This is the FAQ for the ICFP '98 Functional Programming Contest. When the contest organisers receive questions of general interest, we'll put the answers here. Most recent change to this FAQ was 98/8/25. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Questions 1. May I see the programming tasks you've used for previous contests, so I can get a rough idea of what kind of things the ICFP FP contest chooses? 2. You seem to really be pushing parallel implementations. Do I have a chance of winning if I use a serial system? 3. What are the details of the Linux SMP system on which you'll be running parallel code? 4. My favorite parallel programming language doesn't run on x86 Linux. 5. When, exactly, does the contest start? 6. What libraries does the contest machine have installed? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Questions and answers 1. May I see the programming tasks you've used for previous contests, so I can get a rough idea of what kind of things the ICFP FP contest chooses? This is the very first programming contest the ICFP has organised, so there aren't any previous examples! 2. You seem to really be pushing parallel implementations. Do I have a chance of winning if I use a serial system? You do. We are merely making parallel hardware available for programmers that want to try and use it. Note that the overhead of parallel programming -- both in terms of writing code, tricky debugging, and runtime cost -- may well undermine a parallel programming team. That would be a failure of the language and implementation -- and this is one of the things the contest is designed to stress. We think both parallel and serial implementations have a good chance. 3. What are the details of the Linux SMP system on which you'll be running parallel code? > What we really wanted to know, though, is what version of Linux SMP > you've actually gotten to run stably. We've basically given up and > had planned to use Solaris-x86 instead because Linux was so flaky. The machine we currently plan to use is a 4-processor Intel box (AMI Goliath board) running Linux SMP. 128MB, 150Mhz Pentium-PROs with 256K caches. For more details on the hardware, see the the manufacturer's web page http://www.ami.com/ The motherboard is a Goliath series 730. We run version 2.1.86 of the kernel. Here's what "uname -a" returns: Linux bronto 2.1.86 #13 Fri Feb 20 10:47:36 EST 1998 i686 unknown It has been *very* stable, at least much more than some previous versions. Chances are high that we will use this system. But keep posted for the details when the contest begins. 4. My favorite parallel programming language doesn't run on x86 Linux. You have all summer to port it! (We are aware of at least two ports underway specifically to get a system up for the contest.) 5. When, exactly, does the contest start? 17:00 EDT, Thursday, August 27, 1998, which is 23:00 UTC, Thursday, August 27, 1998 (UTC is "Greenwich Mean Time," "Zulu," or "Universal Coordinated Time.") 6. "Could you be more specific about your machine configuration - especially installed libraries (libc5/libc6) and do you have tcl/tk and - if yes - what version is it? (we need to know this to properly compile our programs so they will run at your place)" *Don't* rely on *us* for *any* software except the kernel and the standard Unix programs, like sh (which you might need for writing driver or launching scripts for your app) or ls. Either statically link or ship your libs along with your program, in your support/ directory. This is the best way to be sure your program will do on *our* computer what it does on *your* computer!