If they’re serious, the correct solution is surely something like “For $8,000, I’d be pleased to spend a couple of weeks full-time on this problem, with my written research and any software I might generate as the final deliverable. Would you like to meet at $TIME and $PLACE [snark redacted]* and discuss your project?”
* "like actual grown-up professionals willing to trade money for expert services" (Me? Too busy…) On Sep 27, 2014, at 4:59 PM, Tom Metro <[email protected]> wrote: > Local company Vistaprint is running a programming contests. The > objective is to determine "what is the smallest shipping box that can > contain" a given collection of Vistaprint products. > > I'm not sure if this is a made up goal, or a real need (they imply it is > real). I would think by now there would be commercial solutions to this > common problem. > > I'm posting this here because Vistaprint was/is a company that used > Perl. They might have a preference for Perl solutions. (They list a > bunch of acceptable languages for submissions, which includes Perl.) > > It sounds like less of a programming challenge and more of a mathematics > or algorithm challenge, so team up with a math major. > > -Tom > > > -------- Original Message -------- > Subject: [Discuss] $10K programming contest in Boston > Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2014 12:47:30 -0400 > From: Daniel Barrett <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > > > My Boston-area employer is running a programming contest with a > $10,000 prize, in case anyone's interested.... > > http://www.lifeinvistaprint.com/techchallenge/ > > -- > Dan Barrett > [email protected] > > > _______________________________________________ > Boston-pm mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm -- Jason McIntosh http://jmac.org • [email protected] • @JmacDotOrg _______________________________________________ Boston-pm mailing list [email protected] http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
