WATCH VIDEO OF LAST YEAR'S WINNER Ronald Chan from Auckland New Zealand receiving the Grand Prize of USD 2,000 in Princeton in 2009 (and a few minutes of Ronald's presentation). Photo: Catherine Lathwell

Grand Prizes - open to full time students only

Winners will be selected by the judges based on number and quality of solutions to the tasks which are described on the Contest Task Description page

Main Prizes

• First Prize $2,500 plus Round Trip travel from anywhere in the world, to the APL 2010 Conference in Berlin, Germany, September 13-16 2010 to receive the award in person and present the work that lead to winning the prize.
  
• Second Prize: $1,200
• Third Prize: $600
• Five Rosetta Code Challenge Prizes: $1,250 in total ($250 each). See the Rosetta Challenge page for further details.
• Presentation Prizes: For the three best presentations of data generated while working on the main programming tasks. Solutions to the main tasks are NOT REQUIRED to compete for presentation prizes. See the Contest Task Descriptions for details:
  
  First prize: $500
  Second Prize: $400
  Third Prize: $300
• Consolation prizes: Twenty consolation prizes each $100 to be drawn at random from submissions which solve at least 2 problems (each contestant having a number of "lottery tickets" equal to the number of problems correctly solved).

NOTE: All prize winners must be students (in full time education) who qualify for a free Dyalog Educational License. If you do not already have a Dyalog Educational License you can apply for it here.

Non-students are free to make submissions, but they do not qualify for winning prizes. However, they can qualify for Introduction Awards (see below).

Total prize money: $8,750

Introduction Awards - You win the cash that they win!

Even if you do not wish to participate in the programming contest, tell all your friends and ask them to tell their friends and you may still win a prize.

If you referred one or more of the prize winners then you will receive the same amount of cash as they do. You need not be a student and you need not even submit an entry yourself. You may win more than once. For example, if you introduced the second prize winner and three consolation prize winners, you would receive $1,500. If you were the student who won third prize and you also introduced the second prize winner, then you would receive $1,800 even though they only won $1,200.

You may elect to have your winnings donated to an institution of your choice.

NOTE: All winners who do not indicate at the time of their submission who introduced them will have their matching Introduction Awards forfeit, for use as prize money in future Dyalog Programming Contests.

Total introduction award money: $8,750

Deadline for submission

12:00 UTC (Noon), Sunday July 18, 2010

Announcement of Main Prize Winners

Monday August 2, 2010. The winners of the three main prizes, the three presentation prizes and the Rosetta Challenge prizes will be notified directly via e-mail and their names will be posted on our website.

Other Prize Winners

The 20 consolation prize winners as well as introduction award winners will be announced at the APL 2010 Conference in Berlin, Germany, 13-16 September 2010. All consolation winner names as well as introduction award winner names will further be posted on our website after the conference. The 20 consolation prize winners as well as the introduction award winners will further receive direct notification via e-mail.

Purpose of the contest

To promote the investigation and understanding of the computer language APL (A Programming Language).

Sponsors

This contest is run and sponsored by APL programmers who owe their careers (and a good deal of pleasure) to their work in the language. They hope you find that exposure to APL broadens your horizons and tickles your fancy.

Specifically we would like to thank the following for making this contest possible:

as well as several individuals and companies who have chosen to remain anonymous.

Judges

Headed by Morten Kromberg, our panel of judges are some of the most experienced APL programmers in the world. Between them, they have spent decades solving complex programming issues using APL and they all claim that they're "hooked on APL". They continue to spend hours each day enjoying working with what they feel is be best programming language in the world for building dynamic, analytical applications.

We would like to take this opportunity thank them all in advance for the time and effort they are putting into judging the submission in this contest.

Submission and Communication

Only e-mail communications are accepted - please email contest2010@dyalog.com. You may not call. You may not write to other e-mail addresses. You can, however, also post questions and obtain additional information via the Facebook group Dyalog Programming Contest, or the dyalogapl Twitter channel. Further details on submission of your entry can be found on our Contest Questions & Answers page.

What now?

Before you start solving the problems we strongly recommend that you read the Q&A which will provide you with more details about the contest rules as well as other information which might be helpful. The following links will be useful for you.

Contest Task Descriptions

Rosetta Challenge

Questions & Answers

Sample submissions

Terms & Conditions

• There is no requirement to make any purchases in association with entering this contest. If you qualify to compete you also qualify for a free educational license of Dyalog's Developer Suite. (Commercial license fee value in excess of $1,000/year).
• This programming contest is open to everyone (except contest organizers and employees of Dyalog Ltd.).
• However, to be eligible for any of the prizes other than referral awards, you must meet the criteria for a free Dyalog Educational License and be a full time student.
• JUDGES DETERMINATIONS ARE FINAL and can not be contested under any circumstances.
• Only one submission per person. Submissions must be either be in the form of a single UTF-8 text file containing the source of your solutions, in the format created by using the Dyalog user command ]SAVE on a namespace containing your code, OR a Dyalog APL workspace containing the namespace. We will accept any file that can be loaded and run by Dyalog Version 12.1. Students may develop their solutions in any version of APL they wish, so long as the submission meets the above criteria.
• All prizes are denominated in U.S. Dollars
• The winner of the first prize will also win a Round Trip travel from ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD to attend the APL2010 Conference in Berlin, Germany, September 13-16 2010. Hence the first prize winner is expected to travel to Berlin to participate in the APL2010 Conference, present their work, as well as receive their prize money during the conference. If the first prize winner is unable to travel to the conference this portion of the prize can not be converted to cash or anything else and this portion of the prize will then be deemed null and void.
• If the submission is the result of collaboration between people, the submission must still be by a single individual and only that one individual will be awarded a prize. If the winners choose to share their winnings with other people, they must make their own arrangements. The winner may choose to send a collaborator in their place to accept the prize in Berlin, however that person is expected to be able to competently present the work.
• At their absolute discretion the Judges may decide to award the grand prize to an alternative person if the winner cannot be contacted after reasonable attempts to do so have failed.
• The winner of the grand prize may be required to participate in unpaid, reasonable publicity relating to or in connection with this contest. Dyalog shall have the right to publish all submitted materials for promotional purposes.
• This contest is void where prohibited or restricted by law.

We are looking forward to receiving your submission.

- Good luck!!