Best of PPCG 2019 — Call for Categories [duplicate]

Question

Last year we voted for the best posts of 2018 and rewarded them with bounties and challenges. I think it's a great way to reward and draw attention to some of the best content the community has created throughout the year, so let's do that again. (And hopefully, this year, we'll be able to sort everything out before half a year has passed.)

First off, we'll need categories again, which you can nominate here. Each answer should contain a category for a challenge or answer to be rewarded. The top-voted categories will then receive separate nomination posts to find the actual winners. Like last year, I'm not going to state a fixed number of categories that will make it, but it's probably going to be between 5 and 15 again (last year, we went with 14 categories).

Feel free to resubmit proposals from last year regardless of whether they were among the final 14 or not.

Voting will probably last for about two weeks, but this period can be extended if needed.

---

Offered Bounties

As a further note, we'll need reputation rewards again, so if you're willing to spend some of your reputation on a bounty for one of the winners, feel free to edit your name into this list or leave a comment to indicate that you're willing.

Users that have offered a bounty:

• DJMcMayhem Offering a 500 rep bounty

• Adám Offering 1E4 rep

• isaacg Offering 2000 rep

• Giuseppe offering 500 rep

• Kevin Cruijssen offering 1000 rep

• Kritixi Lithos offering 2E3 rep

Answer 1

Best mathematical insight

Repost of 2018

On this site we often see answers in languages specifically designed for short code, or designed to be fast. Sometimes, a nice golfing trick or speed-up technique surprises us with its ingenuity, beyond the standard use of that language.

And occasionally an answer shows up that uses an unexpected approach to greatly simplify the problem, and makes us wonder how the author could ever think of that. This usually involves some far-from-obvious mathematical equivalence, or a particularly simple approach to the problem that was not evident at all (once revealed, other answers often follow the same approach).

This category is for the answer with the best mathematical insight or unexpected approach that led to greatly simplifying the problem, in any challenge type (code golf, fastest code, or others). The insight should have led to a significant improvement according to the challenge's metric (code length, run time, or whatever applicable).

Answer 2

Rookie of the Year - Challenges

Repost of 2018

For the best challenge written by someone who has not written a challenge prior to 2019 (i.e., not necessarily a new user, just a new challenge writer).

Answer 3

Best Non-Code-Golf Challenge

Best challenge whose winning criteria did not include any code-golfing. King of the Hill, Fastest Code, etc. would be eligible. Proof Golf, atomic-code-golf, etc. are also included. Anything that's not the standard "shortest code length" is eligible.

Answer 4

Most Collaborative Answer

goes to one that incorporates significant ideas from as many users as possible

Answer 5

Most elegant spec

Repost of 2018

Writing an interesting challenge is tough, not just in thinking up a good idea, but in specifying it clearly enough without taking pages of text. This category is for challenges whose specification is a pleasure to read, summing up exactly what is required succinctly and unambiguously.

Answer 6

Most helpful Sandbox commenter

Rewards a kind soul who took the time and effort to read through challenges in the Sandbox and give helpful feedback.

(I guess a bounty here would be awarded to one of the winner's questions or answers of their choosing.)

Answer 7

Wild card

For a deserving challenge or answer that isn't a good fit for any of the other categories.

Answer 8

Best Explained Answer

Awarded to a user who explains a complex solution in the best way.

Answer 9

Best tip

Best answer to a tips question.

Answer 10

Best Non-Code-Golf Answer

Best answer to a challenge whose winning criteria did not include any code-golfing. King of the Hill, Fastest Code, etc. would be eligible. Proof Golf, atomic-code-golf, etc. are also included. Anything that's not the standard "shortest code length" is eligible.

Answer 11

Most unexpected approach

Awarded to the author of the solution to a challenge that is completely different from the obvious approaches, especially if it beats all other answers.

Answer 12

Trickiest Challenge

It should look simple and tempt you to start coding right away, but coming up with a good solution should be hard.

Answer 13

Most Clever Optimization

When an existing answer is optimized with a bizarre and surprising change.

An off-site real-world example would be the fast inverse square root hack.

Answer 14

Best Above-and-Beyond Answer

Repost of last year's

Every once in a while, an answer takes the challenge to the extreme. This prize will be awarded to an answer which went far beyond the expectations of the challenge. This could include

• a code golf answer that brute-forced/proved the shortest program in some language
• a graphical-output popcon answer of extreme size and quality
• a KOTH answer of high complexity which absolutely dominated the competition

Answer 15

Unique idea

Awarded to the first person that doesn't use the algorithm that all answerers up to that person of the challenge use in the challenge. E.g. this is an example of a "unique idea".

Answer 16

Most Unconventional Non-esoteric Language

Goes to a user who uses a language not normally associated with programming challenges.

Answer 17

Most Flexible Spec

Awarded to the author of a challenge that enables the widest variety of solutions.