Rules
Each year, the rules of the contest are published on the IOCCC website. Rules vary from year to year and are posted with a set of guidelines that attempt to convey the spirit of the rules.
The rules are often deliberately written with subtle loopholes that contestants are somewhat encouraged to find and abuse. This is the result of the contest being a "parody of the software development process". Entries that take advantage of some loophole in the rules (whether or not they pass a final round of judging) can cause the rules for the following year's contest to be adjusted accordingly (although often other subtle loopholes are deliberately introduced in the process).
Read more about this topic: International Obfuscated C Code Contest
Famous quotes containing the word rules:
“It’s not wise to violate rules until you know how to observe them.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“The five kings count the dead but do not soften
The crusted wound nor stroke the brow;
A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;
Hands have no tears to flow.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“Alas! when Virtue sits high aloft on a frigate’s poop, when Virtue is crowned in the cabin of a Commodore, when Virtue rules by compulsion, and domineers over Vice as a slave, then Virtue, though her mandates be outwardly observed, bears little interior sway.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)