This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.
The Toughest Developer Puzzle Ever is a new puzzle site aimed at programmers in the same vein as web-based puzzle challenges such as notpron, Rankk and Python Challenge. Created by Microsoft Developer Evangelist Jeff Blankenburg, “TDPE” consists of a sequence of 30 web pages, each one with a puzzle that when solved will take you to the next one. Each puzzle provides the necessary hints to solve it, although some of the hints are tucked away in not-so-obvious places. Some puzzles can be solved with a little programming skill, some require a little knowledge of computer programming theory (although a little Binging will do) and some can be solved with a little logic and lateral thinking.
Jeff has offered a prize to the first fifteen people who complete the The Toughest Developer Puzzle Ever (only those who complete it will know how to prove it). Judging from the Twitter account for “TDPE” and tweets with the #TDPE hashtag, not all the prizes have been claimed yet.
I managed to power through the first 29 puzzles while watching Ghostbusters on TV yesterday, but the very last one has me stumped. As others who’ve been flummoxed by this problem have said on Twitter, I’m sure I’m overthinking it.
Can you beat the Toughest Developer Puzzle Ever? I’m sure you can, but you might want to do it after work. Let me know how you’re doing in the comments!
3 replies on “The Toughest Developer Puzzle Ever”
i got stuck at (ahem) #9, the nintendo controller. my excuse: i’m not a developer, and i never played nintendo.
ps. after all the prizes have been given away will you give me a hint?
Yeah, I can’t get the last one. (That is, the one after you’ve won).
[sigh]
i can’t get pat the last one.
there are lots of cipher algos out there and the only clue there is pi and chunks of two.
need to have more hint for the key and kind of cipher…