On Sun, 9 Jun 2002, Ton Hospel wrote: > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, > "Sean O'Rourke" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > [blah blah, spaces after periods] > > I was sure because I actually asked the judges...
I was so sure I didn't even have to *ask* them, so nyah! But seriously, when you point out a hole in the tests, they're updated. When you point out an ambiguity in the spec, shouldn't it be updated as well? Quick show of hands -- how many contestants thought this was ambiguous? how many asked for clarification? I realize there's the potential for posting clarifications to give away something about your solution, but it seems unfair to the contestants to penalize them for following a conservative interpretation of the spec. Certainly in the future, I'll ask for clarification more often. I'll learn to fit into the community eventually; I just hope maybe I can point out some ways it can be improved before I am completely assimilated. > The testprogram only tested that the output was some permutation. > The rest of the work was inspection by the judge (me). Now _that_'s commitment to golf. > >> Also have look at the winner of the lapm 1 challenge. It will > >> succesfully finish the testcase, but will not finish until long after > >> the sun becomes a white dwarf. Reject or not ? > > > > If it can't finish the test case, I think either it should be rejected, or > > the golfer should argue that the tests be changed. > > > But it does finish the testcase. it just takes some patience.... Maybe it's just the years of having big-O notation crammed into my head, or a lack of dedication to The Game, but if I ever end up running a hole, I will definitely require that all submissions (except maybe the "artistic" category) pass the automated test in a reasonable amount of time. To me this sort of limit falls into the same category as the limit on memory requirements. There are probably interesting, short solutions to problems that use obscene amounts of memory, but it's just not practical to encourage them. /s
