Yet Another Software Challenge

[yanosc]

If you're mad about software riddles, just have a look at
http://software.challenge.googlepages.com and challenge yourself or
invite your friends to join.

Be prepared to spend some nights there!

Enjoy!

Thierry

 

[Richard Heathfield]

(e-mail address removed) said:

If you're mad about software riddles

Anyone who puts almost 1700 characters on a single line has a lot to
learn about writing good software.

For the benefit of the paranoid (or those with weird newsreaders), I
have replaced all < and > with [ and ], but otherwise what follows is a
verbatim quote of a single line from that page. And well, I mean look
at it... I mean... REALLY! Sheesh, etc.

[div class="content-item"][div id='g_body'][p
style="text-align: center; clear: both;" class="separator"][a
style="border: 0pt none ; background-color: transparent; margin-left:
1em; margin-right: 1em;" href="PaCha009.jpg/PaCha009-full.jpg"
imageanchor="1"][img
src="PaCha009.jpg/PaCha009-custom;size:406,272.jpg" style="border: 0pt
none ;" height="272" width="406"][/a][/p][p style="text-align:
center;"][font color="#cc33cc" face="times new roman,serif"
size="4"]&quot;Tout ce qui est impossible reste Ã| accomplir&quot;
- Jules VerneÂ| [/font][/p][p][font size="4"]This site presents a
brand new programming challenge.[/font][br][font
size="4"][/font][br][font size="4"]Its aim is just to let you challenge
and improve your programming skills, with
fun.[/font][br][br][font size="4"]Switch your air cooler
[/font][font size="4"]on, [/font][font size="4"]because your brain is
likely to really [font color="#ff0000"]warm up[/font] and your computer
as well![/font][br][/p][p style="text-align: center; clear: both;"
class="separator"][a style="border: 0pt none ; background-color:
transparent; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"
href="ignition.jpg/ignition-full.jpg" imageanchor="1"][img
src="ignition.jpg/ignition-medium.jpg" style="border: 0pt none
;"][/a][/p][p]There are currently [font
color="#ffff66"]19[/font] stages and you're the [a
href="http://www.statcounter.com/" target="_blank"][img
src="http://c25.statcounter.com/counter....;java=0&amp;security=eb37b012&amp;invisible=0"
alt="blog stats" border="0"][/a] th visitor.[/p][p]Remember that
programming is not all about software engineering.[/p][h3]Hints:[/h3]

 

[yanosc]

Dear Mr. Heathfield,

I really appreciate your very fruitfull comment, especially because
I'm an ardent promoter of lifelong learning. Therefore, I'm always
willing to learn more! Nevertheless, you should address your
"compliment" directly to Google, who generates automatically the HTML
code sent to your browser. If you were less quick to insult people you
don't know, you would have noticed that the site is hosted as a
googlepages and thus I'm not accountable for the HTML code generated.

Thierry.

Medice, cure te ipsum

(e-mail address removed) said:

If you're mad about software riddles

Anyone who puts almost 1700 characters on a single line has a lot to
learn about writing good software.

For the benefit of the paranoid (or those with weird newsreaders), I
have replaced all < and > with [ and ], but otherwise what follows is a
verbatim quote of a single line from that page. And well, I mean look
at it... I mean... REALLY! Sheesh, etc.

[div class="content-item"][div id='g_body'][p
style="text-align: center; clear: both;" class="separator"][a
style="border: 0pt none ; background-color: transparent; margin-left:
1em; margin-right: 1em;" href="PaCha009.jpg/PaCha009-full.jpg"
imageanchor="1"][img
src="PaCha009.jpg/PaCha009-custom;size:406,272.jpg" style="border: 0pt
none ;" height="272" width="406"][/a][/p][p style="text-align:
center;"][font color="#cc33cc" face="times new roman,serif"
size="4"]&quot;Tout ce qui est impossible reste Ã| accomplir&quot;
- Jules VerneÂ| [/font][/p][p][font size="4"]This site presents a
brand new programming challenge.[/font][br][font
size="4"][/font][br][font size="4"]Its aim is just to let you challenge
and improve your programming skills, with
fun.[/font][br][br][font size="4"]Switch your air cooler
[/font][font size="4"]on, [/font][font size="4"]because your brain is
likely to really [font color="#ff0000"]warm up[/font] and your computer
as well![/font][br][/p][p style="text-align: center; clear: both;"
class="separator"][a style="border: 0pt none ; background-color:
transparent; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"
href="ignition.jpg/ignition-full.jpg" imageanchor="1"][img
src="ignition.jpg/ignition-medium.jpg" style="border: 0pt none
;"][/a][/p][p]There are currently [font
color="#ffff66"]19[/font] stages and you're the [a
href="http://www.statcounter.com/" target="_blank"][img
src="http://c25.statcounter.com/counter.php?sc_project=2484834&java=0&..."
alt="blog stats" border="0"][/a] th visitor.[/p][p]Remember that
programming is not all about software engineering.[/p][h3]Hints:[/h3]

 

[yanosc]

Anyone who posts such a message has a lot to learn about propriety,
tact and self-control!

