Monday, April 12, 2010

Magic Square Contest

ANNOUNCEMENT

James Youlton from Victorville, California has mostly been leading this contest thus far. However, he is now getting a serious challenge from Marcin Mucha (Poland) and Hermann Jurksch (Germany). The Germans are favored to do well here. Garr Godrey (Seattle) is fourth and all four contestants are within 0.04 points of one another. WOW!!!

One reader of the blog has informed me that some of my reporting is incorrect concerning the languages/algorithms/environments that are receiving mention.

Brainf*** has been talked about - it is a programming language known for its extreme minimalism and would be difficult to use in this contest. Brainf*** should be removed from the preferred list.

PowerShell is a scripting language for Windows and probably should not have been on the preferred list.

What seems to be clear is that the key to this contest is the algorithm selected and the diligence of the operator. Most languages should be able to implement a good algorithm.