Announcing the CodeGolf.SE First Periodic Premier Programming Puzzle Push

Question

This Programming Push has ended ::sigh:: But we may do another in a few weeks or months, and your high quality contributions are always welcome.

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Whereas

• The site has suffered from low traffic for weeks
• We've been in beta for 86 days and our numbers are marginal
• Too many recent question have been both too easy and poorly specified
• Users are complaining of lack of motivation due to a low voting rate

we are seeking users willing to commit to improving the site.

Your mission

should you chose to accept it—is

1. To write one (1) really good programming puzzle of any kind and post it to the site sometime in the next two (2) weeks.
2. To answer at least two of these puzzles within one (1) week of their posting with a completely compliant, well written answer.
3. To vote (up or down) on at least four (4) of these questions, and if voting down to truthfully and tactfully explain why.
4. To vote (up or down) on at least eight (8) answers to these questions, and if voting down to truthfully and tactfully explain why.

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In addition to the existing puzzle lab chat and the meta sandbox for questions, the answers to this post can serve as a place for vetting proposed questions and coordinating activities related to The Push.

Per Joey's suggestion, puzzles submitted as part of this event may (should?) be marked "1P5" if they have been discussed in the above places to insure high quality.

Answer 1

Herein a list of vague ideas which anyone could try to develop into a proper puzzle.

• code-golf Implement the classic "Animals" question--answer game.

• code-golf Write a minimal implementation of make (1) in which the only language construct accepted is <target> ":" <dependency>* "\n" ["\t" <command> "\n"]* with the usual meaning (if any dependency is older than target run all the commands). No variable, no automatic rules, no anything except temporal dependencies. But it should sort out the dependency graph so that nothing is run out of order.

• I've posted a suggestion for two new contest types: king-of-the-hill and ai-player. If these are accepted by the community here their very newness might provoke interest.

• Polygon optimization. Input is a list of points. Output a grouping of those points into one or more closed (possibly convex) polygons such that [the perimeter is minimized|other condition].

• Constructive planar geometry. With axis-aligned rectangles as a code-golf or more generally as a longer challenge.

• code-golf Watersheds. Input is a height map and a test point. Output is indicative of which direction the rain went. You'll need some way of distinguishing "oceans" in the input. How to handle test points on ridges, saddles, and hilltops, and how to handle local minima?

Feel free to list additional ideas that seem promising, but you don't have the time to develop.