The 2005 People's Choice Award Winner Announced!
Entries: 2005 Entries Online
Voting: 2005 People's Choice Award Voting!
This is the Official FAQ for the International Obfuscated Ruby Code Contest.
The FAQ for IORCC Contest was created and is maintained by Todd Nathan (SeaForth) w/contributions
from/by: Jannis Harder (jix), Kyle Brooks (kbrooks), Todd Nathan (SeaForth), Shalev NessAiver (pugio).
Voting system design by Jix/SeaForth, debugging JEG (Mr. Gray). A Ruby Community Collaborative(tm) Effort.
Last Modified: Sun Apr 17 20:41:41 CDT 2005
Latest Press: Your Last Chance in 2005 to Enter!
Official FAQ: FAQ Like No Other
IORCC Rules: Retentive Enough?
Welcome Msg: Audio IORCC Messages/Updates
Daily Blog: The Official IORCC Blog
IORCC Ruby-Level Sponsors:
(ordered by chronological sponsorship, click to visit a sponsor)
IORCC Official FAQ Table Of Contents
Q 00 Why a contest for a language that is designed to be clear and simple?
Q 01 Who are the 2005 IORCC judges?
Q 02 Where can I find the rules?
Q 03 Where can I find the results and winners?
Q 04 How can I make an official entry/submission?
Q 05 How can I become a judge of the IORCC entries?
Q 06 Where can I find more about Ruby?
Q 07 Where is an official banner ad image available?
Q 08 What is that code on the right side of the IORCC Banner, and does it work?
Q 09 How can I help promote IORCC?
Q 10 What does the entry confirmation email ID mean?
Q 11 Who is 'rubyo' in the irc://irc.freenode.net #iorcc/#idrcc/#ruby-o channels?
Q 12 Are the channels logged for viewing online with a browser, wget, curl?
Q 13 Since the Rubyo log bot is written in Ruby, can I take a look at it?
Q 14 What are Matz and others saying about the IORCC?
Q 15 Who are those crazy cats in the Unofficial IORCC music? Where can I get that stuff?
Q 16 What prizes are being given away?
Q 17 What games/puzzles do you offer for non-competing Rubyist/Purists?
Q 18 Why have an official IORCC song, and what is it?
Q 19 How many entries have been received to date for the current contest?
Q 20 What kind of webtraffic are you getting?
Q 21 Where can I find the entries online?
Q 22 How are the entries going to be rated?
...
Q 42 If IORCC, why not a DeObfuscated Ruby Code Contest?
Q 00 Why a contest for a language that is designed to be clear and simple?
A 00 Ruby is a powerful language that is known for its simplicity and clarity,
yet like any other language can be obfuscated to the point of near unreadability.
With Ruby's ability to write short and clear code, the next logical and insane
step was to make it unreadable yet still accomplish something useful. Remembering
the days of the IOCCC, SeaForth proposed that a contest be held yearly or biannually
for Ruby. If for no other reason having far too much time on his hands and the
sheer love of obscurity in all things.
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 01 Who are the 2005 IORCC judges?
A 01 The current judges include:
Kyle Brooks (kbrooks)
Christian Neukirchen (chris2)
Jannis Harder (jix)
Todd Nathan (SeaForth)
Stephen Sykes (Creator of TinyETA code on IORCC banner)
Chad Fowler (chad)
Judging occurs yearly. Judges are encouraged to rotate out and make
their own submissions. Judges are NOT allowed to submit any entry in the
period they are judging.
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 02 Where can I find the rules?
A 02 http://iorcc.dyndns.org/official.rules
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 03 Where can I find the results and winners?
A 03 The only official site for posting winners will be
http://iorcc.dyndns.org/winners
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 04 How can I make an official entry/submission?
A 04 Official IORCC submissions may be made via email to
iorcc@yahoo.com
Please read the rules/guidelines in their entirety PRIOR to making any IORCC code
submission, of which you get 3 submissions and one final entry per contest period.
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 05 How can I become a judge of the IORCC entries?
