4 ms·

Hand written coding. The wheel comes full circle.

morkalork 1y ago
Computers with no internet access and nothing but the compiler chain and text documentation installed. Coding like it's 1980s again!
- PontifexMinimus 1y ago
  Which is in any case a better test of the core of coding, which is about figuring out algorithms and data structures, not writing glue code to connect various APIs together.
  - Jtsummers 1y ago
    This challenge, as described from some of the linked pages, is exactly a challenge on algorithms and data structures not on gluing APIs together. The problem with that is that it's exactly the kind of challenge that LLMs do well at because there's a glut of material to train on. The challenge is figuring out how to provide a novice (high school students) with a skill appropriate challenge to assess them on that is also not trivially solved by the use of an LLM, and you likely can't. Or you go the IT route and restrict what's available on and from the computers (see my comment about how ACM and IEEE contests used to do things, they may still run that way but I'm uninvolved so don't know).
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- skeeter2020 1y ago
  can I have a printed, spiral-bound manual instead? I really miss 80's documentation: quality, complete, and quirky-fun
  - Darmani 1y ago
    That is a thing in the ACM-ICPC. Typically competitors would come in with printouts of times they've implemented a tricky algorithm like the Hungarian Algorithm or the Blossom Algorithm in the past, so that having it would help jog their memory and let them be constrained only by typing speed once they've figured out how to adapt it to their problem. It was referred to as "book code."
- leereeves 1y ago
  > Computers with no internet access and nothing but the compiler chain and text documentation installed. Coding like it's 1980s again! I love this comment because in 20 years coding with no AI will be "coding like it's 2020 again".
tenpies 1y ago
Just the participant, a tall deck of blank IBM punch cards, and a punch. None of that fancy punch card machinery either. Return to tradition[1]. [1] https://www.ibm.com/history/punched-card https://www.ibm.com/history/punched-card
- ohgr 1y ago
  As a notorious bastard I used to run C# code tests by giving someone a flattened windows 7 with the .net SDK installed and nothing else. Also no network connection. How the potential engineer dealt with it was interesting. We had a couple of people shrug it off and do it in notepad and csc quite happily. They were of course hired.

Computers with no internet access and nothing but the compiler chain and text documentation installed. Coding like it's 1980s again!

PontifexMinimus 1y ago
Which is in any case a better test of the core of coding, which is about figuring out algorithms and data structures, not writing glue code to connect various APIs together.
- Jtsummers 1y ago
  This challenge, as described from some of the linked pages, is exactly a challenge on algorithms and data structures not on gluing APIs together. The problem with that is that it's exactly the kind of challenge that LLMs do well at because there's a glut of material to train on. The challenge is figuring out how to provide a novice (high school students) with a skill appropriate challenge to assess them on that is also not trivially solved by the use of an LLM, and you likely can't. Or you go the IT route and restrict what's available on and from the computers (see my comment about how ACM and IEEE contests used to do things, they may still run that way but I'm uninvolved so don't know).
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
skeeter2020 1y ago
can I have a printed, spiral-bound manual instead? I really miss 80's documentation: quality, complete, and quirky-fun
- Darmani 1y ago
  That is a thing in the ACM-ICPC. Typically competitors would come in with printouts of times they've implemented a tricky algorithm like the Hungarian Algorithm or the Blossom Algorithm in the past, so that having it would help jog their memory and let them be constrained only by typing speed once they've figured out how to adapt it to their problem. It was referred to as "book code."
leereeves 1y ago
> Computers with no internet access and nothing but the compiler chain and text documentation installed. Coding like it's 1980s again! I love this comment because in 20 years coding with no AI will be "coding like it's 2020 again".

tenpies 1y ago

Just the participant, a tall deck of blank IBM punch cards, and a punch. None of that fancy punch card machinery either. Return to tradition[1]. [1] https://www.ibm.com/history/punched-card https://www.ibm.com/history/punched-card

ohgr 1y ago
As a notorious bastard I used to run C# code tests by giving someone a flattened windows 7 with the .net SDK installed and nothing else. Also no network connection. How the potential engineer dealt with it was interesting. We had a couple of people shrug it off and do it in notepad and csc quite happily. They were of course hired.