Added news based on the recent
[release 2.4.3 2025-03-11](https://github.com/ioccc-src/mkiocccentry/releases/tag/2.4.3)
of the [mkiocccentry toolkit](https://github.com/ioccc-src/mkiocccentry).
Updated the FAQ with additional information about the above mentioned release.
Fixed use of double blank lines in `faq.md` so that they:
- precede all markdown headings
- precede and follow all "Jump to top" lines
Added missing "Jump to top" lines.
Fixed Section 2 internal link.
Performed `make www gen_status gen_sitemap timestamp` to update the website.
New FAQ on what the minimum versions are (this should be updated every
contest or updated to refer to the result of the issue I opened at the
other repo - post IOCCC28) for each tool.
Added details about the new (soon to be released) version of the tools
that now search under $PATH.
This commit updated the FAQ, the guidelines and the quick start guide.
As a reminder you do NOT need to use the upcoming release of the tools
and not doing so will not invalidate any of your submissions as it is
based on a minimum version, not an exact version.
The new options to mkiocccentry are -x to delete the submission
directory if if it already exists and the -u uuidfile and -U uuidstr
options.
NOTE: it is NOT required to update the tools for this IOCCC and you do
NOT have to read the updated guidelines to follow the guidelines for
this IOCCC.
The warnings highbit_warning, wordbuf_warning and first_rule_is_all are
no longer used and will be removed for IOCCC29 and beyond. Thus the
tools no longer care about them.
There were other additions to mkiocccentry like the useful -u uuid
option to read in your UUID from a file so you don't have to copy paste
it per submission. Although that would be useful in the guidelines to
do that would require the version update which is problematic in an open
contest. Thus it can be added for IOCCC29 after this one.
IMPORTANT NOTE: you do NOT have to update the tools unless you want to!
The submit server will no longer flag submissions with those booleans
set to true and when the judges run the tools they won't flag them
either. So if you are just fine with what you're doing, and if the
recent fixes do not have an impact on your work you are perfectly fine
using the current versions you have as version requirements are no
longer a single value but a range. Of course you might still wish to
check that you weren't flagged for some other issue but you no longer
have to worry about those three warnings.
After my final commit and merge in mkiocccentry pre-release a pull did
not get the tag. I had to do:
git fetch --all --tags
instead. So to make sure everyone has the correct tag I have added this
to the FAQ (replacing the 'git fetch' by itself).
Regenerated faq.html.
Renamed some FAQs (typos and/or other things).
Fix a number of typos in various files (including markdown format
errors).
Rules and guidelines should be relatively good although as there is a
lot to get through and not much time left maybe I missed something (I
also kind of cheated doing the final checks with the guidelines rather
than going through them all again).
The next/try.sh and next/try.alt.sh scripts have had updates as well and
the next/Makefile.example was modified too.
The index.html page now has an anchor for goals of the contest so that
the goals in the rules could simply link to it in index.html.
Although some text had to be added (and some corrected) a reasonable
amount of text was also removed as it was elsewhere or was extraneous in
some way.
A choice was made a while back to use website and not web site so
changed all new references of 'web site' to 'website':
sgit -e 's/web site/website/g' '*.md' '*.html'
As this also occurs in the FAQ and there were some minor mods (just
textual, including some fun, not a new FAQ) these are included too.
In order simplify the write-up of the actual Rule 17
into a new FAQ 1.8. The somewhat shorted Rule 17 text
now refers to checks performed by tools, encourages
their use, discourages their misuse (overriding limits),
and is easier to read: we think.
This addresses most (if not all) of the recent changes to chkentry(1)
though a more thorough check will be made later after the mkiocccentry
code freeze.
I have thought of and plugged additional holes in the process (same with
txzchk but that's beyond the scope of the document) so the FAQ was
updated for this.
Also because it is a long list of steps there is now a TL;DR part above
it.
There was an order issue in the list as well.
The FAQ stated (due to a mistake in the issue in the mkiocccentry repo)
that the submission directory (under workdir) has the timestamp in it
but that is not true. Instead the tarball filename has the timestamp.
Typo fix in guidelines.
The list now details every step taken and the question was also changed
to help make it easier to find (one need not read this but if they want
to it is now in the correct order).
It is highly recommended that you run the tool from either the repo
directory itself (making sure you have the most up to date version of
course) or make sure you have installed it (also making sure you have
the most recent version). Not doing this will cause issues with checks
and in the case of out of date versions the submission would be rejected
due to violating rule 17. One can specify the options to mkiocccentry
for the tools required but if you forget or don't have the most up to
date version you will very likely run into problems.
