Slashback: Fiction, Reprint, Browsing

Not that programmers or writers are ever a little bit competitive all by themselves, it seems that they have to be motivated with the carrot of fame (or some sort of perverse derivative) and prizes -- check the results of the two contests below and perhaps hone your ideas for next year's versions. Also, the dirt below on how to get Netscape quick (oxymoron?) and a new, old Neal Stephenson book (OK, that one was an oxymoron ...)

Play with directories to find the X-rated version. Remember the Interactive Fiction Contest mentioned here a while ago? Andrew Plotkin writes with some results: "After six weeks of judging, the results of this year's text adventure competition are in. The top three places go to "Kaged", "Metamorphoses", and "Being Andrew Plotkin". But personally I'd be happy to recommend any of the top ten entries.... and not just because my entry (which was not called "Being Andrew Plotkin"!) came in tenth. Heh. Many of the lower-down placers are worth a look, too -- this is one of the best competition rosters we've ever had."

And speaking of contests ... chongo writes: "The International Obfuscated C Code Contest, the oldest Internet based contest, is not ready to go on the cart as some may had feared. With the addition of Simon Cooper as the 4th IOCCC judge and my early vacation return the IOCCC is moving forward again.

We (the judges), have been processing a near record number of entries. We have now entered the final judging out of which the IOCCC winners will be selected. We apologize for the delay and would like to assure all the contestants and the spectators that the IOCCC 2000 winners will be announced prior to the end of the true millennium. :-) Watch the IOCCC news for further development.

P.S. The rumor that some judges are considering opening up the 2001 IOCCC to C++ programs is true."

(Or try the Perry-Casteneda Library at the really big U) Thanks to xFoz you can rest easy in the knowledge that "you won't have to spend big bucks to put that long lost out of print Neal Stephenson book under the tree this year. But you will have to wait for next year for your very own less than $500 a copy of "The Big U." Preorder now and save $2.60! Amazon has the listing here" mattdm points out that "You can pre-order from Barnes and Noble," as well.

Apparently, this is not Stephenson's favorite of his works. In fact, it's also the only one of his books that I didn't read compulsively with little more than breaks for micturation and nutrition, but it's hard to complain about having some more Neal Stephenson to read! (Thanks to my brother for turning me on to The Diamond Age, too.)

Straight up, no chaser LunarOne writes "I accidentally found the real direct link to downloading Netscape 6, without using their annoying little setup app. Thought I would contribute this since I hadn't seen the link anywhere here on /. I found it while downloading the Windows version of Netscape 6. I protect my Windoze box with BlackIce Defender and this firewall-ish program reported back to me the real download site. Anyways, I had low expectations of NS6 due to some negative comments I had heard here earlier. But, I gotta say I really like it. I have been downloading Mozilla builds regularly for a very long while, and still have high hopes for Mozilla. However, right now I'm enjoying Netscape 6, despite the included commercialisms previously condemned in this forum."

Comments

Good lord...

[dark_panda]

... C++ is obfuscated enough on its own. Furthering its obfustification is an exercise in futility.

And I know, obfustification probably isn't a word.

J

Is it fame?

[Alomex]

I don't know if it is fame what drives people to participate on the Obfuscated C contest. I mean, who remembers the name of the winners?

For me it is more the challenge of it all. I have never submitted an entry to the contest, but quite a few times I have started on that path, just for the fun of it....

On the other hand, Open source hackers do get more recognition as well they should. Paul Vixie, Bill Joy, Henry Spencer, Vinton Cerf, Eric Raymond, Linus Torvald, Miguel de Icaza. Those names stick like glue to my memory cells...

Re:Is it fame?

[chongo]

What drives people to enter the IOCCC?

From the conversations that I have had with IOCCC winners, I would say about 1/2 of what drives them recognition. More than a few IOCCC winners tell is that they put the fact that they won on the resume and/or web site.

I was told by one winner that they won a promotion within their company and beat out a number of other candidates in part because their local newspaper had run a story about their ``winning a programming contest''. And, ``I swear I am not making this up'': their promotion gave them a significant new role in the company QA department. This winner credits a clueless newspaper reporter as well as a pointy-haired management selection committee for not understanding the IOCCC.

Winners have the choice to remain anonymous. Very few entries even request this option. The only anonymous winner was back in 1984. When asked by people doing stories on the IOCCC, we tell them that this person as somewhat well known for a number of things, not the least is in regards to their early work with C and Un*x. To this day they remain steadfast in their desire to remain anonymous.

I'd say about 1/3 are driven by the technical challenge. Some winners have reported that they worked off-and-on on their entry for several years. In one case a winning entry became part of their Ph.D. thesis! Given the complexity of some of the winners, I can certainly understand this motivation.

