APL Programming Contest 2012 Now Open

Cash prizes to be won by students and those who refer them to the competition. This year's contest also features a professional element.

Now in its fourth year, the World Wide Programming Contest has been developed to encourage students and others to investigate APL (A Programming Language).

A total of US$12,600 in prize money has been provided by several sponsors, including US-based Fiserv, Italy-based APL Italiana, Denmark-based SimCorp and UK-based Dyalog Ltd., as well as several anonymous individuals and companies.

The Grand Prize winner can look forward to US$2,500 plus a round trip travel from anywhere in the world where the winner lives to the Dyalog '12 Conference in Elsinore, Denmark commencing Sunday October 14, 2012, where they will receive the award in person and present the work that lead to winning the prize.

Second and third prizes will be awarded with US$1,200 and US$600 respectively and a further 20 contestants will receive US$100 each. Additionally, the people or organisations who refer the winning students to the contest will receive the same dollar prizes – they need not be students to make the referral.

Contest participants can either use the Microsoft Windows or the Linux versions of Dyalog APL, or any other version of APL as long as it is converted to the Dyalog APL platform. Tools are provided on the contest website for interchange format conversion.

The contest is open to anyone (except contest organisers and employees of Dyalog Ltd.), but, participants should be aware that only students who meet the criterion for free Dyalog Educational Licence are eligible for the Grand Prize. Students can apply for an Educational Licence here. Prizes for referring a winning entrant can be won by anyone.

To see more about the competition visit our contest website where you can review the tasks.

The scoring and judging of submissions is organised and sponsored by a group APL programmers who owe their careers and gained great deal of pleasure working with the APL language.

This year the programming contest also features a professional element in response to the many requests we've had over the past couple of years. Submissions from professional programmers are subject to separate judging and the winner will be awarded free participation and accommodation at the Dyalog '12 conference in Elsinore, Denmark. They will, however, have to cover their own travel expenses to get there.

Deadline for submission is 12:00 UTC (Noon), Sunday 5 August 2012.

See the presentation Joel Hough, winner of the Programming Contest 2011, gave at Dyalog '11 in Boston here.