A 05 Quite easily! Talk with any of the current judges on these channels:
irc://irc.freenode.net/iorcc <<--- iorcc and judge talk.
irc://irc.freenode.net/ruby-o <<--- entrant conversations.
irc://irc.freenode.net/ruby-lang <<--- ruby language discourse.
The current judges will request some simple questions answered that will help
you and the judges determine best how you fit in with the IORCC and its goals
of being timely, fair and 'Rubesque'.
You should have a good familiarity with the language Ruby, you must be at least
13 years old, and you must be able to contribute by completing the judging process.
Be warned, the number of entries may require hours of reviewing and judging
on your part, making this a time consuming process in the last days prior
to the winners being announced on major websites and the IRC channels ruby-lang
and ruby-o. See Q 01 for a list of current judges and their IRC handles.
New judges will be allowed outside the prior 30 days to the closing of the
current IORCC contest.
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 06 Where can I find more about Ruby?
A 06 The official Ruby Programmers Object Oriented Scripting Home page is located at
Ruby Language Home Page (en)
Another SUPER place to almost any generalize search is
Google "ruby programming language" Search
and a FANTASTIC site for Ruby Programming Language is
WikiPedia's Ruby Language Portal Page
If you want interactive help and tips, the many Ruby experts on the
Freenode.net IRC's #ruby-lang channel
may be of assistance. There is a Ruby-Talk mailing list archive index located at
Ruby-Talk Mailing List Archive
which is updated regularly. Also you can subscribe to the Ruby-Talk list, just head to
Ruby-Talk's home page at the above link. Sometimes you may want to find a Rubyist or two in your
area or start your own Ruby focused MeetUp gatherings at
Meet Up's Ruby Group Listing
and talk to some Rubyists in person! The following is fair comparison of three of the
Ruby Programming books
Three Ruby Book Reviews
which are available along with other books about Ruby from of all places, Amazon, ABE.com and Half.com
ABE.com's 'Ruby Language' Keyword Search (Interestingly the best hits/results)
Amazon's 'Ruby Language' Search
Half.com's 'Ruby Programming' Search
FleeBay's 'Ruby Programming' Search
You may also find the Ruby Language FAQ posted on Google of some help, its rather definitive. As well as the
archived comp.lang.ruby.general at Gmane Loom:
Ruby Language FAQ from comp.lang.ruby
Gmane Comp.Lang.Ruby.General News
And one thing that I and others found was a perceived lack of Ruby documentation. Here is the online
Ruby class libraries available at Ruby Central
Ruby 1.6.x Class Library Reference Documentation
and when you are done looking over the Online Ruby 1.6.x documentation, take a look at an amazing online book (yes, its free
and well worth a gander) about Ruby I have found very useful
Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby
learning all you can imagine about 'irb', the command line system for Ruby. Here is also a fine little
helper document about using and configuring 'irb' for your needs.
IRB Tutorial and .irbrc
And of course professional and commercial presentations are always useful, although at times tainted to the slant
and ideals of the agenda mongers :) Here you have much more than you can swallow.
Ruby Forge Graphics and Presentations
Daniel Carrera's Learing Ruby Tutorial
Ruby Doc's Quick Getting Started with Ruby
Learn to Program: A Tutorial for the Future Programmer
IBM Developer Works: Programming in Ruby
A nice little overview document for middle managers and their little time and minds
Michael Neumann's: Quick Feature List of Ruby
Basic coverage of Ruby, presentation in slide form, with loads of beginner information
Sommercourse Ruby 2004
Nice FREE online chapter from the Learn Ruby in 21 days from Sams Publishing, you can learn Arrays
and the very basics of what makes the core of Ruby so very simple and elegant.
Day 3 Containers: Learning Ruby in 21 days
Organizing Data Structures in Ruby (aside from the obvious object infrastructure provided), you can read a sample chapter
by Hal Fulton in his fantastic book online
Manipulating Structured Data in Ruby by Hal Fulton and Sams Publishing
For a fairly good overview of GUI toolkits for Ruby and how to use them, some great programming ideas
and FREE, check out:
Michael Neuman's GUI Toolkits for Ruby published by Syngress
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 07 Where is an Official IORCC banner image available?
