Replies: 3 comments 20 replies
-
|
Did not know where to upload this, so I started this discussion for stuff. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Oh how wrong they are in the mkiocccentry part ... there is so much more than your tool. And with it it's a lot easier than before. I remember (and I'm sure you do too) having to upload file after file one at a time. I still had to have a directory structure (like now) as otherwise I would have to navigate to various places. I was always afraid I was missing a file and always took a lot of time too. You had to (as you know) put in all your details again. You had to upload the required files to specific slots. None of that is necessary now. It takes mere seconds to update a submission once you form your answers file and it takes mere seconds to upload whereas before it took several minutes. I wonder if this person has ever submitted before because it's a lot easier now, even if you don't use the tools (which is a big risk). At least now you can just upload a single file. Not saying they don't have a right to not like it of course but it used to be much more involved as you know. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
We don't think it is necessarily somebody finding a problem with the mkiocccentry toolkit. We don't think it is necessarily a problem with somebody finding fault with the rules and guidelines. There were people defending the current state of affairs and saying that their length is not necessarily a problem. Even so, there have been some good suggestions made in that Discord discussion. Once that Discord discussion reaches and ask him to point a suitable state, an issue for this repo to consider for IOCCC29 will be considered. We are waiting on how the discord discussion evolves before creating an issue because we think what people say. They will be fruitful in how the issue gets created. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
Well like I said: I was only replying to a single part; it was more involved. But discussion that's constructive is always good indeed. What I was getting at is even if they do find problems with it (whether they do or do not) they're welcome to (fwiw I was replying to the part that said 'the bad'). We already know that can actually lead to better outcomes so that's great - but even if it didn't we all have different ways of working. Anyway there's nothing for me to really discuss here - for now at least. I better get some sleep. Been awake too long. Good night! |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
The headings weren't meant to reflect discussion points. Its a draft for an overview document. I couldn't think of suitable headings and went with Clint, Lee, and Eli. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
That's fair enough. I only replied quickly to what was there and without much thought. I would be happy to discuss it when an issue is opened. I am sure it will be great. And I also am very well aware that with major changes it can take getting used to. I probably also would wonder what is what if I hadn't been a part of the process. And I can understand some of the reactions too. Anyway in the end at least uploading doesn't take as long. That's a gain if nothing else. Hopefully we can work it out and make it even better. I think that you might have suggested a poll after this contest and I think that that would not be a bad idea and depending on circumstances it might actually be good if not actually ideal. Anyway I need sleep. Take care and have a good night (and apologies if it sounded short - I have been awake way too long and until more is done I can't fairly reply and I was hesitant to click post)! |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
Personally though (now that I am not rushing to get to bed) I would have greatly preferred Tom, Bert and William Huggins as headings. Maybe you could make a note for future reference? (Obviously it's a big joke - I guess a lot of people would not immediately understand it but I know Landon will and maybe you will too.) Have a great day. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
Looking 👀 towards IOCCC29TL;DR IOCCC28 to IOCCC29We can REFINE the rules, guidelines and FAQ for IOCCC29. Such a refinement won't be such a dramatic change to the content as we saw with IOCCC28, but rather will build on the important work that made IOCCC28 possible. We anticipate improvements to how the guidelines are organized as well as some new content to help someone new to the IOCCC get started, among other things. We ask for your feedback, suggestions and ideas 💡, even while IOCCC28 is open. The detailsThe rules and guidelines had a radical number of changes for IOCCC28. The amount of change required was necessary, expected, and was a result of the registration, mkiocccentry toolkit, submit server, and improved internal processes of the IOCCC. Internal IOCCC process improvementsThe changes make to the internal processes of the IOCCC over the last 4 years were EXTREMELY SIGNIFICANT and were VERY IMPORTANT. Among other things, these new internal processes will mean that when the winners of IOCCC28 are announced, there won't be a long delay between the announcement and the source becoming available as there was during the first 40 years of the contest. The winners will be announced by a push of a new During the previous 40 years of the contest, improvements to the winners were confined to communication amongst the winners of the contest and the IOCCC judges. All this happened while the public waited for the results. NOW the new internal processes will mean that winners of the IOCCC28, along with the public, will be able to use the GitHub / git mechanism to correct, bug fix, and enhance how the winning entries of IOCCC28 are presented, compiled and run. The internal procedures over the past 40 years of the contest had a number of manual and semi manual steps that were both error prone and time-consuming. About half of the 4 year delay between IOCCC27 and IOCCC28 was simply devoted to correcting the problems of how the previous contest winners were presented. You might say that half of the delay was due to a "technical debt" (as the expression goes) that had to be paid in order to move the IOCCC forward. With the Great Fork Merge we paid that "technical debt". We owe a collection of significant volunteers a great deal of gratitude for their hard work (thousands of hours of detailed work) in achieving the Great Fork Merge. Probably about a quarter of the 4 year delay between IOCCC27 and IOCCC28 involved building tools that automate and maintain a coherent Official IOCCC website. You can see some this work in the bin tools of the IOCCC winner repo, the submit tools that power the IOCCC submit server, and involve "some other stuff" that "only the IOCCC judges" know about 🕵️ 😉. Of that other stuff that "only the IOCCC judges" know about, a significant portion of the effort between IOCCC27 and IOCCC28 went into changes designed to avoid "single points of failure" (as the expression goes) in tasks that an IOCCC judge had to do. Over the past 40 years, the contest suffered from periods where a super busy (or sometimes a procrastinating) IOCCC judge could stall a critical path and delay the contest. Over the 40 years of the IOCCC, gaps in the contest years were due to a critical path task being delayed because a judge failed to move the contest forward until after a significant amount of time had passed. That's why in the 40 years of the contest we've had only 28 contests. So a number of changes to internal procedures have been designed so that it is extremely likely that we will have a new contest each year This is why we anticipate that while IOCCC28 started at the end of 2024, we remain confident that IOCCC29 will start somewhere near the end of 2025. 