It's over. As an old proverb goes, "fun time passes damned fast," the competition is over (I hope we still have some food left for my lunch tomorrow). Now, let's me recount how it is, from my stupid perspective.
The competition was really fun. If we take away the absence of Rohit (ironically, our team won at the very area of Rohit), everything for the team is near perfect. We have a fun time screaming on the database, and a hard time answering questions. Screaming is fun, and hard time is fun. Designing is also fun. Trying to market F# to a Microsoft guy is also fun (aka. stupid fun). Gosh, when I think about it, the very moment I threw F# out there, he should have given me the MS' special prize. Come on, I am like the only one who seemed to care about the existence of such language! He should feel honor that I did not rant about F# (I targeted ML instead, oh gosh).
Secondly, the organization can be done better. aka I should have done more. I got lazy to go home late, so I did not help out as much as I should, which makes me feel as guilty as hell now :(. However, as I said earlier, there should have be more stuffs going on as the event approaches, not less. Anyway, well, I did not help, so I have no rights to complains.
Thirdly, it is not a good idea to have 5 languages in one application, after all. Hm, I will have to review this point carefully. In my view, an application, except in the case where it can be written entirely in LISP/Scheme, where I can write sub-languages easily, should be written in multiple languages, just because, well, NO ONE WRITES AI IN JAVA FOR A DAMNED REASON. I am so pissed that the fact of 5 languages is not appreciated. It took me forever to jam that into the design. *sign*. It turns out as always: what I deliberately do fails, and what I do out of necessary wins. Laziness trumps.
Fourthly, I think the idea of mix high-level and low-level students next time would be TERRIFIC. Just imagine 2 competition on one day, one for design, and one for coding. The coding teams will have chance to look at how the designers solve the problem at high level, while they will realize parts of the solution. Gosh, HOW BEAUTIFUL THAT IS.
Fifthly, I want to send many many many etc. Okay, let me rewrite that. I want to send (many)^n where n > 100 thanks to Abby, Carl, Carl, Kris, Hannah, and other ACM fellow members for this event. It was so fun. Let's do it again next year!
Sixthly, I am pleased to see the next generation of ACM monkeys. Um, okay, they are not quite "monkey," but close enough. People who can do USACO is definitely monkeys. I mean, not monkey. Gosh, I don't know what I am saying any more T_T. Anyway, next generation of ACM members will be FUN. This warms my heart. Let's see what I can spoil them :P (how about this: go to class knowing everything, then try to make a hell out of your professor).
Lastly, many thanks to mentors and professors. Your help is greatly greatly appreciated. Hope to see you again, soon enough.
End of the competition. You can go to my personal blog to read more rants :D.
