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18th International Obfuscated C Code Contest Opens

Posted by timothy on from the now-it-can-vote dept.

chongo writes "The 18th International Obfuscated C Code Contest, the Internet's longest running contest, is now open. The goals, rules, and guidelines are available. Use the online submission tool to submit your obfuscated C code by 22-May-2005 23:59:59 UTC."

5 of 187 comments (clear)

  1. Apologies Mr Watterson: by sshtome · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "With a little practice, language can become a complete impediment to understanding"

  2. Not many languages could have such a contest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It does say something about the joy and beauty of C that such a contest is even possible. It says something about "learning from their mistakes" that you couldn't even have a contest like this in Java. You just can't write a valid Java file that is obfuscated to such an extent. A large part of it is that Java has no pointers and everything has to exist within a class.

    Wasn't there some kind of obfuscated vote counting software contest announced before the recent US election? I would like to see some of the entrants into that.

  3. That would be a good joke if Windows were... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    a) a contest

    b) held via Usenet.

  4. Learnings from the Competition ... by Crspe · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The goals of the competiton are ...
    • 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. :-)

    They certainly achieve their goal of showing how bad caode can be and also of providing a safe forum for amazing C code.
    I have also learnt much better how to program in C, even for unobfuscated code. There is nothing like going through some of these entries to understand much better how the preprocessor works, and how compilers react to differrent constructs.
    So, the only goal left is that of stressing the C compilers ... does anyone have some good examples of bugs found *and later fixed* in c compilers due to this competition? There are certainly enough evidence of the compilers being crashed, but I wonder if anything positive has come out of it.
  5. Re:the joke's on Gassee by michaeldot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Whoosh! I'll explain the scenario:

    No one knew the answer to the quiz question. When it became obvious no one was going to respond, Gassée decided to be facetious with that smug we're-better-than-everyone-else 1980s hubris that would later bring "old Apple" to its knees ("we're so cool we don't need to think about modernizing our OS architecture - you'll never be as good as us").

    It's hardly surprising Gates had no pity for Apple during the "GUI OS war" and probably relished seeing that smug attitude pounded into the dirt.

    And it's very fortunate for Apple that when Jobs returned to save it from bankruptcy, he took a groveling stance towards Gates and told the fanboys, "Microsoft is not the enemy. For Apple to survive, we have to do a really good job." A much better attitude than a smartass remark designed to antagonize an extremely powerful man.