A 07 The Official 2005 IORCC Banner is available at
Official 2005 IORCC Banner Image
Use is limited by the Ruby license terms, the image composite work is Copyright (c) 2005 by
Todd Nathan, the code in the IORCC banner image is Copyright by Stephen Sykes.
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 08 What is that code on the right side of the IORCC Banner, and does it work?
A 08 We have been asked by almost everyone what the code on the right of the 2005 IORCC
banner does. It is a fully functional ETA compiler, with ONE mistake made in it
so that it will encourage you to find the mistake an correct it. Other than the
error, it works perfectly. The original Ruby TinyETA Compiler was written
by Stephen Sykes. He has given IORCC permission to use his copyrighted code in the
IORCC banner, as long as he retained the copyright to the code. IORCC gladly agreed.
Thank you Mr. Sykes.
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 09 How can I help promote IORCC?
A 09 You can be of great help by telling everyone you know about IORCC and its mission.
Also, include the following html code in your page (images are 50% for convenience viewing):
<a href="http://iorcc.dyndns.org/" <img name="IORCC Logo" border="0" height="215"
width="567" src="http://iorcc.dyndns.org/images/iorcc_2005.png"
alt="International Obfuscated Ruby Code Contest Logo" /></a>
You can also use any of the images and link code on the Official IORCC Image Directory
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 10 What does the entry confirmation email ID mean?
A 10 When your IORCC submission is received at the Official IORCC submission address
(see Q 04) you will be sent in return an assigned IORCC ID. The general form
of the ticket is:
#IORCC-YYYY-MM-DD-CYSSN-E
where:
YYYY = is the year the submission was made
MM = the month the submission was made
DD = date of month the year of submission
CY = sequential year of submission made, started with 01
SSN = sequential submission number assigned that year to you
E = your entry attempt, limited by IORCC rules. (see Q 02)
Please use this IORCC ID during any online or email correspondence with any of
the judges or IORCC officials. This practice will help us to avoid confusion.
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 11 Who is 'rubyo' in the irc://irc.freenode.net #iorcc/#idrcc/#ruby-o channels?
A 11 Within minutes of forming the IORCC, it was requested by SeaForth that all online
judicial conversations be archived and accessible to anyone wishing to read and
learn, validate and verify any questions about any questions asked to an IORCC judge.
Jix stated he could write such a bot, and it should be done in of course Ruby. And
thus the Rubyo IRC bot was born.
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 12 Are the channels logged for viewing online with a browser, wget, curl?
A 12 Yes, Rubyo the IRC bot is logged continuously, and all logs for all IORCC related channels
are available online at:
#iorcc: http://v-jix.homeip.net:2006/
#idrcc: http://v-jix.homeip.net:2006/?chan=%23idrcc
#ruby-o: http://v-jix.homeip.net:2006/?chan=%23ruby-o
These pages are auto-refresh enabled so you can watch conversations online occur without
even being on IRC. Just go to the page, and let your browser lurk for you. You can also
use wget or curl -O to get the log files for local viewing/filtering.
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 13 Since the Rubyo log bot is written in Ruby, can I take a look at it?
A 13 You bet! It is freely available, of which ~95%+ is copyright Jannis Harder (jix). Mr. Harder
is pleased to announce the FREE Rubyo IRC Robot downloads at:
Rubyo: http://www.harderweb.de/jannis/ruby/rubyo.rb
Patched IRC Lib: http://www.harderweb.de/jannis/ruby/rice.zip
Mirrored: http://iorcc.dyndns.org/mirror/jix/
The patched IRC Lib allows one to connect to irc server which use \r\n. It is also patched for 1.8
and is highly recommended unless you want a LOT of execution warnings.
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 14 What are Matz and others saying about the IORCC?
A 14 You can view for yourself the thoughts and feelings from some Ruby notables at:
Google Groups comp.lang.ruby
Ruby-Talk Archives
The general feeling seems to be about 60/40 for it. I'm biased of course, so do take
a gander, as there are some good points about the merits gained by reading and writing
code that is obfuscated as well as beautified and simple.
