When will we have a new challenge :)

[Tourist Trap]

Hi all,

Now that we took the habit to see a challenge pending around here. Will someone propose something soon? Will it become an institution, or was it just a time paradox! Hopefully not.

I must add here, that's not in my mind a question of retribution of any kind. It's more for having a theme to focus on, rather than the daily fluctuations of the void (they use those words in physics!).

Thanks

ps: to be honnest , there is this one here viewtopic.php?f=17&t=27576, just a little too hard for the hobbyist. But still aknowneldgeable, thanks to Marpon for the offer.

[Lost Zergling]

Even though I would probably not participate due to lack of time or dedicated skills, I like the idea. Hard to find an original theme.

[badidea]

I don't understand, I see each question posted on the forum here as a challenge. Some don't interest me, some are not for my OS, some are too hard for me, some are answered before me, but there remain enough to look into. In addition, I set my own challenges now and then.

[Tourist Trap]

Even though I would probably not participate due to lack of time or dedicated skills, I like the idea. Hard to find an original theme.

Hi Lost Zerglin,
For me any theme would do, it doesn't need to be original. I can see even classical themes being of great interest. For example, a challenge for making a best visual effect in a few lines of code, like the classical flame effect, or electricity, and so on. Maybe we could find examples of this deep in the forum, but a challenge allows it to come back to the surface for the least, or simply to bring fresh stuff forward. In my opinion anyway.

I don't understand, I see each question posted on the forum here as a challenge.

Yes, but those questions are generally technical issues, there is no precise classification of them. You also can't follow them easily with a start and a end clearly posed, and sometimes there is just no exploitable conclusion at all. But I agree some questions follow the scenario of a challenge with at the end a clearly defined best solution.

[dodicat]

I agree TT.
There were many such little themes over the years.
Just one plucked (I remember the lightning thing)
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=23518&p=207285&hil ... 2A#p207285
Plus a previous link by anonymous1337, and other lightning threads scattered around.

But there have been things like a fast mid or a fast string splitter for example, where at the same time as being instructive, were extremely annoying for the participants, for as soon as somebody had posted a fast one, the next person posted a faster one.
The result being, generally, the fastest code is at the thread end, and your own name is not on it.
Unfortunately many of the inspirators for these challenges have disappeared from freebasic.
I think they were mostly youngsters, who, when freebasic was young, participated, but since have went to re-explore the big wide world.

[Lost Zergling]

A coding contest on a topic already discussed would be good too. Personally, I appreciate very much FreeBasic because of its "scalar" character: it is possible to use a syntax 'RAD' compliant with the spirit of the historical Basic, while at the same time, going towards closer constructions from c, it is possible to specify code optimizations. At the same time, a touch of the C ++ spirit is better than an opening to the world of object-oriented programming. In my opinion, this makes it an incredible tool for learning programming techniques in general. The coding challenge on the fast mid and the fast string splitting, were very useful for me to optimize the speed, nevertheless I also continue to use functions fast and easy to program while remaining legible to maintain. It would be irrelevant to turn all my Mid in pointers. I am concentrating on my project (lzle) because it is still unfinished and I am also convinced of its interest in the defense of language (programming by dictionary), but I will probably unfortunately have little time to devote to it this year. Up to my opinion, by scanning a spectrum from low level to automated types, the interest of the coding challenge is not only to find the most efficient code or the fastest but also to show the panoply of possibilities.

[JJFlash]

I wonder if anybody knows/is interested about Advent of Code: https://adventofcode.com/

It's basically a programming challenge site which is language-agnostic; it's also Christmas-themed (each day of December, at midnight, a new puzzle is uncovered, like an advent calendar), but the puzzles stay up on the site during the whole year, so you can solve its puzzles whenever you want and at your own pace :)

There's a global leaderboard, but it's also possible to create a private leaderboard so that a group can be updated on the progress of each member.

The first three years I used AutoIt to solve most of the puzzles (I only completed the first 2015 edition), last year I started using Freebasic so I could practice the language. It was actually a harder challenge because AutoIt has something close to a standard library while Freebasic doesn't. But nevertheless I had fun working with it so far :)

If you're curious, the About page describes the site much better than me, and also gives some general tips and has a FAQ: https://adventofcode.com/about
You can also have a look at the actual puzzles without signing up.

[Tourist Trap]

... the interest of the coding challenge is not only to find the most efficient code or the fastest but also to show the panoply of possibilities.

There was this very popular thread authored by fxm that looks like what you describe:
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=25257&hilit=challenge

[Lost Zergling]

Hello Tourist Trap. I want to enjoy a little time to share my feelings. I am not a c developer, and coding time is a little behind me (at the professional level). But from my past experience in IT service company, I kept the taste for design. At that time, creating an index was a right click on the mouse and we were coding around using the Basic language or macros. But Design was a real job with its own rules and technical requirements and we were driven to create new things all the time. Sometimes I feel like I can not get my ideas across (but that never happened to me with a few), so I tend to insist. Nowadays, technical requirements include medium to high level mathematics, and design is often overused. Yet, in a competitive world, good design can make the difference and a bad one does it for sure!

[Tourist Trap]

Hello Tourist Trap. I want to enjoy a little time to share my feelings. I am not a c developer, and coding time is a little behind me (at the professional level). But from my past experience in IT service company, I kept the taste for design. At that time, creating an index was a right click on the mouse and we were coding around using the Basic language or macros. But Design was a real job with its own rules and technical requirements and we were driven to create new things all the time. Sometimes I feel like I can not get my ideas across (but that never happened to me with a few), so I tend to insist. Nowadays, technical requirements include medium to high level mathematics, and design is often overused. Yet, in a competitive world, good design can make the difference and a bad one does it for sure!

Hi Lost Zergling,

I'm also not a C programmer. I agree with your view I think. For myself I tried for a long time to live without low level management, as well as no high level design of a program. But I always ended facing a wall of brick. You can not get enough control on a project without both, at least if you are as obstinate when you want your ideas realized that I can be sometimes.
About Freebasic, I would like to have an IDE that displays the code in the form of one or many UML diagrams. This would help people and myself improve the way they design their program. When I'll have time I will do myself something in this sense if there is no genius around here that bring it us for free :)

[Luxan]

Hi

I use my knowledge of C programming in FreeBasic for almost all of my programs.
Declaration block, similar to a header file, calls to routines similar to main in C, then
functions and subroutines that you might make into a library file.

As for Physics in general, what is really known, just a few decades ago there was no
acknowledgement of what is now known as dark matter and dark energy.
The standard model isn't the complete answer.

Then there's the doctrine of entropy and the heat death of the universe , entropy even
being applicable to the exchange of information; what about the exchange of ideas though.
I wonder how much entropy and heat death exists in physics theories that don't describe
physical reality.

To quote from a Dr Who episode , ' you can do anything with computers' .

[Luxan]

As always, the challenge is knowledge representation.

Freebasic is fairly good at describing its command set and
purpose, with examples that further illustrate the concept.

I'd like to see similar for interfaces to devices, like digital
to analogue and analogue to digital adaptors, GPUs.

Then a robust 3d graphics, with perspective and optional
shading that's fast and easy to use.

fbmath and gsl , with nicely presented documentation and
examples is also disirable.

[Luxan]

Another development, a little outside the scope of what's usually considered;
digital chemistry, with safety protocols.

https://www.chem.gla.ac.uk/cronin/

This is data and code.