HHC 2018 Programming Contests

[Joe Horn]

Let's swing this discussion back to its actual topic.

Somebody somewhere made a heartfelt appeal that the contest be about something PRACTICAL for a change, so that the resulting programs can actually be USED in the real world for useful things.

I hate to disappoint him, but no, it WILL NOT be about anything practical, and there's a good reason for that, namely, it's a CONTEST, so it has to be about something NEW. Everything which is practical has already been programmed six ways from Sunday for every programmable calculator. Indeed, almost every IMPRACTICAL thing has been already programmed, e.g. how many Biorhythm programs are out there?

So, no, this contest will be about something relatively simple, not math-heavy, but so useless in the real world that I'm quite sure nobody has attempted it before.