A Challenge for all TDD programmers, ICFP

[Dave Harris]

john.wilkinson@spirentcom_removethis.com (John W. Wilkinson) wrote
(abridged): 1. the requirements are fully known and fixed

By the way, the requirements are not /that/ stable even as written. For
example the 3rd (2000) contest task description had 18 versions. I believe
all of these emerged during the course of the 3 days. Some of the teams
mention tracking the ever-changing requirements document as a significant
part of the challenge.

The 4th (2001) contest task description has 6 versions, and the 5th (2002)
only 3, so the organisers are getting better at it.

-- Dave Harris, Nottingham, UK

[John W. Wilkinson]

"Dave Harris" <brangdon@cix.co.uk> wrote in message
news:memo.20030625191559.60979B@brangdon.madasafish.com... john.wilkinson@spirentcom_removethis.com (John W. Wilkinson) wrote (abridged): 1. the requirements are fully known and fixed By the way, the requirements are not /that/ stable even as written. For example the 3rd (2000) contest task description had 18 versions. I believe all of these emerged during the course of the 3 days. Some of the teams mention tracking the ever-changing requirements document as a significant part of the challenge. The 4th (2001) contest task description has 6 versions, and the 5th (2002) only 3, so the organisers are getting better at it.

It would be big feather in the cap of TDD if a team used TDD and still did
well considering the limitations of such a small 'project'.

Of course, these competitions don't prove much, apart from the maxim that
the biggest factor in the success or failure of a project is the quality of
the team.

John

[Thaddeus L Olczyk]

On Wed, 25 Jun 2003 19:15 +0100 (BST), brangdon@cix.co.uk (Dave
Harris) wrote:
john.wilkinson@spirentcom_removethis.com (John W. Wilkinson) wrote(abridged): 1. the requirements are fully known and fixedBy the way, the requirements are not /that/ stable even as written. Forexample the 3rd (2000) contest task description had 18 versions. I believeall of these emerged during the course of the 3 days. Some of the teamsmention tracking the ever-changing requirements document as a significantpart of the challenge.
They included such things like::1.3 Added version number and change history.:1.10 Clarified definition of frac operator.:1.7 Fixed inc example.:1.6 Fixed swap example.:1.5 Fixed typo in divi/divf description; added text to clarify syntax.:1.4 Fixed mistake in factorial example.

Yep such things are really unstable.
The 4th (2001) contest task description has 6 versions, and the 5th (2002)only 3, so the organisers are getting better at it.
The fifth had 50.
( Revision 1.50 )

The change list only had thirteen entries in it.:Clarified what happens to dropped packages (see Packages):Scoring changed a bit (see Scoring):Clarified the validity of Pick and Drop commands (see Commands for the robots):Merged the X and Y replies from the server into one. (see Server's reply to commands).:Clarified weight limits (see Scoring):Clarified pick and drop with bad package ids (see Commands for the robots):Clarified carrying capacity and money limits (see Scoring):Clarified server reply to player (see Server Reply):Robot and package ids are integers (see Robots and Packages):Dead robots disappear (see Robots):Robot identifiers are positive integers.:Added example that shows that the list of robot updates might be empty. (see Server's reply to commands):Package identifiers are always non-negative.

They maintain a mailing list for questions during the comptetion and
modify the requirements accordingly.
They probably also tweak things they didn't get to before that.

--------------------------------------------------
Thaddeus L. Olczyk, PhD
Think twice, code once.