Programming Contest: Efficient Editor Usage

Posted by timothy on Wednesday March 16, 2005 @08:35AM from the colon-w-colon-q dept.

Fred (a.k.a. The POTM-MASTER) writes "Anyone can write editors, but it's surprisingly hard to write a program to USE an editor. This latest Programming challenge asks you to write a program that will change one block of text into another using a simple set of 'vim-like' editor commands." (Find the details here.) "Deadline is May 31, 2005 so you've got plenty of time. The POTM is the 'Programmer Of The Month' contest - newly revived and active with about 1000 folks registered for the forums. It is completely for fun - unsponsored and prize-less except for the fame!"

1 of 33 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Genetic Algorithm anybody? by stevey · 2005-03-16 10:15 · Score: 2, Insightful

I think an obvious approach here is to use a genetic algorithm - literally breed the best collection of editting commands to generate the output.

Reading the rules says that there is a time limit of 60 seconds per program, so it might not be the best approach in reality - but it might be a fun way to attack the problem.