When faced with the daunting task of learning a new programming language, it is reasonable to ask "What's in it for me?" Why learn Dylan, rather than focus on brushing up those Java or .NET skills? Well, as they say, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating"—or at least in the contest results.
The following information relates to Dylan's performance in the last few years of International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP) Contest. Despite the title, all kinds of languages are used for these projects (ranging from Java and C all the way down to Bash scripts!).
The following table summarizes Dylan's performance, with each rank linking to a more detailed analysis of the work done.
ICFP Performance
| Year | Topic | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Cops & Robbers Cops & Robbers, The Twist | Judge's and Second Prize |
| 2004 | Dinner with Ambiants | No prize |
| 2003 | Race track path algorithm | Judge's Prize |
| 2002 | Multi-Player Robot Game | Eliminated in Round 4 |
| 2001 | SML/NG Markup Language Optimizer | Second Place |
| 2000 | Ray Tracer | Eliminated First Round |