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 15 Who are those crazy cats in the Unofficial IORCC music? Where can I get that stuff?
A 15 The Unofficial Band of IORCC is ToySun, located at
ToySun's Home Page
and if you want to download all the songs of Toysun and John's that are currently online, simply run
the bash shell script (you need to have wget installed) in a new terminal window where you want the
grabbed archive newly located
John Silverman's Music Land-Grab Script
Enjoy John's collection of funky and inspiring techno, going back over 10 years. John's amazing
collection of work completely speaks volumes in creativity and originality. IORCC wants to thank
John for his effort and contribution to music and hacking worldwide.
We also have compiled a nice list of songs (various genres) that are being considered official
songs for the IORCC. Of course they are all in some way related to Ruby.
Ruby Tuesday - Rolling Stones
Ruby Wednesday (Tuesday) - Eskimo Joe
Ruby Red Lips - John Michael Montgomery
Thru The Eyes of Ruby - Smashing Pumpkins
Ruby Ann - Martin Robbins
Ruby Shoes - Jessica Andrews
Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town - Kenny Rodgers
Ruby Baby - Dion
Ruby So Ho - Rancid
Ruby Lee - Joe Cocker
Ruby My Dear - Roy Hargrove
Ruby Through the Looking Glass - Tori Amos
Ruby My Dear - John Coltrane
Ruby Jean and Billy Lee - Seals & Croft
Ruby Baby - Bjork
Ruby's Wishes - Unwed Sailor
Ruby, Are You Mad - Osborne Brothers
Ruby Moore Blues - Lee Brown
See Ruby Fall - Johnny Cash
Ruby Baby - Sheridan, Tony and The ...
Ruby Love - Cat Stevens
Portions of some songs are available for previewing. The one song most recommended will become by
default/facto Official IORCC anthem.
Ruby Related Songs (in name, theme, or lyrics)
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 16 What prizes are being given away?
A 16 With help from Dave Thomas of Pragmatic Programming wonderment, IORCC and its sister event
(IDRCC) are giving prizes to the winners of both contests. Each overall winner gets a
personalized signed copy of the 2nd Edition of Programming Ruby. Dave has also offered
to supply a signed copy of Ruby on Rails when it becomes available. Dave will arrange delivery
once he is notified by IORCC of the Judicial Winner. Dave, thank you for supporting the
IORCC and its events.
IORCC wants to thank Amy Pederson of Syngress Book Publishing
for sponsoring the 2005 event with their publication Ruby, Developers Guide.
Big thanks to Nick Nallick of Purgatory Design for a license to their wonderful software
package Purgatory Design and their graphics tool Intaglio. This will help flowchart contorted
logic in some IORCC entries.
Greg Corrin and Oreilly Book Publishers have agreed to supply
their Ruby books to the winners of the IORCC as well. Greg is also willing to directly
deliver them right from ORA once the winner entries are announced.
Friend and collegue Andrew Stone of Stone Design, the longest and likely friendliest
(anyone remember the Raves :) of all NeXT and OS X developers is offering his software to the
winner of the IORCC. He has been gracious enough to offer Create, PhotoToWeb, TimeEqualsMoney
PStill, StampInStone, Global Warmth as prizes. Thank you Andrew and Stone Design!
If you like puzzles, and who doesn't get your entry in and win Puzzles Forever nicely donated
from the nice folks at Solitaire Forever. Kids of all ages should enjoy this one!
Scott Keith, CTO at OpenBase International has sponsored IORCC with a gift of their
OpenBase Database System. They are also currently looking to add a rich Ruby implementation to
OpenBase's already HUGE inventory of technology interfaces.
And of course, what contest would be complete without some really insane and sick game to
be given away? Vince Desi of Running With Scissors and makers of all things "Postal"
gave the go ahead to award the IORCC winner the multiplayer game POSTAL:Share The Pain!
I personally find this prize tantalizing and well worth the effort to win! Its the
Crossword Forge and word find puzzle maker from Cortis Clark and the Sol Robots folks.
Mr. Clark is a Newbiest Rubyist, however has said Ruby is obviously another language he is
going to have to learn. Cortis, thank you for your IORCC Sponsorship!
