[Haskell-cafe] Re: practice problems?

[Tomasz Zielonka]

On Mon, Sep 04, 2006 at 10:53:49PM +0100, Neil Mitchell wrote:
> >From that we can see Haskell is the 7th best programming langauge -
> and that number of problems solved is almost exactly the same as rank.
> I think perhaps we need a little project to conquer this benchmark
> like we did the gentoo/debian ones....
>
> I'll have a go and scraping together some people for this, and
> starting up a wiki page tomorrow. Lots of little programs, no
> particular need for optimisation yet, so could be a great chance for
> beginners and the more experienced who'd just like a quick hack once
> in a while.
 
This, and especially publishing solutions on the Wiki, could be against
the spirit of SPOJ.  Here is a relevant piece from the FAQ:

    Q: the submitted programs, will they be made public here at some time ?
    or at least those, where the author agrees ?

    A: The problemset is persistent and some ranks are affected by number of
    solved problems. If the solutions are published it would be to easy to
    just copy the solution and submit it. Hence they will not be published.
    Authors are also requested not to publish their exact code. It is better
    and maybe more beneficial for everybody to discuss ideas and algorithms
    of solutions.

    The code is visible to admins and the problem setter of the task he
    stated.

    For some of the problems taken from competitions around the world it is
    probable that you may find a coded solutionon some other site. It is
    encouraged though that you understand the algorithm and code it
    yourself.

This is rather a competition between people, not between languages.

The rule of not publishing solutions can decrease the educational
value of such service. But as they say, the problemset is persistent,
the contests never ends. Many of those problems were taken from
some olympiads and contests - those finish at some point, and then
the solutions can be published.

Best regards
Tomasz