Phoenix.pm: ICFP contest coming up

[Scott Walters]

Howdy folks...

Me not being ready and then scheduling conflicts delayed the next meeting
a while. Sorry about that.

The International Functional Programming Competition is upon us! Perl
has had numerous entries each and every year, and yet has never won.

Who will stand up and fight with me? Who will defend the honor and glory 
of Perl against cleaner, more elegant languages? 

http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/groups/icfpcontest/index.html

Top three entries (think there were 300 or so last year) win a trip
to the Functional Programming convention, in lovely Sweden this year,
and $1500 in prizes, too =)  Reguardless, it is always challenging,
open ended, and a wonderful way to have fun and improve your
hacking skills.

Entries need not be done in functional style, though the competitions
(algorithms, AI, etc) are designed to favor the style. Last year, I
did something with a basard mix of OO and functional programming that
still amuses the heck out of me. (Should code be funny? I don't know.)

The contest spans three days (take Monday off). Last year, the AI robots 
competed head to head and in an elimination to select the winner, so scoring is 
fair.

It starts this weekend, if I read it right. I'd love to get a band
of hackers together. If people want to spend (or all) of the three
days working in physical proximity, my home is available. I have
a guest room and a fold out couch. Safeway sells Jolt, and I can
stock up on organic sumatra. Sorry, Fountain Hills is a tweak
free zone. Go to Mesa for that. No one is too young or too old,
and intermediate and novice programmers are welcome.

To learn more about Functional Programming, poke at that site, or better
yet, go to http://perldesignpatterns.com/?FunctionalProgramming.

They can take our freedom, but they can never our pride!

-scott