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Consolation Awards
As always ... there are consolation awards. Some folks actually
try and win these things - perhaps YOU will find your entry wins
one of these in the next POTM!
POWERSAW was a very tough POTM - probably the toughest yet.
Therefore, the consolation prizes are even more important
than usual ... please enjoy them!
*** "Best Team Award": Pavel Ouvarov and Frederic van der Plancke
It was easy to pick THIS winner ... two regular POTM
participants joined together to make a winning entry!
What is most significant is the makeup of the team ...
Pavel programs on UNIX systems and Frederic does Windows
programming! As Frederic says: "this team is mixing
water and fire ;-)". The fact that Pavel is from Protvino
(near Moscow) and Frederic hails from Brussels was just
a minor inconvenience compared to their UNIX/MS backgrounds!
*** "Best Program Name": cSaw from Doug Jones
I knew this was a winner when it was first submitted. As Doug
puts it: "A combination of the language name and Saw that
sounds like an unrelated word". BUT, he confesses:
"Actually, my code is written in C++, but I didn't like
c++Saw or cSaw++".
*** "Second Best Program Name But They Already Got Too Many Awards" Award
goes to "Yalta". As Pavel writes in his questionairre:
This name was suggested by Frederic. I can quote one of his
early mails to me: "I thought of a name for our entry.
I hope you don't mind the pun: "Yalta" ... where the
world was divided in "East" and "West" in 1945.
And I promise that will be their last award ... for THIS POTM.
*** "Bang For The Buck" Award to Andrew Gauld for JigSaw
JigSaw managed a third place finish with a total time 2 orders
of magnitude less than the other high-placed entries. How?
Andrew's questionairre itemizes several different approaches
he tries on each problem, and then picks the best solution.
No genetic engineering, no recursive optimization, no big
words of any kind in fact. There's a lesson in there somewhere
I think ... especially if you're an old-timer who remembers
paying for computing time by the CPU-minute!
*** "Best Excuse" Award to Ted Alper
Ted writes: "I hoped to get around to writing a program, but
our new baby has filled what little free time I had... "
I figured I give Ted an award now, because it gets worse
before it gets better ... but it's a helluva lot more
rewarding than dumb programming contests!
*** "Best Programming Advice Given" to Paul Banta
Paul writes: "(if I had it to do over) I'd put comments
in as I coded. Java has a nifty comment extracting
tool that would have been great if I had put comments in."
Paul - programming tools can only go so far ...
*** "Send Me Some E-Mail" Award to Denis Konovalchik
Denis writes: I would like to find some friends abroad
and to exchange e-letters with them. Denis lives in
Magnitogorsk City, Russia and his email is denisk-at-compassplus.ru
Drop him a line!
*** "The Aim High" Award to David Mishelashvili (LumberJack)
David writes: "My age is 20; My goal of life is (from
the time when I write my first program for MK-52) to become
The Best Programmer Of The Planet, and I think that POTM is
good starting place for it". You're on the way - we'll
look for your name in future POTM lists!
*** "Best Law" Award to Randy Saint
Randy quoted Hofstadter's Law: "It always takes longer than
you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."
*** "Longest Program Name" Award to Kevin Williams for "Who_was_that_woman_I_
sawed_you_with_last_night__That_was_no_woman_that_was_my_half_sister"
Kevin writes: "It's a tribute to Walt Kelley, who drew the
old Pogo comic strip ... If you've never read Pogo, think of
Doonesbury with animals set in Okefenokee Swamp. If you have
read Pogo, you probably miss it as much as I do."
*** Hutzpah Award to Shalender Singh, who wrote in an email:
"Here's a much improved version of the program. I've a request,
Can we extend the last submission date?" hehe ... sorry, but no.
*** Best Overall Response to a Questionairre to Vasudev Seeram
The website has the unabridged version, here are some excerpts!
*) I have to start exercising, my lack of exercise is
beginning to show (around my belly).
*) We are currently working on our Y2K project (get this:
Sept 1999 and we are working on this god-forsaken project)
... I think I am going to switch careers to dentistry
come Dec, 31st, 1999.
*) ... romantic love is a lie, is a lie, is a goddamn lie!
'Love' is a genetically programmed lie that
ensures the continuation of the species by tricking
us into marriage. Yeah yeah, she liked someone else,
the guy was a moron, man!
*) The path of pleasure is a dark and dangerous
path. But it is a seductive path, where many are lured ...
*) Until then, I walk alone. Cold, calculated and emotionally
distant. Bond. James Bond.
Vasudev ... stay with us ... there's only the next POTM. And in
case of emergencies, email Susan Adams at buttgirl_69-at-yahoo.com ...
a participant in the previous POTM!
*** "Wood Chipper" Award to Ossama Abdel-Hamid for Rusty_saw
Rusty_saw created the most pieces over the three problems.
What's more amazing is that Ossama didn't even use all
the cuts he was allowed!
Score on sliver is 907 based on 67 pieces from 10 lines.
Score on midway is 1018 based on 29 pieces from 8 lines.
Score on 950 is 928 based on 55 pieces from 9 lines.
A Shop-vac vacuum cleaner is on the way!!!
*** "Worst Disease" Award goes to Ranjeet Bhatia who writes:
" ... the above algorithm can be very neatly coded
RECURSIVELY but i didnt try (I suffer from recursion
debugging phobia. which keeps on recurring whenever
I think of implementing recursion.)
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