Dark Incantations In Corrupt Languages
January 5, 2014 8:41 AM Subscribe
Produce the number 2014 without any numbers in your source code ☠ Write a program that always outputs “2012” - even if it's modified! ☠ Obfuscated Hello World ☠ Print your code backwards - reverse quine ☠ Shortest code to print a smiley face ☠ Write the shortest program that generates the most compiler warnings and errors
"Code golf is a type of recreational computer programming competition in which participants strive to achieve the shortest possible code that implements a certain algorithm."
"Code golf is a type of recreational computer programming competition in which participants strive to achieve the shortest possible code that implements a certain algorithm."
Solutions to the first challenge were blowing my mind for a few seconds, until I realized that most of the responses amounted to dumping the Unicode codepoint of [character number 2014]. By that method, whichever language provides the most concise way of printing a character value is going to win (which, amusingly, seems to not be Perl). So the solutions that derive 2014 by more convoluted means are more interesting because they seem to me to be meeting the spirit of the challenge.
The Python print sum(ord(c) for c in 'Happy new year to you!') won my heart. Even if it's doing exactly what I complained about above, I love it more because of cleverness.
posted by ardgedee at 10:20 AM on January 5, 2014 [2 favorites]
The Python print sum(ord(c) for c in 'Happy new year to you!') won my heart. Even if it's doing exactly what I complained about above, I love it more because of cleverness.
posted by ardgedee at 10:20 AM on January 5, 2014 [2 favorites]
The other week I wrote this as an entry for the homework trolling contest. I thought it was the appropriate combination of evil + clever + WTF wrapped in a shroud of plausibility. (Hint: you'll need lots of file descriptors available if you want to sort more than a little data.)
I also like the Grand C++ Error Explosion Competition, even though it was done before on SE. Immediately after being posted someone on /r/cpp was able to get more than 5 megabytes of output from a 53 char C++ program, and it turns that's really only the start -- you can boost the output enormously by giving the identifiers longer names, although you have to ensure to keep the ratio of the source size to the generated output going in the right direction.
posted by Rhomboid at 10:36 AM on January 5, 2014 [1 favorite]
I also like the Grand C++ Error Explosion Competition, even though it was done before on SE. Immediately after being posted someone on /r/cpp was able to get more than 5 megabytes of output from a 53 char C++ program, and it turns that's really only the start -- you can boost the output enormously by giving the identifiers longer names, although you have to ensure to keep the ratio of the source size to the generated output going in the right direction.
posted by Rhomboid at 10:36 AM on January 5, 2014 [1 favorite]
Write a program in Assembly that will summon the demons that used to rule the universe to come take over the world.
posted by Redfield at 10:48 AM on January 5, 2014
posted by Redfield at 10:48 AM on January 5, 2014
The QBasic one that renders a smiley based on the pixels of the ANSI face guy is probably my favorite.
posted by brennen at 11:46 AM on January 5, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by brennen at 11:46 AM on January 5, 2014 [1 favorite]
This is one of those FPPs that look like they'd be so cool if I really understood them. (At least I usually end up learning something.)
posted by Room 641-A at 1:26 PM on January 5, 2014
posted by Room 641-A at 1:26 PM on January 5, 2014
I hang out on an IRC channel where they play Friday golf. I hate golf.
posted by clvrmnky at 2:25 PM on January 5, 2014
posted by clvrmnky at 2:25 PM on January 5, 2014
Not quite golf, but my favourite IOCCC entry is a usable PC emulator in 4043 bytes.
posted by scruss at 3:15 PM on January 5, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by scruss at 3:15 PM on January 5, 2014 [5 favorites]
VB.NET 50 chars:
Dim a:Do:a+= CInt(Rnd()):Console.WriteLine(a):Loop
Nobody said it couldn't produce every integer along with 2014...
posted by lordaych at 3:18 PM on January 5, 2014 [1 favorite]
Dim a:Do:a+= CInt(Rnd()):Console.WriteLine(a):Loop
Nobody said it couldn't produce every integer along with 2014...
posted by lordaych at 3:18 PM on January 5, 2014 [1 favorite]
I don't have any points to post that if anyone else wants to represent the Meef
But I guess I have to bump it to 65 to include the sub declaration :(
Sub a():Dim a:Do:a+=CInt(Rnd()):Console.WriteLine(a):Loop:End Sub
posted by lordaych at 3:26 PM on January 5, 2014
But I guess I have to bump it to 65 to include the sub declaration :(
Sub a():Dim a:Do:a+=CInt(Rnd()):Console.WriteLine(a):Loop:End Sub
posted by lordaych at 3:26 PM on January 5, 2014
Final answer, 32, leaving out method declarations since the other VB guy did
Do:B+=CInt(Rnd()):Msgbox(B):Loop
posted by lordaych at 3:36 PM on January 5, 2014
Do:B+=CInt(Rnd()):Msgbox(B):Loop
posted by lordaych at 3:36 PM on January 5, 2014
echo(len("Okay, I know this probably isn’t going to be the shortest program, but at least I know it doesn’t have any numbers in it. Wait, it turns out that two thousand and fourteen is really a surprisingly large number of characters. Am I done yet? I really want to start typing numerals, but I’m not going to. Okay seriously, we’re done right? Really? Three hundred and fourteen? How does that even work. Lorem Ipsum what the fuck my fingers are starting to hurt, how do professional typists even do this shit. Okay, we’re getting close… less than six hundred???????????????/ WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF? That was legit, right? Okay, let’s just list some characters that aren’t numerals: IH((*(#&$H@OIH#JOIHB#$()J)J@(I#H(HHBNKNLNLJBJBAJGHBDJ Okay, let’s just list some characters that aren’t numerals: IH((*(#&$H@OIH#JOIHB#$()J)J@(I#H(HHBNKNLNLJBJBAJGHBDJsx,c;\kl;sadjgnkasn kjsnd ;kgns gk kj;nsadkljsdn ;kgljsagkj as;lkgj ;skldngkjsndgkj;shdlgudnjfuinuiarneuibhfajkhgjksdh*&*&|<><><|?<|:L<|:L<”:<”|:L|:L”|L|”:OJ|((|UYH|(H|*H|(*H(|*H(|*(*|H|P){IJPH|PIUGYUF^%D|DFU^|F^%F|JI (MHIUMN***&*&*&*&^&^T&G(&^G&^F&(FVUGYFDRYSEWRW$#WCRVTDJBFKULJUYNKBYTFTYES^&%$VIBY&TBYUOGBI&^BRB&^RB&^RV$VEDRTFhluihgiuznnblumhb;aa;m’.,z,,oppiopdgsgdfg4o\i,I’fp’oeu,f’\,efu’peo’g\]ee\[\\elf\\//\eofp[o.f\[po\[pf\e8ufpo\eu,p\u\uemfm\yinoiyiubyoyuBTUOTB#&T#TY#YO*#&YN#*. Holy Shit, and we’re done! Fuck."))
posted by 256 at 5:34 PM on January 5, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by 256 at 5:34 PM on January 5, 2014 [2 favorites]
You have an 8 in there, 256. (I know, ti's hard to leave a fellow power of 2 behind.)
posted by hattifattener at 5:47 PM on January 5, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by hattifattener at 5:47 PM on January 5, 2014 [5 favorites]
My little Mathematica solution:
posted by Wolfdog at 6:45 PM on January 5, 2014
Row[Length /@ {{{}, {}}, {}, {{}}, {{}, {}, {}, {}}}]posted by Wolfdog at 6:45 PM on January 5, 2014
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In fact, they may be gods.
posted by IAmBroom at 8:53 AM on January 5, 2014 [6 favorites]