Re: A Philly Lambda Project

["Jonathan Tran" <jonnytran@gmail.com>]

On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 10:31 AM, Andrew Gwozdziewycz <apgwoz@gmail.com> wrote:
>>  We could even write the solutions in multiple languages for
>>  comparison.  Another way of putting it is larger and more practical
>>  projecteuler.net problems that once you've done, you might actually be
>>  able to use for something.
>
> This is potentially a great idea. Practical Euler.

Some thoughts I had from a conversation with Aaron...  sorry if it's a
little disconnected.

I'm thinking of making something like projecteuler but less math and
more CS/programming problems.

No one has to join in w/ others if they don't want.  But just by doing
the problems/submitting, they are helping the community.  It would
help people learn fp or any other CS/programming concept.

For those that do want to collaborate, they can work on the actual
site where people submit to.

And I was thinking... the problems -- instead of arbitrary puzzles --
could lead up to something.  The idea is that the problems would be
fun to hackers.  People could use any languages and maybe down the
road even submit their code to be executed/checked automatically.

People could possibly contribute to the problem set also.  But as I
was saying, I have plans for them leading somewhere, so it probably
won't be completely open.

I don't know about you, but for me, project euler was fun for the
hacking.  But things just got too mathy.  I'm not a mathematician.
That sort of thing is just not interesting to me.  But... finding the
median of a list in O(n) is.  Finding the longest palindrome in a
string in O(n) is.  String searching in O(n + m) is.  Quines.  Max
flow.  Hashing.  Compression.  ... That sort of thing.

Plus, I like to build things I can use.  So my 2nd idea is that once
you do 20 or so small problems, there will be a problem that says
something like... "Use the solutions from the last 20 problems to
build a ______".  And hopefully the thing will be somewhat usable.
Perhaps not necessarilly the _most_ useful thing in the world, but at
least a good starting point to build off of.

When all is said and done, I'm proposing a project that I think a lot
of people could benefit from.  ...from collaborating on the site
itself, learning by doing the problems, teaching others when you find
an interesting solution, and from just having plain old fun hacking.

I think this fits just about all our criteria so far, as a proof of
concept could be churned out over a weekend.  I want to keep everyone
in the loop though, as I can't do this alone.

Jonathan