The results of the 20th international competition of incomprehensible code in C
The organizers of the IOCCC (International Competition for the most obscure code C) clicked on the “turbo” button. If the results of the last competition were published four years after the competition, now only two months have passed - and here they are . Ready-made programs less than 4096 bytes in size can participate in the competition, while the number of significant characters, excluding spaces, tabs and signs; (), should not exceed 2048. The objective of the competition is to "check compilers for stress, demonstrate the intricacies of the C programming language and the importance of observing the programming style (by doing the opposite)."
The winner’s title (Best of Show) and the title of “most shrinkable” were won by a four-level akari downsampler ( Makefile , akari.c ). The program can reduce various graphics, including ASCII graphics. Since its source code is also formatted as ASCII graphics, it can reduce its source code as well. The result is another valid C program that can process text. And that too is not the end. Having processed the code a second time with the help of a new program, we get a third functional program (here the gcc compiler already starts to give some warnings, but it will still make an executable file).
Other winners:
- blakely ( Makefile , blakely.c ): the program plays Conway’s Life, calculates the number of Pi up to 16 decimal places, receives its source code at the input, and also checks the primacy of the cellular automaton
- borsanyi ( Makefile , borsanyi.c ): fast histogram generator in an unusual way
- dlowe ( Makefile , dlowe.c ): self-learning neural network
- eastman ( Makefile , eastman.c ): an attempt to repeat the classic Amiga Boing Ball using ASCII graphics
- fredriksson ( Makefile , fredriksson.c ): using the Burrows-Wheeler decompressor, creates the source code for agrep and launches it (a reward for the “most useful” program on IOCCC)
- goren ( Makefile , goren.c ): rebus program in memory of Rene Magritte
- hamaji ( Makefile , hamaji.c ): a program for solving Japanese crosswords
- hou ( Makefile , hou.c ): a self-documenting scientific calculator
- konno ( Makefile , konno.c ): recognizes keystrokes on a QWERTY keyboard
- richards ( Makefile , richards.c ): JIT compiler and dc calculator
- toledo ( Makefile , toledo.c ): a game of "tanks" for two people (requires X11)
- vik ( Makefile , vik.c ): 44.1 kHz stereo .MOD audio file converter and player
- zucker ( Makefile , zucker.c ): character image generator
