Individual participation
The spring tournament will be held according to simplified rules with individual registrations only.
The Proggy-Buggy Contest is an international humorous programming competition that has been held annually since 2013. Over the past 7 years, around 5000 people have become participants in the Proggy-Buggy Contest. In 2021 we had 2000 participants from 26 countries. For the first time, we tested the online format for everyone who wants to join our movement. Another innovation of the last years was the division of participants into the Professionals and Beginners categories, which gave more chances to win for those who had no experience in solving contest problems.
The contest objective is to solve a maximum of 13 different tasks in under 42 minutes each. The winner is the team or individual participant, that solves the most tasks in the most effective way possible in the least amount of time.
Why is it humorous?
The tasks aren’t hard. But there are lots of them. Why 13? Because it’s 42! You don’t need out-of-this world programming knowledge, just general erudition and programming skills in any language. Some of the tasks given to be solved don’t even have a solution.
According to Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the number 42 is the universal answer to all questions of the universe.
When and where?
The Proggy-Buggy Humorous International Programming Contest will be held on May 25th, 2022. This year we run online and offline (in some locations) tournaments to attract even more participants.
25.05.2022 15:00 (UTC)
How is the competition designed?
One computer
The participant is allowed to use only one device from which the solutions will be sent to the server for verification.
Automatic answer scoring
Team answers are scored automatically on the dedicated server. Participants see what score they were given for their answers on the Internet in real time.
Many languages
The solution code can be written in one of many languages, and a complete list is given on the server.
The jury evaluates competitors based on the results of their automatically launched software solutions compiled on the server. The correctness and effectiveness of each team’s solutions (in terms of speed and memory usage) are taken into account.
Who can take part?
We invite students, developers, testers, and all passionate people with an understanding of how programs are written, what "console applications" and "standard input/output streams" are, and everyone who likes to solve unsolved problems.
Registration is done at the contest portal. Registration is “free”: just provide your email, to which you’ll get a link that you can use to complete registration.
Who is the winner?
The team or Participant that solves the maximum number of tasks while having the lowest penalty will be the winner. The penalty is the “total time” used to solve a task, which for each task is determined in the following way: The total time is the sum of the time consumed for each problem solved. The time consumed for a solved problem is the time elapsed from the beginning of the contest to the submittal of the first accepted run plus 20 penalty minutes for every previously rejected run for that problem. There is no time consumed for a problem that is not solved (https://icpc.baylor.edu/regionals/rules). All participants’ solved tasks will be automatically scored on a single server so that the winner can be determined quickly.
Traditionally we determine the winners for Amateurs and Professionals in the following categories:
- Honorary 1st place
- Honorary 2nd place
- Honorary 3rd place.
In addition, we have added extra categories:
- Prize for the very first correct solution to the problem.
- Prize for the shortest answer to a problem that has a solution.
- Prize for the first correct answer to a problem that has no solution.
- Honorable Mention for the team with the most penalty points.
The contest will have two types of participants:
- Amateurs (participants with no previous experience in the National Student (ACM ICPC) or School (IOI) Olympiad in programming or other programming competitions).
- Professionals (participants with previous experience in the National Student (ACM ICPC) or School (IOI) Olympiad in programming or other programming competitions).
Participation is free but you would need to register. The spring tournament will be held with individual registrations only.
If you want to find answers to popular questions visit the FAQ page.
