Cody Boone Ferguson
8125a24fdb
A lot of the award titles that had more than one word capitalised were changed to just one word capitalised, the first. Some were changed to have multiple words capitalised. This happened when it was something like '... prize' or '... award'. An exception to this is 2020/ferguson1: 'Don't tread on me award'. This is because I am not quite sure if I like 'Don't Tread On Me Award' or if it should be 'Don't Tread on Me Award' (probably not that). For some like 'Grand Prize' or 'Bill Gates Award' it's simple but I'm not so sure for my Snake entry of 2020. I will try changing it and comparing it side-by-side to see which looks nicest. This commit should make it easier to update the form of the award titles in that they should all be consistent (or more consistent if not completely) though it should be noted that the macOS Numbers application (spreadsheet) is case-insensitive. A reason I did not change 'Don't tread on me award' to 'Don't Tread On Me Award', yet, besides the above reasons, is that it's a longer title and I am not sure how I like that many words capitalised. Still it's a title of a slogan/whatever so it might be better that way. This will be determined in the near future. The tmp/year_prize.numbers had the text size increased a fair bit as the default is too small for my pitiful vision (I changed it within reason as it can become harder in another way if it's too big - 16" MacBook Pro screen). One of the columns was also widened as it was too short even for the smaller size.
Fifteenth International Obfuscated C Code Contest
Standard IOCCC stuff
View the index.html web page for the given winning entry for information on how
on how to compile it and how to run the winning program.
Look at the winning source and try to figure how it does what it does!
You may then wish to look at the Author's remarks for even more details.
Use make to compile entries. It is possible that on non-Unix / non-Linux
systems the Makefile needs to be changed. See the Makefile for details.
Read over the Makefile for compile/build issues. Your system may
require certain changes (add or remove a library, add or remove a
#define).
Some ANSI C compilers are not quite as good as they should be. If yours is lacking, you may need to compile using gcc instead of your local compiler.
New Judge
The judges were unable to contact Jeremy Horn for judging the 2000 contest.
As a result, Simon Cooper joined our team. Simon is well known for being a co-author of the 2nd edition of the Building Internet Firewalls book.
Remarks on some of the entries
There were some outstanding entries that did not win. Unfortunately some very good entries lost because they:
- depended too much on non-portable side effects in expressions;
- depended too much on a particular byte order;
- required the use of a special script, data file or pseudo-machine language that was not supplied with the entry.
We hope the authors of some of those entries will fix and re-submit them for the next IOCCC.
We believe you will be impressed with this year's winning entries. The Best of Show is a fine example of compact obfuscation. But don't ignore the shorter entries. The Best Small Program, Best Abuse of User and Most Complete Program are well worth studying in detail.
The Worst Abuse of the Rules is technically allowed by the rules. We gave it an award this year, but don't assume you can get away with using it next time ... :-)
Speaking of time, be sure to check out the Astronomically Obfuscated and the Most Timely Output entries.
There was no 1999 contest
So what happened to 1999? Landon Curt Noll was scheduled to take a vacation from the IOCCC this year. The remaining judges were unable to contact Jeremy Horn, so the IOCCC stalled.
But thanks to Landon's returning early from his IOCCC vacation (Landon will take a full IOCCC vacation during some other year), Simon Cooper joining the IOCCC judging team as well as the hard work of Peter Seebach and Leonid A. Broukhis the judging was completed in Dec 2000.
It was decided that the 15th contest would be the year 2000 contest (the year the judging completed) rather than year 1999 (the initial scheduled start of the contest). That is why there is no 1999 contest.
NOTE: The above has been mentioned in an Amici Curiae for the DeCSS case. See BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE N SUPPORT OF APPELLANTS AND REVERSAL ...
Final Comments
Please send us comments and suggestions what we have expressed above. Also include anything else that you would like to see in future contests. Send such email to:
questions@ioccc.org
IMPORTANT NOTE: The email addresses found above are for historical purposes only, and should not be used today. See contact.html for up to date contact details as well as details on how to provide fixes to any of the entries. See also the IOCCC FAQ for additional information on the IOCCC.