Testing whether this would make an Interesting Challenge
There are some 300 or so celebs and the trick is of course to buy low and sell hi and be the highest rated player. What i'm proposing is that I write the web-bot bit (for all three languages C, C++ and C#) which you download and add your ai code. So long as the bots are gentle on the BBC website (ie no more frequently than once every 15 minutes). The bot would fetch all the current prices for all the celebs. It's up to you to deal with the data and issue buy/sell orders. Would anyone be interested in this? It wouldn't be for a couple of months and if anyone wants to write the web bot code (i.e. fetch html and parse it) and submit it, be my guest. I'll publish any code like that in the Projects area. One rule when writing bots, tread lightly! You can read about the old challenge below. If you think this is a good idea, please email me and let me know at cplus.guide@about.com.
Alas, ’tis only open to UK residents.
On that basis alone I’d vote no
Is that true about it being UK only? Where does it say that? I thought there were players from all over the world playing here. Its certainly not limited to UK only celebs…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/celebdaq/rules.shtml
Rule 1:
1. This competition is open to UK residents only. Overseas entries will not be considered.
There are two parts to this, conveniently colored red and white. The main celebdaq stock market part (rules etc shaded red) is open to anyone who registers an email address.
The 2nd part (in white) is the Top Trader competition which provides a weekly prize. That is the part that is only open to UK residents and requires full address registration for anyone who wants to enter the competition so the BBC knows where to send the prize. However this Top Trade competition is currently suspended.
So no problems about entering (for the glory)!
Well then, in the words of Emily Latilla:
Never mind.
I’d vote for it then as it’s a different area of programming that would be fun to play around in and to exercise my (long dormant) AI skills, such as they were.