Before making public your post, whose the true intention is rather
curious, you would have been well inspired to send it privately the
author of the challenge before. In this way, you would have avoid to
be ridiculous!

Thierry

(e-mail address removed) said:

If you're mad about software riddles

Anyone who puts almost 1700 characters on a single line has a lot to
learn about writing good software.

For the benefit of the paranoid (or those with weird newsreaders), I
have replaced all < and > with [ and ], but otherwise what follows is a
verbatim quote of a single line from that page. And well, I mean look
at it... I mean... REALLY! Sheesh, etc.

[div class="content-item"][div id='g_body'][p
style="text-align: center; clear: both;" class="separator"][a
style="border: 0pt none ; background-color: transparent; margin-left:
1em; margin-right: 1em;" href="PaCha009.jpg/PaCha009-full.jpg"
imageanchor="1"][img
src="PaCha009.jpg/PaCha009-custom;size:406,272.jpg" style="border: 0pt
none ;" height="272" width="406"][/a][/p][p style="text-align:
center;"][font color="#cc33cc" face="times new roman,serif"
size="4"]&quot;Tout ce qui est impossible reste Ã| accomplir&quot;
- Jules VerneÂ| [/font][/p][p][font size="4"]This site presents a
brand new programming challenge.[/font][br][font
size="4"][/font][br][font size="4"]Its aim is just to let you challenge
and improve your programming skills, with
fun.[/font][br][br][font size="4"]Switch your air cooler
[/font][font size="4"]on, [/font][font size="4"]because your brain is
likely to really [font color="#ff0000"]warm up[/font] and your computer
as well![/font][br][/p][p style="text-align: center; clear: both;"
class="separator"][a style="border: 0pt none ; background-color:
transparent; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"
href="ignition.jpg/ignition-full.jpg" imageanchor="1"][img
src="ignition.jpg/ignition-medium.jpg" style="border: 0pt none
;"][/a][/p][p]There are currently [font
color="#ffff66"]19[/font] stages and you're the [a
href="http://www.statcounter.com/" target="_blank"][img
src="http://c25.statcounter.com/counter.php?sc_project=2484834&java=0&..."
alt="blog stats" border="0"][/a] th visitor.[/p][p]Remember that
programming is not all about software engineering.[/p][h3]Hints:[/h3]

 

[Richard Heathfield]

(e-mail address removed) said:

Dear Mr. Heathfield,

I really appreciate your very fruitfull comment, especially because
I'm an ardent promoter of lifelong learning.

Glad to hear it.

Therefore, I'm always willing to learn more!

Glad to hear that, too. Learn why top-posting is a lousy idea. Learn to
snip irrelevant context.

Nevertheless, you should address your
"compliment" directly to Google, who generates automatically the HTML
code sent to your browser.

<shrug> It's your data, not mine. If you want to fix it, fix it
(possibly by finding a different host). If you don't want to fix it,
don't. Your choice.

Thierry.

Medice, cure te ipsum

If you have an example of poor HTML for which I'm responsible on a site
to which I have write access, by all means let me know and I'll do my
very best to fix it. You see, I too am always willing to learn.

<snip>

 

[yanosc]

(e-mail address removed) said:



Glad to hear it.


Glad to hear that, too. Learn why top-posting is a lousy idea. Learn to
snip irrelevant context.


<shrug> It's your data, not mine. If you want to fix it, fix it
(possibly by finding a different host). If you don't want to fix it,
don't. Your choice.



If you have an example of poor HTML for which I'm responsible on a site
to which I have write access, by all means let me know and I'll do my
very best to fix it. You see, I too am always willing to learn.

So, start by fix this one:
http://www.samspublishing.com/authors/bio.asp?a=6af3c790-dae2-48c1-a425-e1fb52ede736&rl=1

 

[Richard Heathfield]

(e-mail address removed) said:

So, start by fix this one:

http://www.samspublishing.com/authors/bio.asp?a=6af3c790-dae2-48c1-a425-e1fb52ede736&rl=1

Whilst I did indeed write the text that is shown at that site, to place
the text there was not my choice, the HTML there is the responsibility
of SAMS (because they composed that page), and I don't have write
access to that site. It is therefore impossible for me to fix or remove
it. If you have an example of poor HTML for which I'm responsible on a
site to which I have write access, by all means let me know and I'll do
my very best to fix it.

