So it is a race. And being awake at the right time no matter where you are in the world is a big advantage given a fixed start time of Midnight UTC-5.

Thanks for the quick reply. Yep, worked first time on a MAC. 

Still not sure of the rules, and given your experience, I'm not sure it will be enjoyable. Can't believe this is the template:

At least I've gained some knowledge on some of what can be done with Docker.

I was going to play but it is difficult to get started.

Tried to get the template, downloaded git and Docker desktop, got a git account, got IRIS working through Docker - was quite impressed with that) but cannot get the template. Am getting at least 2 errors on "docker-compose build" command:

Is it possible to play without the template? Surely it's just a class in UDL format?

The day 1 problem is easy to solve. I expect most of us could do it in one line of code. But what are the rules? How does the scoring work? Is it a race? Do you need to be in the first 5 people to finish it every day? Is it judged by someone? If so, what are you looking for? If you can't get your entry in on day 1 will you be too far behind?

Going to try it on a MAC instead of Windows, maybe that will help.

https://xkcd.com/936/

Dang! Might have been interested at the higher end of that salary per month.

Or this

BinaryToDecimal(Binary,Debug=0)
              i Debug {
                             w !,"Binary number: ",Binary
                             w !,"Bit",?20,"Cumulative",!
              }
              s Decimal=0
              f Power=0:1 {
                             s Bit=$e(Binary,*) ; last digit
                             q:Bit=""  ; at end
                             s $e(Binary,*)="" ; shorten binary number by removing last character
                             s Integer=(2**Power)*Bit ; 2**0 =1, 2**1 =2, 2**2 =4 etc..
                             s Decimal=Decimal+Integer ; running decimal sum of each Bit
                             i Debug w Integer,?20,Decimal,!
              }
              q Decimal

Prefer the SET method for both readability and performance. However, when it comes  to readability, I see it as my deficiency if I can't read it instead of the author's deficiency - unless the code is deliberately obtuse. And when it comes to performance, you should only write something unreadable if it is necessary to gain performance for code run hundreds of thousands of times a day. But then you would comment your code so well that anyone could read the comment and wouldn't need to read the code to know how it worked and what it does.

can save 4 more characters with

$p("lfa7ravo7harlie7elta7cho7oxtrot7olf7otel7ndia7uliett7ilo7ima7ike7ovember7scar7apa7uebec7omeo7ierra7ango7niform7ictor7hiskey7ray7ankee7ulu",7,$a(c)#32)

instead of 's l=' and '$p(l,'

N(i) s l="lfa7ravo7harlie7elta7cho7oxtrot7olf7otel7ndia7uliett7ilo7ima7ike7ovember7scar7apa7uebec7omeo7ierra7ango7niform7ictor7hiskey7ray7ankee7ulu"

 f j=1:1:$l(i) s c=$e(i,j),o=$g(o)_$s(",.!?"[c:c,c?1a:$e(" ",j>1)_c_$p(l,7,$a(c)#32),1:"")

q o

; 243 chars

; save 2 quote characters by using a number (7) as the delimiter

; save characters by not $ZCVT to upper, $A(k)#32 works fine for lower and upper

;save on $ZSTRIP of whitespace by only adding space character for every letter after 1st one

; ensure to follow the rules on allowed punctuation and exclude all other characters

Hi Oliver,

I spent 20 years developing software, originally in MUMPS but now in Objectscript, runs on IRIS, that generates SWIFT MT messages for transmission in categories 1,2,3 and 5. Also receives messages in all categories and decodes and processes them. System also handles message matching and bank reconciliations. All automated save for a bit of exception handling when the wrong data is input. Also seamless connectivity with SWIFT Alliance system so the messages go straight out from the back office system and across the SWIFT network with full ACK/NACK processing. Added GPI and LAU to the connectivity process. Did a bit of freelance work a couple of years ago on the MX messages too. Processed about 4 billion messages in 20 years with close to 100% STP. It's all quite do-able in IRIS.