I recently had an idea of challenge threads, which would allow someone to present some sort of tech problem to the forum and challenge others to post their solutions to the problem. At the end of some time limit (perhaps about 2 weeks), the person that issues the challenge judges the answers based on a set of criteria, like whether it actually solves the problem, efficiency, elegance, etc.

The person that wins issues the next challenge, and the cycle continues. I think it's up to the judge to decide what programming languages are allowed.

Here's a simple example: (Forgive me if I messed up the PHP; I don't work in it often.)

Judge:

Given an array of integers, find the largest one.

php code

function findLargest($array) { $highestVal = 0; for ($i = 0; $i < count($array); ++$i) { if ($array[$i] > $highestVal) { $highestVal = $array[$i]; } } return $highestVal; }

php code

function findLargest($array) { $highestVal = NULL; $size = count($array); if ($size > 0) { $highestVal = $array[0]; for ($i = 1; $i < $size; ++$i) { if ($array[$i] > $highestVal) { $highestVal = $array[$i]; } } } return $highestVal; }

Challenger 2 wins because if I pass in an array with all negative values, Challenger 1's entry will return 0.

Challenges to Date

I think that that is really interesting. Are you going to do the next challenge?

Yeah I had intended to start things off—I have an idea for a good problem, too.

I'll go ahead and post one later tonight.

Get on with it already.

Sorry, got caught up in a movie...

More!

Ironically, after you posted that, I got an idea for one. I think I'm going to pull back and make it focus on web development more than abstract algorithms questions. I'm a little busy this week, but I think by Wednesday I should be able to post one.

*cough*

Hey I posted and you ignored.