I think there should be two categories:

Those who use assembly.
Those who don't use assembly.

Whether your assembly skills are limited to Asm(prgmWHATEVER and the readme it came with, or writing your own Flash applications, you're still using assembly.
I agree. Pure Basic and any amount of assembly should be the only categories.

For some things, basic+assembly is even more useful than pure asm, because of the powerful math functions available.
jbr wrote:
For some things, basic+assembly is even more useful than pure asm, because of the powerful math functions available.


Now... I certainly don't work for TI, so I could be wrong here, but weren't the BASIC functions written in assembly? I can see where you might say it is 'as useful as,' but certainly not 'more useful.'
foamy3: Are you really going to make someone spell it out for you?

Any program that was created soley by the use of the TI-BASIC IDE and does not call on any other programs written with out the IDE = a pure BASIC program.

Its not that hard is it foamy? Lets not act too difficult here... Rolling Eyes
foamy3 wrote:
jbr wrote:
For some things, basic+assembly is even more useful than pure asm, because of the powerful math functions available.


Now... I certainly don't work for TI, so I could be wrong here, but weren't the BASIC functions written in assembly? I can see where you might say it is 'as useful as,' but certainly not 'more useful.'


Oh, certainly. I'm never said anything about increased functionality; I only mentioned increased utility. Try doing sines (or any trig functions) in assembly to the same 14 byte precision TI-Basic has. Sure, you could do it, by why would you want to waste ram storing a huge table that is already built in to the calculator's os? TI-Basic is more or less a very complex ASM lib, with it's own IDE right on the calculator.

Based on that conclusion, however, it seems to follow that we should divide the categories up into what libs the programs use. So, for example, DoorsCS programs would be separated from Ion programs, which would be separate from XLib programs, which would be separate from omnicalc programs, and so on, and so on.

That actually sounds like a decent idea to me...
swivelgames wrote:
foamy3: Are you really going to make someone spell it out for you?

Any program that was created soley by the use of the TI-BASIC IDE and does not call on any other programs written with out the IDE = a pure BASIC program.

Its not that hard is it foamy? Lets not act too difficult here... Rolling Eyes


We were talking about the functionality of BASIC + assembly, good sir. I do, indeed, know what pure BASIC is. After all, I'm in the BASIC 1337 Rolling Eyes

jbr: Fair point with the trig functions, but I still think hybrids should be lumped in with pure asm. A separate category would be nice, but we won't have enough entrants for any real competition with more categories.
Yes, put the hybrids in with pure asm! That's what I've been saying the whole time! (admittedly, I did also mention the idea of separating every lib, but that was just to make the point that ti-basic is just a very complex lib).
Yeah, I agree with the BASIC vs. hybrid+pure ASM. Now we just need to decide if there's some kind of narrowing down that needs to be done with the "utility" grading criteria, and figure out start and end dates.
Um... Points for usefulness. Points for originality (not just an upgraded version of a program people already use). And of course the normals of speed, efficiency, size, blah blah blah.

I suppose with that mindset, if someone really wanted to make a game, it could still be done in the educational genre.
A couple points:

@jbr: sine functions are actually quite easy to compute (given multiplication and division routines) and certainly don't require large look-up tables, if you know calculus. Just shift it into the correct domain and then apply sin(x)=x-x^3/3!+x^5/5!-x^7/7!+x^9/9!-... (use as many as you want for more accuracy; it converges very quickly)

I think that there shouldn't be any hybrid programs allowed. This is a utility contest, so using utilities is kind of silly. If your utility requires other utilities that you didn't write, it shouldn't be allowed in and is wasteful. Particularly, we don't need any more basic programs that tell you how much ram you have or allow you to "manage" programs.

Just my two cents.
just to add on to what foamy said, I feel that aesthetics should also be a component when judging a program...
rthprog wrote:
just to add on to what foamy said, I feel that aesthetics should also be a component when judging a program...
Aesthetics, certainly, or at least ease-of-use.
Ease-of-us? Ease-of-use, perhaps... Laughing

Has it been decided then, that this is a "utility contest?"
jbr wrote:
Ease-of-us? Ease-of-use, perhaps... 0x5

Has it been decided then, that this is a "utility contest?"
That's what it sounds like; it's a pretty unique idea, and I think there's a lot people could explore within the confines of the category.
When's this going to get off the ground? I'm psyched. I've wanted an application contest for a good long time.

And it would motivate me to finish other stuff I'm working on, and it might do the same for others.
brandonw wrote:
When's this going to get off the ground? I'm psyched. I've wanted an application contest for a good long time.

And it would motivate me to finish other stuff I'm working on, and it might do the same for others.
Oh yes, slipped my mind. So anything else to clarify before I kick this off?
I've had an idea in my head for some time that may be a utility program. What exactly is a utility program? From what I can tell, it seems to be any program that isn't a game.

Would a quadratic equation solver be considered a utility program? Okay, bad example. Would a general polynomial solver be considered a utility program?

I might do this one, if my program idea counts as a utility program. Very Happy

Note: my program idea is not a polynomial root-finder. That was an example.
Ed H wrote:
I've had an idea in my head for some time that may be a utility program. What exactly is a utility program? From what I can tell, it seems to be any program that isn't a game.

Would a quadratic equation solver be considered a utility program? Okay, bad example. Would a general polynomial solver be considered a utility program?

I might do this one, if my program idea counts as a utility program. Very Happy

Note: my program idea is not a polynomial root-finder. That was an example.


Yeah, sounds good to me. If it's useful, go for it.
Alrighty, let's get this show on the road. How about starting it now and setting the deadline for the middle of February or so? Is that too long or short of a contest?
Sounds good to me. Official end date: February 14th? It's the middle of the month. And besides, we're nerds. We don't have anything better to do that day, do we? Rolling Eyes
  
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