BORE at .conf25

[ITWhisperer]

Boss Of Regular Expression (BORE) was an interactive session run again this year at .conf25 by the brilliant Splunk experts Clara and Cary, assisted by members of the Splunk Trust. We spent a couple of hours on Tuesday afternoon trying to solve problems using regular expressions to gain points. The problems were nominally rated as Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced, with bonus (hidden) strings so that more generalised solutions could gain extra points. Problems from previous years were also available (for lower scores).

We had over 60 participants, with some participants continuing beyond the end of the main session, with about 2400 attempts between them.

Beginner Questions

Of the beginner questions (for conf25), no-one managed to get the bonus on two out of the five questions in this section, and only one user got the bonus for two of the other questions, but an impressive seven succeeded in getting the bonus on one of the questions. The questions were solved in an average number of attempts ranging from 1.32 to 5.20, taking an average time ranging from 2 minutes and 22 seconds to 22 minutes and 6 seconds. Bonuses were achieved in an average number of attempts ranging from 3.14 to 15.00, taking an average time ranging from 3 minutes and 43 seconds to 19 minutes and 57 seconds.

Intermediate Questions

Of the intermediate questions (for conf25), no-one managed to get the bonus on two out of the six questions in this section, and only one user got the bonus for one of the other questions, but a very impressive fourteen succeeded in getting the bonus on one of the questions. The questions were solved in an average number of attempts ranging from 1.71 to 12.33, taking an average time ranging from 3 minutes and 33 seconds to 24 minutes and 31 seconds. Bonuses were achieved in an average number of attempts ranging from 2.33 to 12.67, taking an average time ranging from 1 minute and 59 seconds to 16 minutes and 45 seconds.

Advanced Questions

Of the intermediate questions (for conf25), no-one managed to get the bonus on any of the six questions in this section, and no-one managed to solve one of the questions at all. The other five questions were solved in an average number of attempts ranging from 2.13 to 3.50, taking an average time ranging from 2 minutes and 25 seconds to 6 minutes and 44 seconds.

Statisterics

plural noun /stəˈtɪs.tɛrɪks/

a collection of numerical facts or measurements, made up for fun with no scientific basis or credibility behind them.

Now for some fun!

There are a number of measures we might apply to how well people engaged with the questions.

• Popularity by users - the number of users who attempted the question
• Popularity by submissions - the number of submissions for each question
• Correct users - the percentage of users who tried the question and found a correct solution
• Correct speed - the average time taken to find a correct solution
• Correct accuracy - the average number of attempts to find a correct solution
• Bonus users - the percentage of users who tried the question and found a bonus solution
• Bonus speed - the average time taken to find a bonus solution
• Bonus accuracy - the average number of attempts to find a bonus solution

This can be represented in a column chart

Taking the overall area for each question gives the following rankings for the questions (smaller is better)

Commentary

In general, the questions were set to try to get players to use some of the more sophisticated elements of regular expressions, particularly when it came to getting the bonus points. Looking at the submissions, it appears that players found correct solutions, mainly without using particularly sophisticated methods, which is great from the point of view of the player (the simpler the expression, the better). However, it means that the players were not stretched as much as they could have been. Also, very few achieved, or perhaps even attempted looking for, the bonus points. These are things that we should hope to address in subsequent versions of BORE!

Thanks

Thanks to Clara and Cary for creating these sessions and running them for the last couple of years. They have been educational and great fun!