4 ms·

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

PontifexMinimus 2y 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 2y 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 2y ago
    [deleted]
skeeter2020 2y ago
can I have a printed, spiral-bound manual instead? I really miss 80's documentation: quality, complete, and quirky-fun
- Darmani 2y 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 2y 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".

PontifexMinimus 2y 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 2y 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 2y ago
  [deleted]

skeeter2020 2y ago

can I have a printed, spiral-bound manual instead? I really miss 80's documentation: quality, complete, and quirky-fun

Darmani 2y 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 2y 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".