Re: New ACM challenge is language-discriminatory

[Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org>]

Adam Beneschan <adam@irvine.com> writes:

> On Dec 18, 3:26�am, Jean-Pierre Rosen <ro...@adalog.fr> wrote:
>> ACM has launched a new programming challenge:http://queue.acm.org/icpc/index.cfm?page=faq
>>
>> However, the only languages allowed are C++, C# and Java.
>> I could understand reasons for having everyone compete with the same
>> language, but if more than one is allowed, it should be open to all
>> (including our favorite language, of course ;-) ).
>
> "All"?  Georg implied that they may not have the staff to look at Ada
> solutions, but I'm sure that they at least have a few people there
> that can understand it; there have got to be tons of other obscure
> programming languages that nobody there would be able to understand.
> Plus, are any of the judges going to be enthusiastic about looking at
> a Forth program, or at an APL program that someone wrote in one line
> just to prove that they could?? :)
>
> So some discrimination seems necessary---the line has to be drawn
> somewhere.  Too bad they drew it on the wrong side of our language.

I don't see the actual definition of how to "win" the competition, but
the implication is the only thing that counts is winning games against
other code submissions - no judging of code.

We should at least ask for a rationale for the language choices.

-- 
-- Stephe