In future, before you respond to an article, please read it properly.
Thank you.

 

[John Smith]

(e-mail address removed) said:

If you're mad about software riddles

Anyone who puts almost 1700 characters on a single line has a lot to
learn about writing good software.

For the benefit of the paranoid (or those with weird newsreaders), I
have replaced all < and > with [ and ], but otherwise what follows is a
verbatim quote of a single line from that page. And well, I mean look
at it... I mean... REALLY! Sheesh, etc.

What is the positive value of remarks like these? The OP is
well-intentioned and the site is functional. Why not just let
trivial issues pass? It's getting to the point where a RH post is
more likely to contain niggling criticism and sarcasm than
helpful information.

JS

 

[Richard Heathfield]

John Smith said:

(e-mail address removed) said:

If you're mad about software riddles

Anyone who puts almost 1700 characters on a single line has a lot to
learn about writing good software.

For the benefit of the paranoid (or those with weird newsreaders), I
have replaced all < and > with [ and ], but otherwise what follows is
a verbatim quote of a single line from that page. And well, I mean
look at it... I mean... REALLY! Sheesh, etc.

What is the positive value of remarks like these? The OP is
well-intentioned and the site is functional.

It is? How strange. It crashed my browser, so I couldn't tell.

Why not just let trivial issues pass?

You mean, follow your lead?

It's getting to the point where a RH post is
more likely to contain niggling criticism and sarcasm than
helpful information.

You know where your killfile is, I presume.

 

[Jürgen Exner]

If you're mad about software riddles, just have a look at
http://software.challenge.googlepages.com and challenge yourself or
invite your friends to join.

I suppose the first riddle is to find out how to use that web page. In
short: poor design because it gives no indication to the user what to do
next or in this case where to start.

And what does it have to do with Perl?

Be prepared to spend some nights there!

Nope, sorry. I don't play guessing games with random clicks somewhere on
some web page.

jue

 

[yanosc]

Dear Mr. Heathfield,

Your arguments are really amazing. You're stating that you're not
responsible for the HTML of your site. Exactly like me because mine is
generated by Google. Anywway, the polemic you have created yourself
has ABSOLUTELY no interest. Nobody care to know if HTML code has to
have less of 120 characters/line or not, especially when generated by
third party robots. The more you post the more you dig your own hole.
The site purpose is to let people learn programming and a lot of other
things through problem-solving with fun. If you don't like it, just
don't use it. If the site crashes your browser, post me privately an
email so that I investigate together with Google.

Moreover you've reproduced there, without my authorization, a part of
my site with is COPYRIGHTED and thus you've infringed my rights while
these copyrights are clearly expressed on the homepage and in the
Terms of Use. So before violating publicly copyrights, read carefully
the Terms of Use!

Thierry

 

[yanosc]

I suppose the first riddle is to find out how to use that web page. In
short: poor design because it gives no indication to the user what to do
next or in this case where to start.

You're absolutely wrong! Where to start is clearly shown. Thousands of
people have succeed so far..

And what does it have to do with Perl?

You've to try to know!

Nope, sorry. I don't play guessing games with random clicks somewhere on
some web page.

You're free. There is no random clicks. This is a software challenge.

 

[dilbert1999]

(e-mail address removed) said:

Anyone who puts almost 1700 characters on a single line has a lot to
learn about writing good software.

Well, I counted not 1700, but around 117000 chars on that single line.

I consider this software riddle a great exercise for anybody who
thinks about starting a career in the software industry.

I already work in the software industry and my PHB usually uses the
following technique halfway between any two performance reviews:

* He asks me to create for him a small "Report" (in M$ Excel, of
course) with the latest sales figures, no more than a fifty lines or
so.
* He then takes that document with him, adding a couple of lines, not
many, the document would still be less than a houndred lines.
* Then, to sum up the document, he starts adding Excel formulas,
ridiculously complicated and nested, for example to find the text
between the 4th and the 5th "&"-character in a single cell "C60", he
would add:
=MID(C60, FIND("&",C60, FIND("&",C60, FIND("&",C60,
FIND("&",C60,1)+1)+1)+1), FIND("&",C60, FIND("&",C60, FIND("&",C60,
FIND("&",C60, FIND("&",C60,1)+1)+1)+1)+1) - FIND("&",C60,
FIND("&",C60, FIND("&",C60, FIND("&",C60,1)+1)+1)+1)+1)
* finally, to render the document unusable, he adds a couple of
=VLOOKUP() formulas with references to some external documents which
are held on an external server with a slow bitrate connection. So
whenever you move your mouse-pointer in explorere.exe anywhere near
the *.xls document (...and you don't have to open excel to feel the
experience...), your whole PC freezes up and you have to wait 20
minutes for the time-out or do the "Ctrl-Alt-Del".
* He saves the document on a floppy disk, gives me that floppy disks
and asks me to calculate the total sales figure. Of course, he does
not hesitate to point out that it's only a houndred lines, so this
should not be difficult.


