Welcome to Al Zimmermann's Programming Contests. You've entered
an arena where demented computer programmers compete for glory and for the
adulation of their peers.
I run one or two contests per year. Each contest asks that you come up with your
best solutions to a set of computationally intensive problems, generally involving
sophisticated heuristics. Although I speak
of "programming contests", technically you don't need to write a computer program to
enter. You can enter whether you use a computer, manual calculations, or tea leaves
to solve the problems. You send me solutions, not programs.
To enter a contest, you must
register.
Once registered, you submit your solutions through this website. You get instant
feedback and your name immediately appears on the contest's standings page where, if
you've done well, you can start to bask in some of that aforementioned glory.