Summary

The REALbasic Programming Contest 2005 is a Pentathlon of programming challenges for Amateurs and Advanced programmers. It rewards endurance and programming prowess in equal measure. Each challenge will consist of a problem to solve with a REALbasic program. We will time the execution of your program and the fastest program to complete the task will win!

Each individual event will run for six weeks and result in a maximum of 200 points for the fastest time. Bonus points are awarded for early entries, so get started right now!

We will award Gold, Silver, and Bronze places in each category (Amateur and Professional) for each event. Overall winners are those with the most total points after the five events are completed. The Grand Champion, the overall Gold Medalist, will receive the title of "REALbasic Programming Contest Champion 2005" and all the honors accorded with that title.

Aims

• The aim of the contest is to find the fastest correct solution to a given problem.
• The problems are to be based on real-life situations from all walks of life. Requests to deal with a specific problem for future events are welcome.
• The solution will serve as a learning example to the community like the lessons at REALBasic University.

Rules

• The contest is free and open to everyone except the organizers of the contest.
• There are two categories: Amateur and Professional. Beginners should enter the Amateur category and experienced programmers should enter the Professional category. Since it is impossible for us to decide whether you are a beginner or advanced, we leave it to you to decide which contest you enter. Both will have to solve a similar problem but the Professional problem will be more difficult.
• The submitted code needs to be cross-platform compatible.
• As most people do not have access to plugins the code needs to be pure REALBasic (this does allow for system specific calls etc as long as the program will run and function cross-platform). Solutions with plugins (like ElfData, the MonkeyBread Software plugins, or the Einhugur plugins) can be submitted "out-of-contest" for speed comparisons to see what is possible.
• All projects must be written in the current, shipping version of REALbasic at the time of the contest. You may not submit projects in alpha, beta, or other versions of REALbasic. You may use earlier versions of REALbasic as long as the project can compile in the current version.
• The source code will be made available to the REALbasic community at the end of the contest.
• The code needs to be well-documented to allow beginners to follow the logic of the solution. (To compare with Olympic figure skating or ski jumping: the fastest code is equivalent to "technical difficulty" while the documentation is "style.") Ideally the code includes a note outlining the solution.
• A project template and sample data are provided for the contest. However, the judging will be done with a different much larger set of data to emphasize differences in speed (there might be little difference using a 5,000-piece data set but significant differences using 100,000-piece set). This also precludes any data specific optimizations.
• You should place your code into a module and call it from the push button.
• The project includes a "test" button which will measure the time between pressing the button to start the calculation and the end of code execution and display it in a message box. The average of three runs is the contestant's time.
• The contest starts on the date specified and ends at midnight GMT on the day specified. Late entries can be entered out-of-contest only.
• Bonus points are awarded for early entry -- one bonus point for each week up to a maximum of 5 points.
• The first contest will start one week earlier to give some time to make the contest known.
• The decisions of the REALbasic Programming Contest 2005 judges are final.
• The organizers and sponsors of REALbasic Programming Contest 2005 are not responsible for lost or late entries for any reason.
• Contestants may submit more than one entry into the same event. This allows a contestant to submit different entries using different algorithms. Each entry will be judged independent on its own. The fastest entry gets the most points, pure and simple.

Prizes

• Amateurs compete for a range of prizes including software, REALbasic plugins, REALbasic Developer magazine subscriptions, REALbasic software upgrades, and more. We'll announce specific prizes later in the contest after we finalize our sponsors.
• Advanced programmers compete for the title of "REALbasic Programming Contest 2005 2005 Champion" and are not eligible for prizes.
• The Gold Medalist in each event will win a prize. All three overall finalists will win a prize, with the Grand Prize going the to the overall Gold Medalist.
• In addition, there's a special prize that will be "drawn out of a hat" and awarded to one lucky amateur simply for entering all five events!
• The winners of each event and the overall winners will be featured in REALbasic Developer magazine.

Submission Instructions

Rules for submissions must be followed or your project will be either outright rejected or entered into the "out-of-contest" category.

All submissions must include the following:

• your full name (first and last)
• your valid, active email address
• the entrant category: Amateur/Professional/Out-of-contest
• a compressed .ZIP or .SIT archive of your REALbasic project file and any needed resources (external classes, modules, pictures, sounds, etc.) required to compile your application. (If your program is an out-of-contest entry that uses third-part REALbasic plugins we may not have, please include at least one compiled, standalone application in Mac OS X, Windows, or Linux format for us to test.)

Send your project archive as an email attachment with the subject line "RBO Event x Submission" (where x is the event number you are entering) to .