Competitive coding format has not seen much innovations since the times of ICPC and Topcoder SRMs though there have been many incremental improvements. I have been thinking about ways in which we can improve on current formats. I am eager to know if anyone out there has a good idea to make contests interesting for both participants and spectators. Note that by competitive programming I don't necessarily mean only algorithmic programming. Given below are some lines of thought I have had so far in no particular order.
- Make it more game like (graphical). May also help in spectating as spectators can watch the output
- Different contest format (e.g. 1v1 tournament style, club based, country based teams)
- Make it equally interesting for people of lower and higher ratings (e.g. constraints based on ratings?)
- Tie it to real world projects (???)
- Different problem formats (e.g. interactive problems was a good idea, some good problems at IPSC)
What have you got?
PS: This is a mirror of a similar post I made on Facebook.