🎉 Anticipated changes for IOCCC29We anticipate that the number of change marks in the rules and guidelines for IOCCC29 will be more than "an order magnitude less" (as the expression goes) than they were for IOCCC28. There are a some suggested enhancements for the mkiocccentry toolkit for IOCCC29 that will cause some slight changes in the rules guidelines and more likely FAQ. A number of these will be, we believe, welcome improvements by all. Where there might be room for significant improvement is in how the guidelines are organized. Such a reorganization won't necessarily change the overall content of the guidelines, but rather how they are organized, how they relate to the rules and FAQ. Where there might be room for more significant improvement is in helping someone new to the IOCCC come up to speed and engage with IOCCC29. We started doing this with this page: Entering the IOCCC: the bare minimum you need to know We could've further improved on the concept of that page, however, that would have resulted in another delay in the opening of IOCCC28. So we went with the rules, guidelines, and FAQ as they were for IOCCC28 with the idea that they could be REFINED for IOCCC29. Feedback welcomeAs we look forward to IOCCC29, we request and would value your feedback on the rules, guidelines, FAQ, and related content that we developed for IOCCC28. After every contest, and particularly while the judges are judging submissions, we begin to develop the next contest rules and guidelines. This tradition of refinement by the Judges during the judging period goes back 40 years. With the new IOCCC discord server, and the GitHub feedback mechanism, we invite you to participate in this process as well: even before IOCCC28 is completed. Comments, corrections and suggestions are VERY WELCOME 🙏. UPDATE 0We have opened a discussion thread on the IOCCC Discord server with the above content as part of our "Feedback welcome" initiative. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
We could finally revisit the UTF-8 stuff we put off. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
Yup. I had that in mind when I wrote that actually. Best wishes! |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
I do although that sounds so wrong too. Never mind.
This seems to be the main issue - figuring out priorities. Is that correct? If so is there something I can do to help? I'm not sure right now other than to say that some of the issues 'over there' will be easier than others, one being very quick. Others will take more time of course. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
Due to a bug in GitHub, it is not easy to link to a comment that is deep inside of a discussion thread, so we have moved the comment. Please reply over there 👉🏻 See GH-issuecomment-2762004417 and please reply to that comment as replies in such threads 🧵, such as this thread, may be overlooked due to GitHub bugs 🐞. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
Oh no! The recursion corrupted the comment stack! |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
Uh oh!
There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.
Uh oh!
There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.
-
@lcn2 From Discord comments here's a cleaned up summary document for review:
(expanding the .md file for easier viewing)
Entering the IOCCC: The Good Parts Version
The Good
The Rules & Guidelines have been always pretty straight forward. In particular:
Rule 1 An entry must be working C program.
Rule 2 A program's maximum gross size 4993 (2a) and net size 2503 (2b). See the
iocccsizetool.Rule 4 Can we call
you Bruceyour programprog.c?Rule 5 A program must not cause harm
or through inaction allow harmto the System.Rule 7 You wrote it, you own it, and its an original work. See Rule 18.
Rule 10 Look Dad! No hands! Automated build using
bash,gmake,gcc,clang, under a SUS environment.Rule 11 Your program does not require special privileges. See Rule 5.
Rule 18 You're happy to share your program for the greater good.
Many of the other Rules cover restrictions and administrative concerns. They should be reviewed in detail at some point before your submit your first entry in any given contest, since the R&G can change between contests.
The Bad
Packaging summary, assuming a simple layout:
You have a project directory, probably a git repository.
In it you have a
Makefile,prog.c,remarks.md, anddemo0.txt(or other input samples).Edit your
Makefileto supply the minimum set of targets:all,clean,clobber, andtry. See theMakefile.sampleEdit your
remarks.md: any special build notes, documentation, any special requests for rule allowances (other than Rule 2a & 2b), some commentary as to what the program does and why its special, limitations such as known bugs and ignored cases. DO NOT reveal your identity in theremarks.mdnor other included material.Your program might need some input to work with, like a demonstration example. The Judges will likely create their own test input to play & push the edges. Example input is not required, but doesn't hurt to show how to "turn the knobs". You might need more than one demo, which is fine.
Each contest you must register and get back your UUID user ID by email. The Judges DO NOT want to know who you are until after they pick the winners, so for now you are a number, just not Number 6 or Number 1.
git clone https://github.com/ioccc-src/mkiocccentry.gitthe tools. You don't necessarily need them, you can do much of the work by hand, but its a lot fuss, plus the tools come withiocccsizethat helps measure Rule 2b conformance as you develop. Make and install the tools some place.Use
mkiocccentryto build you submission tarball. There are 10 slots for ten entries numbered [0..9]. Most people submit one entry. Follow the instructions and answer the questions.Upload the tarball to https://submit.ioccc.org/ during the contest submission window; check the dates on the web site, though the submission server will refuse you when the contest is closed. You can fix your submission and resubmit updates to the submission server as many times as you like during the contest open period.
That's pretty much it in a nut shell. If you start to do more clever complex submissions, then the
mkiocccentrysteps might get more involved, but typically a clear directory structure helps (dot-files and dot-dircetories are ignored and cannot be part of a submission). See Rule 17 and Guidelines concerningmkiocccentry.The Ugly
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
All reactions