dirac]

>tooltiperror
Is that a START sign or a warning?

 

[tooltiperror]

A question.

Which one would people like to do the most?

 

[Romek]

It's not particularly difficult to contact me and ask me to get some rewards organized (I'd read over a draught contest thread and tell you what to fix too).

An issue I have with a contest like this is whether whoever hosts it is actually proficient enough with vJass to be able to judge and compare code exclusively.

 

[Nestharus]

I can vouch for tooltiperror being proficient enough =D.

He's not quite at a professional level for coding yet, but he's getting there ^)^.

 

[tooltiperror]

>He's not quite at a professional level for coding yet, but he's getting there ^)^.
:thup:

I think we're leaning towards a simple, yet room for complexity contest.

 

[Sevion]

I would also vouch for tooltiperror's abilities.

 

[Miz]

@ Laiev - As for anything this Contest might need, I will gladly help facilitate any needs for this idea. (Within reason of course)

I am interested to see what contest idea you guys will do and if so what you guys will submit. Not much of a JASS-man myself, but always been jealous of those who did take the time to learn it.

 

[Dirac]

I think that settles it, go ahead and get this on

 

[NoobImbaPro]

I like tooltiperror's idea for hosting small jass contests. But everyone has to contribute, I don't like a competition with 2-3 contestants.