[pgh-pm] Anyone Interested in ICFP

[Tom Moertel]

Casey West wrote:
> http://icfpc.plt-scheme.org/
> 
> I want to get a team together for this.

Cool.

> - I don't know any functional programming languages well enough to enter
>   on my own (But I will learn one of the teams choosing).

You don't need to know any FP languages to enter the ICFP programming 
contest.  Any language (or combination of languages) is fine.  Perl 
would be perfectly acceptable.

This is *not* to say that learning an FP language would be a bad idea, 
just that it's not required for the contest.

> - Entering on my own sounds dangerous to my health.

It is.  That's what I did in 2001, and I came close to spontaneous 
cranial combustion.  It's far better to code with a team of fun folks 
who can moderate one's natural tendencies toward overworking.

> - I want a team of smart people to help me solve the problem.

If you have the opportunity, have the team code together on a 
non-trivial project before the contest -- a "code camp" of sorts. 
(Challenge tasks from past contests would make good projects.)  Even 
smart people can bog one another down if their working styles don't 
mesh.  In the 2003 contest, for example, I worked with a bunch of 
friends from #haskell and we lost productivity by having to coordinate 
excessively via IRC in order to compensate for lack of experience as a team.

Co-location would be a great help.  (On the other hand, in 2003 our team 
did gain something by having members working in the US, Sweden, and 
Japan -- round-the-clock coding.)  If co-lo isn't practical, a good VoIP 
system would be the next best thing.

> - It would be fun.

Absolutely.  I would go so far as to recommend *making* fun a 
requirement:  Have everybody agree that the goal of the team is to have 
fun first and to be competitive second.  Otherwise, it's all to easy to 
lose perspective and stress out.

> - I'm totally committed to driving to YAPC late Sunday night if it takes
>   that long to solve the problem (It probably would.)

Yeah, that's a rather unlucky scheduling conflict.  Initial contest 
entries are due 10 AM EDT on the Monday that YAPC starts.  Seems there's 
no way to attend YAPC and not lose a big chunk of time for the ICFP contest.

Of course, if fun is the goal more so than competitiveness, this isn't a 
problem.  I would be fine with agreeing to cut the contest time short in 
order to have a sane YAPC drive.

> - I have never entered before but it sounds like a lot of fun.

It is fun.  Very fun.  I highly recommend the contest.

For the 2001 contest I kept a journal, which provides a good idea of 
what the contest "feels" like.  Check it out if you want a first-hand 
perspective:

     http://www.moertel.com/~thor/icfp2001/
     http://www.moertel.com/~thor/icfp2001/log.txt

Cheers,
Tom