Best of Code Review 2013

Question

As this 3rd beta-year comes to an end, we would like to host an event: The Best of Code Review 2013. All Code Review users will be invited to nominate (link to) the best questions and answers from this year, and showcase them as examples of what great CR questions and answers should look like.

There's just one problem: we need to agree on categories! Please post your category ideas here, one idea per answer please. (削除) The most upvoted ones will be retained. (downvotes don't count!) (削除ここまで) We have six categories for best-of in 2013!

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Conclusion

The winners of Best of Code Review 2013 are:

• Night and Day (the most dramatic improvement): (with 4 meta votes)

  • How to make inverse Burrows-Wheeler Transform faster?

  I'm awarding 100 points to Gareth Rees for the answer and 50 points to Cris Stringfellow for posing the question.

• Exterminator (answer that points out the most obscure bug): (with 7 meta votes)

  • Reading large files in Java getting really slow

  I'm awarding 50 points to rolfl for the answer.

• Diplomat (most tactful advice): (with 7 meta votes)

  • First Java program critique (Game of Life)

  I'm awarding 50 points to rolfl for the answer.

• Gordian Knot Untied (best justification for rewrite): (with 3 meta votes)

  • Speed up solution to Project Euler problem 75

  I'm awarding 50 points to Gareth Rees for the answer.

• Not as easy as it looks: Tie with 3 meta votes each:

  • Project Euler 407: Is there any more optimal way to solve this idempotent equation (modulo n ring)?, posed by ilia-sucholutsky
  • Optimising Funny Marbles, posed by user2369284

  As neither user has posted any answers on Code Review, no bounty can be awarded for their interesting questions. (In my opinion, Project Euler 407 never looked easy in the first place!)

• Thousand words (best image): (with 5 meta votes)

  • Parallel Universe Time generator, answered by 200_success

  Although the nomination was for the answer posted by 200_success, the image in the question was pretty useful too.

As suggested by @retailcoder, I am awarding bounties to winners in the first four categories, as noted above.

I hope that Best of Code Review 2013 has helped to showcase contributions from our members — not just the winners, but the other nominees as well. Hopefully, we can make this event an annual tradition!

• Mathieu Guindon: I suggest the top-voted category earns a bounty to the winning answer.. or 100pts for the top category and 50pts for the next two?

Answer 1

Best of Code Review 2013 — Night and Day category: The most dramatic improvement (nominate both the question with the most hopeless code and the answer that cleans it up the best)

Answer 2

Best of Code Review 2013 — Exterminator category: Answer that points out the most interesting obscure bug in the original code

Answer 3

Best of Code Review 2013 — Diplomat category: Tough advice in an answer, delivered in the most tactful manner

Answer 4

Best of Code Review 2013 — Gordian Knot Untied category: Most justified advice in an answer for taking a completely different approach from the code in the original question

Answer 5

Best of Code Review 2013 — Not As Easy As It Looks category: Question that superficially appears simple but turns out to be more difficult than expected

Answer 6

Best of Code Review 2013 — Thousand Words category: Most effective use of images in a question or answer

Answer 7

Food for Thought: Question with the code that aims to accomplish the most interesting task

Answer 8

Stage Setter: Best explanation of the context behind a question

Answer 9

Fishing Rod: Best Socratic review (providing hints without giving away the solution)

Answer 10

Expert Witness: Best example of a reviewer applying specialized domain knowledge

Answer 11

Tour de Force: Most substantial effort made by a reviewer to analyze a particularly difficult problem

Answer 12

Marketing 101: Best question title

• 200_success: Good idea, but it could be problematic since titles often get edited, sometimes by someone else.
• 200_success: On second thought, it's OK if the title was edited later, as long as the user who improved it gets credit.

Answer 13

Unsung Hero: Best, detailed answer (削除) without up-votes (削除ここまで) with 1 or 0 votes.

• Mathieu Guindon: That's going to be hard. I made my best to ensure good answers at least got my vote. There's very few "targets" left!
• 200_success: I also hope that Best of Code Review will help promote underrated posts. However, I think that making a category for underrated posts is problematic, because the act of nomination will likely attract upvotes. I suggest simply "Most detailed answer" — worthy nominations should bubble up regardless of their initial vote count. Or maybe combine this with "Tour de Force".
• 200_success: Note: someone downvoted this suggestion.