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IOCCC Accepting New, 'Improved' Entries
Rudolf writes: "The 16th International Obfuscated C Code Contest is open from now until 01 Dec 2001 23:59:59 UTC. Details are at the IOCCC web site. From the front page,
the contest goals are: -- To write the most Obscure/Obfuscated C program (within contest rules -- To show the importance of programming style, in an ironic way. -- To stress C compilers with unusual code. -- To illustrate some of the subtleties of the C language. -- To provide a safe forum for poor C code. :-)"
It's probably necessary to limit the contest to a specific language, but it would be cool to see a competition with other languages as well. Perhaps a limited set of "reasonable" languages (or everything will be written in esoteric (weird) languages (did anyone say Malbolge?).
I'd really like to see obfuscated/weird code in a language less "obfuscatable" than C (maybe Java or somethingorother?).
In that way, "obfuscation" can be more a matter of weird program flow and such, instead of confusing (but not very "interesting") a?b:c-statements (whatever they're called, I've forgotten it) and other C specialties.
Obfuscation is more of a challenge if you don't have as many weird operators and such do go with, and you have to fool people some other way.
Perhaps an Obfuscated Pseudo Code Contest?
There are 010 kinds of people. Those who understand octal, those who don't, and 06 other kinds of morons.
I've written Perl and then come back six months later and been unable to figure out what it was doing. Perl is not the world's first Write Only Language (That honor might go to APL though) but it's certainly one of the better ones.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Don't forget, there was once a day where everyone didn't have 1Ghz processors, 21" monitors, and graphical debuggers.
Yes C was written in one respect to save on key strokes, but that was when computers didn't have monitors - you punched keys (not so easy to press), and got your output on a teletype printer. God knows you wouldn't want to by typing Cobol programs this way.
My guess is that programmers probably took more time designing their program before they started keying it in. C, with short commands, and abbreviated syntax only made it easier to get your darn program into the computer.
No, C is/was not designed to "save a few keystrokes here and there". It was designed to be able to be terse yes, and to not limit the programmer (Mr Programmer asks to do x and asserts: Yes, this is _really_ what I want to do), but it's got nothing to do with typing speed.
Often C allows the programmer to express things in a short (terse) form that are intrinsically "obvious".. if it's not, then it's obfusticated; which is allowed too... but it's not the compilers job to decide what humans can and can't easily read.
I've always wished that they'd post an analysis of the various techniques used in each program. Sometimes the authors will explain some of the tricks they used, but it seems that most submitter's attitude is figure it out yourself.