I'm running a programming contest

The contest ended a few days ago, some teams have already published their writeups. Usage of LLM-based tools appear to have mixed results. For example, I think #23 place claimed to have used nothing but AI[1], while the #24 place seems to be mostly manual code[2]. These are very good results considering they solved all problems, only 40 out of ~268 teams managed to do that[3].

[1] https://blog.greg.technology/2026/07/26/doing-okayish-with-a...

[2] http://www.sawicki.us/icfp/2026/

[3] https://icfpcontest2026.com/standings

I went through the 3 days without using any AI, working mostly in the language designed by the judges. I placed somewhere in the middle.

Re: I'm running a programming contest

#5

Post by beepbooptheory » Wed, Jul 29, 2026, 9:54 PM UTC

Reminds one of Orca.

https://100r.co/site/orca.html

Re: I'm running a programming contest

#6

Post by gregsadetsky » Wed, Jul 29, 2026, 10:25 PM UTC

omoikane wrote: post #4

Retr0id wrote: post #2

Based on the timestamps, I guess it's over now? I'm curious to know how LLM-resistant it ended up being in the end.

The contest ended a few days ago, some teams have already published their writeups. Usage of LLM-based tools appear to have mixed results. For example, I think #23 place claimed to have used nothing but AI[1], while the #24 place seems to be mostly manual code[2]. These are very good results considering they solved all problems, only 40 out of ~268 teams managed to do that[3]. [1] https://blog.greg.technology/2026/07…

I can confirm that I used Fable exclusively (I am link [1] above). I even got sunburn on one of the contest days because I spent it mostly at the pool, as mentioned in the article.

Levity aside, I remain deeply impressed by all of the extraordinary efforts - including yours! - and of course, the contest's organizers' work.

I am but a poster child for laziness :-) but, as Larry Wall said... https://thethreevirtues.com/ :-)