Regarding the brute-force approach, this rule pretty much covers it:
Quote:


  • The UDF is expected to finish in a reasonable time, e.g. if it gets started when the challenge opens, it's expected to be finished by the time the challenge closes even on a somewhat slow computer. The UDF has to be valid during the period that the challenge runs.




  • plus I have the ultimate say:
    Quote:


    6) In case of questions about a particular way to count the KiXtart Golf Challenge organizer has the last call.




    We do have a precedence where we allowed a brute-force approach in the CD Sorter challenge.

    However, I am currently running Jooel's initial solution. On a rather fast computer (AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+), the brute-force approach requires on average 2 seconds to rotate through 10.000 numbers. This highest number I have in my private test cases is ::||| ::||| ::||| ::||| ::||| ::||| ::|||=1279999999. This number alone will require three days to compute. Thus, I believe that this violates the "reasonable time" rule as throwing in a single additional test, e.g. 1279999998 case will make the brute-force approach run well after the conclusion of the public round.

    Therefore the brute-force approaches, while a creative demonstration, will not qualify for valid KiXgolf scores under the "reasonable time" rule.

    Regarding changing the parameters inside the FUNCTION line, there is no rule covering this. I am tending to continue allowiing this as there might be a tournament where one want to add an addtional OPTIONAL parameter into the function call in order to implement some kind of recrsive solution. There is a precedence where I changed the names of the parameters inside the FUNCTION mid-tournament in order to not penalize a recursive solution, thus it's kind-of a precedent.

    After the conclusion of this tournament, I will post the updated rules for discussion.


    Edited by sealeopard (2006-07-24 04:42 AM)
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