Bartas Technologies and their wonderful document management tool CopyWrite is the Official
2005 FAQ Page Management Tool. IORCC leverages CopyWrite for the IORCC FAQ version control,
and couldn't be happier to have them on board as a Official IORCC Sponsor! The fine folks at
Bartas Tech have agreed to give away two CopyWrite 2.x product licenses for winners of
the IORCC and IDRCC.
The wonderful code management tool (it really is more than just an editor) TextMate has jumped
onboard and become the 2005 IORCC Code Editor Sponsor. Two full retail licenses will be given
away by MacroMates, one each for the winners of the 2005 IORCC and IDRCC. Thank you Allan!
With great pleasure we announce that Omnigroup, old time NeXT and OSX coders, have come
aboard! Linda Sharps and the top brass at OmniPotent OmniGroup should be commended for their
insite, we are glad to have OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner as prizes for the winners of both
IORCC and IDRCC. Welcome aboard OmniGroup! Maybe Omni will commit to the pro editions if the
winners ask nicely. Linda is a very nice lady, so talk to her after you win to see what they can do. :)
IORCC wants to thank the folks at dbSuite and MacGurus for coming thru in the pinch, last minute
but WONDERFUL products for the Windows, Mac and Linux folks. They are offering up their J solution
for the Mac (Java connectivity to a broad range of databases) and also their MySQL connectivity
management suite. Really class act and welcomed with open arms!
The Alex and the nice people at BasaSoft, makers of the BasaOne Graphical Web Application
Development Tool has offered licenses of BasaOne to the winner of the IORCC.
And of course, what would a webcentric contest be with a blogging interface tool? The
great Ecto for both OS X and for Windows is the Official 2005 IORCC Blogging Tool. Interfacing
to all the major blogging, this product from our friends Adriaan and Alex is simple,
clean and does one job really well. Makes your blogging experience SIMPLE and FAST!
Thanks to Kula Co., Ltd., Ecto ROCKS!!!
A super high profile company like Bare Bones Software has offered thier software
packages Mail Smith 2.1 and BBEdit 8.0 to the winners of the IORCC and the IDRCC.
We are very please, and wish to welcome Bare Bones and their entire company aboard!
Sometimes old and new go together, and with Pipe for OSX its absolutely no exception to the rule
that it takes new minds and process to produce the best solutions. The Pipe application has some
of the simplest and coolest features available today. Couple this with TextMate, BBEdit and
BellHop you have a super winning scripting solution for the Shell, Tcl, Sensetalk, Python
and of course the Rubyist Scripter!
Wow, these guys finally got around to answer my emails :) And with a bang! To the winners
of the sister contests, comes the SnapzProX and the WireTap Pro software packages! Fantastic,
as these two apps are without question tops in thier class. We are honored to have Ambrosia Software
as an 2005 Official IORCC Sponsor. Thank you Ambrosia!
We couldn't believe it when it happned, but it did. The BIG momentum OS X software company today,
Delicious Monster, has agreed to be the official 2005 IORCC Library Sponsor and provide three
licenses for Delicious Library to the IORCC. Right to the end, the folks at Delicious Monster
have shown their true colors, a full rainbow. Thank you Drew and gang!
Links to all the IORCC Corporate sponsors are at the top of the OFFICIAL IORCC FAQ. We
encourage you to visit them and find out more about their products and services. Without
the IORCC sponsors, the event would be offering nada-zip-sans prizes.
NOTE: all prizes promised by corporate sponsors are the responsibility of the corporation
to deliver to announced winners. Validation of prize and self for such prize is the
winner's responsibility. Any duties, taxes, charges, legal stuff is totally the
responsibility of the winner. The winner/s take full responsibility for anything
that is illegal or legal, costs or is free, time, effort, energy. IORCC and its
judges assume NO liability whatsoever for anything other than good judgment.
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 17 What games/puzzles do you offer for non-competing Rubyist/Purists?