Ok, I fall in that "Ctrl-Alt-Del" trap each and every time, I then
reboot my PC, disable my network connection and rename the *.xls into
*.txt format. I then, of course, have a text file the size of about of
100K, most of which are control characters, basically all in one
single line.

I used to open it up in wordpad.exe and use Ctrl-F to more or less
guess where the sales figures are, but I have got myself into PERL
recently and things are looking much better now.

 

[John Smith]

John Smith said:

(e-mail address removed) said:



If you're mad about software riddles


Anyone who puts almost 1700 characters on a single line has a lot to
learn about writing good software.

For the benefit of the paranoid (or those with weird newsreaders), I
have replaced all < and > with [ and ], but otherwise what follows is
a verbatim quote of a single line from that page. And well, I mean
look at it... I mean... REALLY! Sheesh, etc.

What is the positive value of remarks like these? The OP is
well-intentioned and the site is functional.

It is? How strange. It crashed my browser, so I couldn't tell.

It works fine with mine. Try Mozilla Firefox.

You mean, follow your lead?




You know where your killfile is, I presume.

No intention of doing that. You're a valuable asset to this forum
when you can manage to refrain from petty bickering. You may have
the last word and that's the end of it.

JS

 

[Al Balmer]

Dear Mr. Heathfield,

Your arguments are really amazing. You're stating that you're not
responsible for the HTML of your site.

? I thought he was saying that it's not his site. The site belongs to
Sam's Publishing, a well known book publisher. You might have guessed
that from the URL, but here's a blurb:
http://www.samspublishing.com/about/index.asp?rl=1

 

[Al Balmer]

Moreover you've reproduced there, without my authorization, a part of
my site with is COPYRIGHTED and thus you've infringed my rights while
these copyrights are clearly expressed on the homepage and in the
Terms of Use. So before violating publicly copyrights, read carefully
the Terms of Use!

You need to do a bit of research on copyrights. Especially, note the
provisions for fair use, which Richard's posting is an excellent
example of.

Just look at all the opportunities you have to learn more!

 

[Al Balmer]

You're absolutely wrong! Where to start is clearly shown. Thousands of
people have succeed so far..

I couldn't find it, either. I suspect that you're using some html
which is not interpreted by Firefox.

 

[CBFalconer]

I really appreciate your very fruitfull comment, especially because
I'm an ardent promoter of lifelong learning. Therefore, I'm always
willing to learn more! Nevertheless, you should address your
"compliment" directly to Google, who generates automatically the HTML
code sent to your browser. If you were less quick to insult people you
don't know, you would have noticed that the site is hosted as a
googlepages and thus I'm not accountable for the HTML code generated.

Please do not top-post. Your answer belongs after (or intermixed
with) the quoted material to which you reply, after snipping all
irrelevant material. See the following links:

--
<http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>
<http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html>
<http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html>
<http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/> (taming google)
<http://members.fortunecity.com/nnqweb/> (newusers)

 

[Keith Thompson]

You're absolutely wrong! Where to start is clearly shown. Thousands of
people have succeed so far..

[...]

Ok, I think I figured out how to proceed from the first page. (I
won't post details, just in case anyone actually cares about solving
it.)

The resulting page shows an image, which I suppose might mean
something, but I have no idea where I'm supposed to go from there.

Maybe I'm missing something really clever, but the whole thing looks
boring and frustrating.

Incidentally, your Terms of Use page says, among other things:

By accessing or using this Site in any way, including, without
limitation, using or downloading any Content, or merely browsing
the Site, you agree to and are bound by the Terms of Use.

For the record, I do not agree to any such terms.

 

[Lionel B]

If you're mad about software riddles, just have a look at
http://software.challenge.googlepages.com and challenge yourself or
invite your friends to join.

That site appears to be badly broken. Tried it in Firefox and Opera and
the only links (appart from the "Relevant Link" section) appear to lead
to jpegs.