The answer to the question "Why no Prolog?" is simpler, the organizers set up simple default guaranteed-to-compile "starter" packages for several languages. On

The answer to the question "Why no Prolog?" is simpler, the organizers set up simple default guaranteed-to-compile "starter" packages for several languages. One surprise was that a Haskell package was included, though it used the antique ghc-6.8. The default way of entering the contest was simply to send back the unaltered starter program, and set about hacking and re-entering from there. (I entered as the completest Haskell noob imaginable, and was surprised that by making the most elementary revision of the package (which gave your bot the bold strategy of going straight north til it crashed) I managed to place in the top 2/3s. Basically I told it, "if it's the wall, don't go there, take the first of the others available" -- maybe one or two other things. Every klutzy attempt at further 'intelligence' ran into time trouble since I don't yet have any feeling for that kind of optimization. So the package would be excluded as Timed Out if was too slow in too many contests. I consoled myself thinking: At least I my entries never suffered the indignity of the other rejection notice: Garbage Collected)