Interest in Programming Competition?

[Astronouth7303]

@mtrawls

I must say I’m a bit confused as to the reference to pig farmers … but, notwithstanding that, what exaxtly is the purpose of a “full-out, tricked-out, customizable-inside-out, big simulator”? So far as a simple programming competition, it is overkill.

It was a spotlight for a while. Check here specifically.

@mtrawls

Java is C/C++ with graphical capacities? Do you mean to imply that C/C++ do not have graphical capacities? That would suprise some people!

No kidding. It’s just that graphics aren’t as native to C++ as they are to Java. It was made back in dos days.

@mtrawls

Well I guess it all goes back to what is the point of the competition. It seems it is intended to be “just an algorith competition” – something simple, quick and fun. Sure, it would be neat to build a complex application capable of all sorts of fanciful things … but you have to think about the practicability of it all! Those sorts of things take many many man hours, multiple programmers and consist largely of debugging – meanwhile, you’d have to compete with time for school, work, FIRST, etc. The point of a simple “just an algorithm” contest is just that – it is simple. It can be done quickly, be fun and still educational. Programming a full scale application and getting it ready to distribute to teams like you suggest is tantamount to taking on a software engineer’s job full time!

EXACTLY! That’s the point!
Ok, not quite. but part of it is that urge to cram all the fetures you can.

@mtrawls

Now granted I haven’t done a lot of programming on major projects; but I have done a little bit of it all by my lonesome on some smaller scale, but still complex projects, and like to think that I have some sort of idea about what I am talking about. It seems like you don’t realize the amount of time, frustration, etc. that has to go into something like this … and you have to decide if it is worth it, i.e., what you’ll get from it. And it may very well be a lot … but I think a lot of people here would have trouble finding time for it all while being in FIRST, school, job, etc.

That’s why I haven’t tried on my own. Under author, it will have “ChiefDelphi Community”.

@mtrawls

As a challenge to those who suggest these complex features, and to get everyone thinking on what exactly is required for such an application … come up with a fairly detailed framework (no coding required) for the system you’d like.

Again, check the thread above. I want some feedback on the idea so far before a make a big list of classes, methods, purposes, etc.