Of the remaining 1/6, one is collecting multiple wins; to try be the person who as won the most number of times. Another less common motivation is in finding new ways to abuse the IOCCC rules.

My favorite IOCCC abuse so far was done by:

Spinellis's 1988 entry:

#include </dev/tty>

:-)

Netscape 6 AOL Adware on Mac

[bmasel]

Anyone know how to get rid of it?

Interactive Fiction Competition

[karma_policeman]

I agree with Andrew Plotkin. There were quite a few strong entries in this years IF Comp. If you want some more info on the games before deciding which to play, take a look at rec.games.int-fiction, where there is a lot of review activity going on right now.

You can also read many of the reviews at interactfiction.about.com.

new challenge...

[tewwetruggur]

Ok... writing a C program to read like a novel, with full character development, nice, sappy slot with lots of sub-plots; and make it interactive via netscape 6... whooo-doggie... why, that would be:

probably pretty lame.

BUT, you just never know...

Obsfuscated C code? BAH humbug!

[www.sorehands.com]

I have seen too much much of that --- Damn, I have fixed too much of that.

I fixed code that was so bad, the programmer who wrote it apoligized in the comments. I'm sorry for this, but Dick wanted this right now, not right.

Get the PDFs of the Big U

[prizog]

Some kind soul has OCR'd the Big U and put it up for download:

http://server3003.freeyellow.com/neilbury/

The Big U

[cpt kangarooski]

It's okay. (if you really can't wait, do what I did - check with your local library, and failing that, use the Interlibrary Loan System) Certainly it helps if you're familiar with Boston University, upon which the novel is loosely based. while I didn't attend BU, I did nearly run over a number of BU students while driving down Comm. Ave. like everyone else in Boston

There are some parts that are a bit dated, there are little bits here and there that you'll notice in later novels (e.g. the name of the fake band in Cryptonomicon is the name of a computer used by role-players), and the ending is, as usual, not as good as the set up.

But for the compulsive N.S. reader who even has the magazine articles and the Stephen Bury novels, it's worth it.

NS6/win32 rocks!

[1010011010]

It's great! Unexpectedly! After using the various Mozilla builds on Linux, and having the NS6 installer crash/hang/etc, I wasn't expecting much. But it's actually really fast. And themes available are not too shabby.

And that guy's URL was perhaps too specific. All platforms are at ftp://ftpnscp.newaol.com/pub/ net scape6/english/6.0

... "newaol" ... hmmm ...

________________________________________

Re:NS6/win32 rocks!

[Silver A]

ftp://ftpnscp.newaol.com/pub/netscape6/english/6.0 /unix/linux22/sea/

netscape-i686-pc-linux-gnu-sea.tar.gz 29.06 MB 09.11.2000 13:03:00

29 Megs!!! What's the other 20 MB for? Mozilla is only a 9MB download.

direct FTP access to Netscape 6

[Lumpish Scholar]

ftp://ftp6.n ets cape.com/pub/netscape6/english/6.0/unix/linux22/se a/

ftp://ftp6. net scape.com/pub/netscape6/english/6.0/windows/win32/ sea/

(ftp6 is one I chose at random; ftp2 through ftp9 should all work)

Netscape setup sucks

[hex1848]

I really dont understand why netscape (and IE for that matter) require an annoying setup app to be able to download the product. It would save the heck out of bandwidth if they made the download links avalible to the public. A company with 100 workstations that need browser upgrades could just as easily download one copy of the browser, and keep it on the lan, thats 99 less downloads of a huge file.

Re:Netscape setup sucks

[guran]

I can actually see one good reason.
The first .exe checks your local settings, OS version and directories, determines what plugins you have and so on. Then it goes after what ever must be updated, saving you from downloading more bloat than "neccesary"

In a perfect world, there would also be a "download the whole setup" option for those of us who know our settings. (This is targeted at AOLers after all) There would also be no suspicion of what the 500K install reports back...
In a perfect world, on the other hand, a lot of things would be better.

Someone do some spellchecking

[SubtleNuance]

micturition
not micturation

Im beginning to think they do it as a joke...

The Big U

[delysid-x]

I found The Big U in .txt format on Gnutella (or was it alt.binaries.ebooks?) Poke around and you may be able to find it yourself... the_big_u.txt

Re:The Big U: No way you're finding it in a librar

[mattdm]

Actually, it's very easy to get a copy via interlibrary loan. I've done it several times. It'll be even easier when the reprint comes out. :)

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Re:Man...

[mattdm]

You might want to try the mozilla nightlies. They're much much better than the NS6 release.

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