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Contests: Mind-Twisting Winners And Tiny Entrants

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the all-is-not-lost dept.

leob writes: "The names of the winners of the 15th International Obfuscated C Code Contest along with the one-line descriptions of the winning entries have been posted. The winners have been notified and are given some time to review and amend their entries. The source code of the winning entries will be released after January 15, 2001." I think I like Don Yang's entry best -- "A program that prints a program that prints a program that prints a program that prints the second program." Huh?! Those with smaller ambitions will be pleased to know (via Virtex) that there will be a new 5k Web contest contest for 2001. "The rules? Simple. Just create a Web page or site that is no larger than 5K, including all html and graphics. Oh, and there's no server-side scripting allowed (client side scripting is OK, though). Interested? The contest officially kicks off March 1, but why wait until then?" (Last year's iteration drew some pretty wacky entries.)

10 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. Re:obfuscating c just ain't that hard. :) by NecroPuppy · · Score: 2

    i mean, come on, obfuscating c just ain't that hard. ;)

    Heck, I want to see the unobfuscated APL contest... :)

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  2. Ages ago, I had access to a PL/I compiler... by human+bean · · Score: 2
    on an old mainframe. Since there was nothing else to do whilst waiting for shift-end after all the production run had been taken care of, I made up the following for entertainment's sake:

    1. Select dataset at random.
    2. Stuff into input of PL/I compiler, with all warnings turned off.
    3. Link, load, run, and view output, if any.
    4. Use reverse compile option to produce source code from above module.

    As I said, I was bored. What came out the bottom of this process bears an amazing similarity to the obfuscated programs presented on the contest web site.

    Has anyone tried compiling web pages at random?

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  3. Quality by perlyking · · Score: 2

    Aside from this I often find the smaller something is the higher quality it is, at least in the computer world ;-)
    3D demo's especially and anyone who's seen the 70k "Please the cookie thing" demo might agree with me.

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  4. obfuscating c just ain't that hard. :) by r · · Score: 2

    some of the entries are really cool - such as the program whose output really depends on the phase of the moon, or the program that is its own build script and makefile.

    i only wish these contests went more into the extremes: use languages that really lend themselves to obfuscation - such as perl, the king of polymorphic semantics - or abuse the hell out of languages that were designed to be pristine clean - such as scheme or smalltalk (to a degree).

    i mean, come on, obfuscating c just ain't that hard. ;)

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    1. Re:obfuscating c just ain't that hard. :) by sinbad · · Score: 2

      Take a look at The Perl Journal :)

  5. The Really Sad Part by Proud+Geek · · Score: 2

    Is that these is real world code just as unreadable as these. I mean, these things look like binaries; they belong in museums, not in production.

    It's sad that it's so much easier to write obfuscated code than it is to write elegant code. Someone should start a contest for the most small and interesting code that is the most obvious and elegant.

    What we need is a language that promotes concise but readable code. Then these could be purely academic exercises. I work in Perl, and believe me, some of these could win clairity contests.

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    1. Re:The Really Sad Part by Virtex · · Score: 2

      What we need is a language that promotes concise but readable code.

      I believe that was one of the goals of Python. If nothing else, it forces you to indent your code properly.

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  6. Re:I don't get it by Glowing+Fish · · Score: 3

    If you were watching the Harlem Globetrotters play basketball, would you complain that they wern't getting to the basket as quickly as possible?

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  7. Re:I don't get it by seebs · · Score: 2

    Several reasons. One is for the obvious reason that people do crossword puzzles; it's an interesting puzzle, and it's recreational.

    Another is for the other reason that people do crossword puzzles; it is a way to exercise and stretch your use of a language, and that makes you better at using the language *even in non-obfuscated contexts*.

    Another is that studying *why* bad code is hard to read helps you avoid the pitfalls that lead to it.

    In short, it's fun and educational.

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  8. It's not out yet by Tom7 · · Score: 2

    It doesn't seem to be out yet. Reading the old entries is fun, though, even if you've read them before. Most of the Wesley ones are brilliant.