On Thu, 6 Apr 2000, Doug Way wrote:
> A more interesting coding contest would have a second phase, with a
> separate second team for each team in the first phase, who were familiar
> with the language/tools the first team used, but had zero contact with the
> first team (and did not know the first team).  This second team would then
> be assigned a bunch of enhancements to implement using the application the
> first team developed.  They would also be given points for completeness
> and speed.  
> 
> Have there ever been any coding contests like this?

Not exactly. The "Gesellschaft für Sport und Technik" in East Germany held
a "Programmier-Olympiade" in the late 80s. In the preliminary round,
candidates were given a programming task. The programming environment was
not restricted, only the program had to run on an accessible machine.
Based on the solution submitted by mail, finalists were selected. In the
final round, the submitted program had to be adapted to an extended
specification in a limited time (6 hours max iirc). Points were given for
correctness and development time left.

  -Bert-