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Whither the 19th IOCCC?

Posted by kdawson on from the now-that's-obfuscated dept.

dazedNconfuzed writes "Whatever happened to the 19th IOCCC? The opening thereof was announced over two years ago and the winners' names were posted, but the source code was never released — leaving the results of the 2006 contest unknown as we get well into 2009. Emails to questions@ioccc.org just bounce. Surely the quiet absence of a high point of geekdom becomes news at some point!"

11 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. they are still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    figuring out the entries

  2. Or Underhanded C contest? by cras · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://underhanded.xcott.com/ doesn't mention anything about last year's winners and the contest ended almost 5 months ago.. The one time I bother sending a submission to these kind of contests and the contest appears to die :(

  3. There, I've saved you a Google search... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's the The International Obfuscated C Code Contest.

  4. slashdot front page- the new facebook? by drDugan · · Score: 4, Funny

    oh dear

    connection request: "kdawson would like to find you"

  5. Weird... this one too.... by nmoog · · Score: 5, Funny

    I've also noticed that this fortune city personal hom page from 1999 is still under construction... Any one know when it might be done?

    1. Re:Weird... this one too.... by Splab · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Informative is quite a good modding in my opinion, had totally forgot about fortune city et. al.

      That brings back some memories.

  6. Maybe it's just my tinfoil hat speaking... by Count+Fenring · · Score: 4, Funny

    One of the entries involved processing through Nth-dimensional mathematic constructs. When the judges ran it, a quantum differential between our spacetime and that of certain elder influences was generated. A portal, luckily one-way, to the den of a million screaming chains was opened, and it swallowed all of the judges, who will be consumed for ten cycles of our universe expanding and contracting, and then spit out as the final weapon in the Old Ones' war on our reality.

    Or I've been reading too much Charles Stross

  7. winning entries by sdsykes_ss · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't have links to all the entries, but here is best of show: http://nanochess.110mb.com/emulator.html

    And here are my two winning entries: http://www.stephensykes.com/blog_perm.html?148

    Enjoy!

  8. it was bound to happen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    AFAIK, after seeing all that messed-up code, they started using Python in 2006 and never looked back.

    1. Re:it was bound to happen by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I am a IOCCC winner, and I can tell you this: winning the IOCCC landed me a job.

      You know why? Because someone who can spew out a short, interesting, and obfuscated C program and still comply with the IOCCC rules, which includes cross-platform compatibility and compliance with the K&R, demonstrates 3 things:

      - He knows C very well indeed,
      - He thinks outside the box, but within established rules,
      - He's willing to work long hours just to optimize and polish a small piece of code.

      This is valid for languages other than C; there's a reason why job interviews in the field of programming often include coding something, or solving a tricky piece of code. I know for a fact that many a prospective employer treats (or at least used to treat) the IOCCC as an excellent test of C proficiency.

      I

      --
      "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  9. Re:oblig bash by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 4, Funny

    Maybe they're suing Microsoft for publishing it as the OOXML specification?