A 17 For those who either don't have the stomach, time or inclination to compete others we have
the 2005 IORCC crossword puzzle (its mostly for fun) sub-event. Maybe the purists that don't
want to contribute to Ruby obfuscation will find the crossword puzzle and word finder fun.
2005 IORCC Crossword Puzzle (White)
2005 IORCC Crossword Puzzle (Black)
IORCC has had great feedback on how fun and informative the puzzle is for the new as
well as seasoned professional. Google for answers, ask around on the #Ruby-Lang IRC
channel for hints, or just learn as you go. Anyone that finishes the puzzle and
submits the word list to the official (see above) IORCC email address is eligable for
a drawing on the 15th of April to win a nice gift from one of our great sponsors. It
is likely the crossword and word find software :)
The IORCC Crossword Puzzle seems to be pretty tricky. There was a small ONE letter block
error found and corrected. Fortunately this error didn't cause any other words to be
invalidated. Very fortunate, chances of this happening actually were calculated to be
almost 1 in 2000 chance. Pretty good luck. So, to cover that and the Hints and Tips
for this puzzle, the Official Blog has been started.
With still no XWord Puzzle winners, the IORCC Word Finder puzzle is now out!
http://iorcc.dyndns.org/2005/puzzles/wordfinder/2005_WordFinder.pdf
You can use one to help you solve the other.
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 18 Why have an official IORCC song, and what is it?
A 18 We have a bunch of song clips linked above in Q15, and a few people have said they
liked the Kenny Rogers classic. And being fair, all the songs are fantastic really.
Steely Dan, Ray Charles, Kenny, Chuck Pyle, and even JMM. Being the democratic bunch
that we are, the Cat Stevens song Ruby My Love became the Official IORCC song. This was
mostly due to the worldly nature of the song, and about a real genuine love for Ruby.
You can sing along too!
And why have an Official Song for the IORCC? Because of its benevolence to Ruby.
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 19 How many entries have been received to date for the current contest?
A 19 Judges are asked daily how many entries have been received. Currently as of March 25 2005
we have six accepted entries that compile and run. The IORCC ruleset encourages and
is embracing last minute entries, we are anticipating a micro-flood of entries at the
end of this month.
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 20 What kind of webtraffic are you getting?
A 20 Sponsors as well as potential sponsors seem to be interested in our webtraffic. To date the
IORCC has over 12000 unique IP hits, and about 125,000 non-unique hits to its website.
An image of some basic output data from a IORCC Weblog Scan is available.
As you can see, there is almost a 1/10 ratio of unique hits to other website hits. This
means a few things. Either people are revisiting the mainpage a LOT, and/or they are
exploring the site's entirety. I suspect both phenom are occuring, giving GREAT exposure
to IORCC Sponsors and hopefully folks paying close attention to the IORCC Official Rules.
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 21 Where can I find the entries online?
A 21 You can find all the entries online at 2005 Entries Online.
------- Table of Contents ------
Q 22 How are the entries going to be rated?
A 22 The 2005 IORCC Judging Guidelines are a flexible means
for the judges to work together, yet independantly to vote for a winner. All discourse about
judging is done on the Freenode.net #iorcc channel and log files can be found for
that channel online.
------- Table of Contents ------
...
Q 42 If IORCC, why not a DeObfuscated Ruby Code Contest?
A 42 Well, while discussing answers to Q1 in the IORCC FAQ, SeaForth invited a #ruby-lang IRC
regular named dblack to chat a bit on #iorcc about being an innagural judge. That
conversation led to many ideas being exchanged and the concept of a IDRCC being created.
Apparently in 2001 just prior to 9/11, dblack wanted to start a pretty code contest, and
due in part to the events of that year, the IDRCC idea was shelved. Now resurrected from
the minds of a few, IDRCC may become the antithesis to the IORCC, serving as a portal for
the IORCC winners to automatically enter and be cleaned up. One goal is to have IDRCC
entries, the entry of beautifying the IORCC winners, by the end of RubyCon for that year
(sometime in October, TBD).
------- Table of Contents ------
Last Modified: Sun Apr 17 20:41:50 CDT 2005 - Todd Nathan (SeaForth)
Non-unique visitors: 
since before now.
Powered by:
