The Prolog Programming Contest has celebrated its fifth edition this year: the zeroth time it was organised was at the occasion of PAP'94 and was a complete failure with zero participants (and consequently only loosers). But from then on, the ILPS'94, ILPS'95, JICSLP'96 and ICLP'97 editions, were quite successful and participants, however reluctant to participate before the contest, always got carried away by the frantic atmosphere during the contest.
In the past, a team from Melbourne won this contest three times and you might think they are invincible, but in Bonn, the Munich team proved this to be wrong ! And the Melbourne team did not participate this time ... so, whether you are an experienced programmer or a novice, whether Prolog is your native language or not, you had nothing to loose by participating and much to gain !
The Fifth annual Prolog Programming contest was organised at the occasion of JICSLP'98 in Manchester.
The 1998 contest had 9 full teams and Paul Tarau who thought he would be faster without team mates. The teams: two Italian teams, an Australian, a German, a Japanese, a French, a North-American team, a pure Belgian team and a mixed Danish-Belgian one ! And even an Israeli team over the net. It was fun and the fire alarm - with evacuation of the building and real fire men coming in - added some spice.
The winning team managed to solve 3 problems. Its members are: Tony Kusalik, Kostis Sagonas and David S. Warren. Congratulations ! Here you see a picture of the team leaving after the contest: you can see that they know already they were the best !
More about the contest in the next issue of the ALP news letter. Some pictures of the contestants follow. (sorry for the wrong date on the picures)
The australian team at work: Nevin Heintze, James Harland and Michael Maher
Belgian team: Maurice Bruynooghe and Wim Van Hoof
Team from Rennes in France: Erwam Jahier, Sarah Mallet and Olivier Ridoux
German team: Michael Hanus and Norbert Eisinger
One italian team: Simone Contiero, Dante Baldan and Sabina Rossi
Japanese team of four: Naoyuki Tamura, Mutsumori Banbara, Neng-Fa Zhou and Hisashi Hayashi.
Two members of the japanese team: I thought they would win, so I took more pictures of them.
Just to show that we really had to leave the building for the fire alarm ... half way the contest !
While others leave, Michael tries to remember the screen !
In case of a fire alarm, take only the contest problems with you. Leave everything else !
Some keep studying the problems while waiting for the fire brigade.
The aussies have a serious meeting: who can use the keyboard next ?
Bern says: "Yuk, what a nasty problem !"
The japanese team in a hurry at the end !
Some banquet pictures.
Don't we have a fine president of the ALP ?
Red wine, white wine: entre les deux, mon coeur se balance.
Joxan Jaffar: waving and looking smart as always. Take a good look at him: he rejected your paper.
Comments ? Questions ? Please let me know.
Bart Demoen
