Fun programming challenge: figure out which sets of passports grant visa-free access to the whole world

hydravion
Wed, 13 Mar 2024 09:51:46 +0000

Hey there,

I wanted to know which sets of passports grant together visa-free access to every country in the world, but I could not easily find that info online. So I figured that I could try to write a small program to determine these sets of passports myself, and then it occurred to me that it would probably be a fun programming challenge to organize, so here we go.

Here's the challenge.

1. Scrape the data you need for instance from The Henley Passport Index.

2. Design a clever algorithm to efficiently find out which are the smallest sets of passports that will grant you visa-free access to every country in the world.

3. Optional. Allow the user to specify which passports they already hold and find out which sets of passports would complement their passports well.

4. Optional. Rank the sets of passports by how easy it is to acquire citizenship in those countries.

The choice of the programming language is yours, bonus points if you write it in assembly 😂

Feel free to collaborate and share your solutions (the algorithms and the actual results) in the comments, and feel free to share your own twists to the challenge that could make it even more fun & interesting.

The person with the most clever, efficient and elegant algorithm wins!

Happy coding folks!

Comments URL: https://tildes.net/~comp/1ewj/fun_programming_challenge_figure_out_which_sets_of_passports_grant_visa_free_access_to_the_whole

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