get a new contest going?

[psychotomus]

how about best text based game? single player, multi-player allowed.

[sevenhalo]

I don't even read the documentation from design, why text-based?

[psychotomus]

more people would be able to enter. =)

[Paul M]

Maybe some Big Integer thing! Something that would be useful i guess

[psychotomus]

usefull is no fun. games are fun =)

[sevenhalo]

usefull is no fun. games are fun =)

:scold:

Hang your head in shame young Padawan.

[psychotomus]

never. programming must be about fun.

[Paul M]

Programming can be both rewarding and challenging. But fun basically means you have no seriousness or desire really. Something challenging would be nice that will stimulate our minds!!!!!

[laconix]

I second the notion for a new contest.

[Raedwulf]

I got a nice idea for a new competition:

A substitution code 'breaker' competition. E.g. the fastest code breaker/and most accurate code breaking program.

Basically the idea is for a program to automatically decipher 2-3 lines or more text which is simply coded by substituting the letters with other letters of the alphabet.

Any takers?

[demon.KILER]

Hey I am In --- can U explain more

[dclamp]

This is my first real post in this forum, so i have a question. Does the contest have to be in only VB6/.net? or can there be contests for other languages. Because i dont really program in vb anymore, i have moved to webbased PHP, and would like a PHP contest

[Pino]

There wouldnt be enough people to do a php contest. Also it would be very difficult to mark etc.

I'm happy to get a contest going. Once we can get a decent Idea.

[Pino]

Raedwulf

PM me your ideas, I'll see what we can do!

[psychotomus]

I got a nice idea for a new competition:

A substitution code 'breaker' competition. E.g. the fastest code breaker/and most accurate code breaking program.

Basically the idea is for a program to automatically decipher 2-3 lines or more text which is simply coded by substituting the letters with other letters of the alphabet.

Any takers?

I don't quet follow.

[manavo11]

I don't quet follow.

How would you know if you have the right text? Wouldn't that be something too random to try and mark it? Unless I'm missing something?

[psychotomus]

have to check for words in a dictionary. there goes how to do it =)

[Lord Orwell]

how about word descrambler? 5 6 7 or 8 letter words and we descramble them.

[laconix]

By 'descramble' do you mean just provide all possible combinations? Because that's fairly easy.
If not, I assume you mean it's a specific word. Which means it's impossible to know what word it was originally because there could be multiple.

[Lord Orwell]

if there are multiple real words, you would list them all. But in most cases there wouldn't be. And there would be plenty of ways to optimize your program's guesses such as not letting 4 vowels in a row or 3 of the same letter, etc.
plenty of rules could be used.

[Merri]

I could do PHP as well.

So how many PHP-able persons do we have here? What I've heard, a lot of VB6 programmers switched to PHP...

[dclamp]

well from what i know there is:

dclamp
penagate
visualad
Merri
LordOrwell (i think)

[Lord Orwell]

depends entirely on what is decided on. I am very weak in some areas but willing to try anyway if it is something i am interested in. Text manipulation is no big deal at all. The first program i ever wrote was a text-based adventure.

[psychotomus]

im a phper

[dclamp]

i was looking at a thread about all the languages people know, and majority of the members knew php. I think we should get a php contest going.

I wouldn't mind being a judge

AFTER READING FAQ:
If i get enough people willing to do a contest in PHP, can i start a contest?

[Lord Orwell]

what is php?

[techgnome]

from PHP online manual
PHP, which stands for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor" is a widely-used Open Source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML. Its syntax draws upon C, Java, and Perl, and is easy to learn. The main goal of the language is to allow web developers to write dynamically generated web pages quickly, but you can do much more with PHP.

-tg

edit - are you SERIOUS? VBF won't take my message because it's "too short". Gimmie a break. I think I need to file a grievance in the ForumFeedback.

[dclamp]

-tg

edit - are you SERIOUS? VBF won't take my message because it's "too short". Gimmie a break. I think I need to file a grievance in the ForumFeedback.

it doesnt parse quotes when checking the length

[Lord Orwell]

if it's php then i am out. I am only now trying to pick up a little css.

[dclamp]

i should take a chit chat poll of people who know php, to get a good feel as to if we should start one

[Lord Orwell]

even if someone DID know it, wouldn't you have to have a server to test it on?

[Merri]

You can install Apache, PHP and MySQL on your own computer, there are some good and easy to use installations available.

Also, Microsoft's IIS is available in XP Professional and it comes with every Vista installation disk (afaik), so you'd only need to put the disk in and voilá! you have a webserver on your machine. Of course you still need PHP (installing it manually by hand can sometimes be on the harder side, or atleast this was the case a few years back; I've used those easy Apache installations when I've had the need).

So it isn't really a big problem, you can access web server running on your own machine by using localhost or 127.0.0.1 as the address.

[dclamp]

ok i started a poll in the chit chat section, but i think it needs to be moved to the general developer section...

[Lord Orwell]

hmm i am using corporate professional 64. I think i already have it installed. but i have disabled so many services for performance, that i may not be able to get it to run again I had issues in the past when i installed it in the first place.

[Pino]

Just to let you guys know the contest would really have to be Vb or Vb.net (or both) while many of us (including myself) code PHP. This forum isnt a php forum.

Thanks

[dclamp]

It is not required that it be VB or VB.net

What Language Can We Use?

Each contest will state the allowed languages but being a VB site they will more than likely be VB6 or VB.NET (some maybe open to both of these as well).

[Lord Orwell]

i vote for qbasic

[si_the_geek]

It is not required that it be VB or VB.net

True, but having it in anything else would stop the vast majority of our members from competing.

[Merri]

Err... I don't see how we couldn't have a contest with another language. I don't see how it could do any harm. If someone doesn't know a language, he just doesn't take part; however, PHP is so widely adapted that there are lots of potential contestants.

Anyways, I don't see why having a contest in another language would stop people from taking part in the next VB contest that could come after a PHP one.

[Logophobic]

True, but having it in anything else would stop the vast majority of our members from competing.

To state the obvious: Not having a contest has stopped all members from competing. A contest of any kind would at the very least raise interest in future contests.