Wormageddon Beta Goes Live!

[adum]

we're proud to bring you the beta of Wormageddon, the first bot-dueling style hacking competition on hacker.org.

write your worm bot in Java, or any language that can produce Java bytecode, and have her duke it out with the other wriggling creations.

the front page of the game contains a link to an SDK that will give you all you need to get started.

for now, no site points will be given until we make sure everything is running smoothly.

please let us know any problems/issues/suggestions as we improve your worm experience.

coming soon: replays, JARfile support.

good luck!

adum

[nbarriga]

No SDK for linux? I thought this was a hacker's site.

(I don't reply "if you're a hacker do it yourself", because I'm a lazy hacker

[iceman]

[quote="nbarriga"]No SDK for linux? I thought this was a hacker's site.

(I don't reply "if you're a hacker do it yourself", because I'm a lazy hacker [/quote]

It's java.. shouldn't matter.

You'll need to install a java SDK - if you're rpm based, you can download one off the sun site. If you're Debian based, you can download the bin installer and trust it, or use make-jpkg to make a .deb you can install.

[iceman]

we're proud to bring you the beta of Wormageddon, the first bot-dueling style hacking competition on hacker.org.

write your worm bot in Java, or any language that can produce Java bytecode, and have her duke it out with the other wriggling creations.

the front page of the game contains a link to an SDK that will give you all you need to get started.

for now, no site points will be given until we make sure everything is running smoothly.

please let us know any problems/issues/suggestions as we improve your worm experience.

coming soon: replays, JARfile support.

good luck!

adum

a Few quick questions:

1) Can we assume the number of enemies is alwars 1? the enemies array is set up to handle multiple enemies, but I haven't found a way to find the number of enemies.

2) Under linux/debian/sun sun-j2sdk1.5, if I don't check run natively, I get:
ojvm.loading.ClassNotFoundE: File java/util/Random.class not found in: ../hackjvm/rt/bin
at ojvm.loading.ClassFileInputStream.<init>(ClassFileInputStream.java:117)
...

Running natively works fine. It might have required j2sdk1.5 rather than sun-j2re1.5, and I think I had to install awt, but that may just be me being a java newbie.

I though real hackers used Linux and C <grin>

3) Any chance of 3 vs. 3 play (a.k.a. Tron Light Cycles) - I've tossed around some neat strategies for years, but never found a forum for impelementing them...

[nbarriga]

No SDK for linux? I thought this was a hacker's site.

(I don't reply "if you're a hacker do it yourself", because I'm a lazy hacker

It's java.. shouldn't matter.

You'll need to install a java SDK - if you're rpm based, you can download one off the sun site. If you're Debian based, you can download the bin installer and trust it, or use make-jpkg to make a .deb you can install.

Sorry, I'm used to Makefile's and stuff, not really a Java developer. I found there is a .project that I could load with eclipse(resisting the urge to throw up) and it all run right away.

[adum]

for linux -- everything should run just the same as windows. i included a .bat file to help launch the simulator on windows, and i will make a .sh one to do the same on linux. it actually should be just about identical with the slashes changed.

iceman -- for the error with Random.class you're getting, it sounds like you probably don't have the classpath passed to WormChooser set up right. it matters what directory you run it from, too. if you copy and paste the RunSimulator.bat line and change the slashes, and run from the right directory, it should work. what jdk/jre you're using shouldn't matter.

for 2x2 play or 3x3 play, i definitely want to implement that, and will do soon. it will be a different submission page for that though, so the same code won't have to run both types. so for now you can always assume one opponent in the enemy array (altho you can always get the array length to check in the code).

adum

[Hacksign]

i love linux

[iceman]

Sorry, I'm used to Makefile's and stuff, not really a Java developer. I found there is a .project that I could load with eclipse(resisting the urge to throw up) and it all run right away.

ROTFLMAO!

[iceman]

for linux -- everything should run just the same as windows. i included a .bat file to help launch the simulator on windows, and i will make a .sh one to do the same on linux. it actually should be just about identical with the slashes changed.

I'm still a java newbie, but I think you also need s/;/:/g

iceman -- for the error with Random.class you're getting, it sounds like you probably don't have the classpath passed to WormChooser set up right. it matters what directory you run it from, too. if you copy and paste the RunSimulator.bat line and change the slashes, and run from the right directory, it should work. what jdk/jre you're using shouldn't matter.

Again, java newbie, but in true hacker fashion, as soon as I found a way that worked, I stopped

for 2x2 play or 3x3 play, i definitely want to implement that, and will do soon. it will be a different submission page for that though, so the same code won't have to run both types. so for now you can always assume one opponent in the enemy array (altho you can always get the array length to check in the code).

adum

Excellent.

[Captain Segfault]

for linux -- everything should run just the same as windows. i included a .bat file to help launch the simulator on windows, and i will make a .sh one to do the same on linux. it actually should be just about identical with the slashes changed.

iceman -- for the error with Random.class you're getting, it sounds like you probably don't have the classpath passed to WormChooser set up right. it matters what directory you run it from, too. if you copy and paste the RunSimulator.bat line and change the slashes, and run from the right directory, it should work. what jdk/jre you're using shouldn't matter.

I get the same Random.class errors on my gentoo box, even when I run from eclipse.

Eclipse:
File java/util/Random.class not found in: ../hackjvm/rt/bin

And from a modified version of the batch file:
java -cp "lib/hackengine.jar:lib/hackjvm.jar" org.hacker.worm.WormChooser -cp "lib/rt.jar"
ojvm.loading.ClassNotFoundE: File java/util/Random.class not found in: lib/rt.jar

This only happens when I run the simulator; native is fine. Unfortunately, SegBot Mk 0.0 through 0.0b tried to clone arrays, which apparently doesn't work...

[adum]

hmmn, that's very curious. i'll give it a try on linux and see what happens... the java.util.Random class is certainly part of rt.jar. not sure why it wouldn't be found while the other classes are...

yeah, no cloning arrays yet. i'll take a look to see what that would involve. i'm sort of adding things to the rt/jvm as people find them necessary, so let me know your requests.

thanks,
adum

[Captain Segfault]

yeah, no cloning arrays yet. i'll take a look to see what that would involve. i'm sort of adding things to the rt/jvm as people find them necessary, so let me know your requests.

Actually, we've got System.arraycopy already, so it's not a big deal.

What I'd *really* like is private classes. It seems like all of Java's syntactic gravy assumes you can create classes, so what I'm left with is like C without function pointers or structs.

Now to get SegBot Mk0.1full to take less than 10 million instructions...

[adum]

okay, noted that supporting multiple classes should be high priority =)

adum

[adum]

i've updated the SDK -- there's now a RunSimulator.sh script that will work on linux.

cheers,
adum

[nbarriga]

Is there a possibility that you provide read only access to a cvs|svn|git server so we can update our SDKs more easily?

I think maybe that way it is less work for you and for us. (Not that it is much work anyway, so, just a suggestion/wish)