Rule 17 mandates specific file permissions for files/directories in
submission tarballs but the documentation did not state this. More work
might need to be done here but it should be better now.
The next/remarks.example.md filename is kind of a misnomer but it was
named this way to match Makefile.example. It has brief instructions
along with a link to the FAQ about what one should put in their
remarks.md file (and the FAQ links to the new file as a starting point
as it has instructions).
The markdown guidelines were updated to note that if one does use
sections in remarks.md file they should start out at heading level 3
(###) and for each subsection increment it by one (up to level 6).
The new syntax (though not all functionality is yet finished) of
mkiocccentry does not match what was in the FAQ, guidelines and rules.
Also added an important reminder to use v7 format with tarballs as not
doing so can reveal who you are which would break the rules. This is
mentioned in the rules and guidelines, showing how to create such a
tarball.
More work does have to be done with these two things however.
The `chkentry(1)` tool was changed so that the `.auth.json`
arg comes before the `.info.json` arg. These changes are
needed to accommodate and document that change.
Also the use of the single arg as a directory was
removed from documentation (until issue #940 is addressed).
The FAQ, guidelines and rules have been updated to reflect recent
discussions and modifications to the maximum number of files.
A new FAQ entry has been added. The guidelines talk about including
extra tarballs and rule 17 has been updated as well. Some of this was
copied directly from discussion with Landon.
Some minor other fixes were made in the guidelines and rules (mostly
wording).
Updated `faq.md` and `README.md` to point at the BSD source for the
old Bourne shell. Mentioned the GENIX operating system for the NS
SYS16 system. Added a note that the links are only approximations
of the BSD code that inspired the IOCCC.
Hello @tanaydin,
We are about to modify the result of your PR #54, @tanaydin to include
a link to the finger daemon source. Unfortunately the finger daemon
source is not found in that 4.2BSD repo, so we had to dip into the
[4.3BSD-Reno](https://github.com/dank101/4.3BSD-Reno) repo, which isn't
exactly correct as that post-dates the 1984 IOCCC starting event but
will have to do.
We modified the link to use HTML "Left Parenthesis" and "Right Parenthesi"
as per [IOCCC markdown guidelines regarding LITERAL “(” or “)” in
markdown link titles](https://www.ioccc.org/markdown.html#parentheses)
in order to your mod to pass the web site test code.
We also modified the references in the FAQ, as per your suggestion.
We also performed needed changes to update the associated HTML files.
We thank you for recommending this change.
Stay tuned for the update.
We set dates and times for when IOCCC28 will go into pending state,
open state, and judging state. These dates are subject to change until
the content enters the open state.
Modified both `next/guidelines.md` and `next/rules.md` as per the
IOCCC28 dates and times.
Improve the `next/guidelines.md` and `next/rules.md` text around IOCCC28 dates and times.
We processed the XXX's in markdown files that needed processing.
Fixed a minor typo in `bin/cvt-submission.sh`.
Made some minor formatting improvements to `faq.md`, `next/register.md`,
`next/rules.md`, `next/guidelines.md`, `README.md` and `index.md`.
Updated "Rule 3" in `next/rules.md` in regards to the above.
Updated "Rule 8" in `next/rules.md` in regards to the above.
Changed `faq.md` version from **28.1.8 2024-12-07**
to **28.2.0 2024-12-28**.
Changed `next/guidelines.md` version from **28.29 2024-12-27**
to **28.30 2024-12-28**.
Changed `next/rules.md` version from **28.14 2024-12-07**
to **28.15 2024-12-28**.
TODO: Review these changes.
The menu in all html pages for the FAQ was fixed to link to the step 0
(of how to enter the contest) and also it was renamed ('Enter the
IOCCC').
I also went through the most important sections of the FAQ (how to
enter and the mkiocccentry related questions) and checked the
register.html, pw-change.html and submit.html pages. It is possible I
have missed something but I think it's in pretty good shape nonetheless.
Some broken links were fixed in some of the files like next/index.html,
next/pw-change.html, next/index.html and status.html.
Some wrong images were used in next/submit.html (or at least referred to
wrong if not wrong image).
Useful update to FAQ about the answers file in mkiocccentry.
There might have been other things.
This might be all that is needed for next/ wrt the register/change
password/submit but it's possible something has slipped through.
Cody Boone Ferguson