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Key Dates
- Start: January 31, 2025, 15:00 UTC
- Submission Deadline: February 3, 2025, 12:00 UTC
- Winners Announced: February 21, 2025, 18:00 UTC
Your Mission
Build a high-performance URL shortener in Rust in 72 hours! Show off your skills in modern Rust and system design.
Core Challenge + Feature Auction
Build the core URL shortener PLUS choose ONE bonus feature:
1. Custom URL Aliases
- Let users create custom short URLs
- Focus on input handling and validation
2. Expiration Dates
- Add URL expiry by date or usage count
- Handle time-based functionality
3. QR Code Generation
- Auto-generate QR codes for shortened URLs
- Work with image generation
4. API Access
- Create a RESTful API
- Design clean HTTP endpoints
5. Data Encryption
- Encrypt stored URLs
- Implement secure coding practices
What to Build Core Requirements:
- URL shortening functionality
- Redirect handling
- Data persistence
- Error handling
- Choose ONE interface: HTTP API, CLI, or simple web form
Technical Focus
1. Modern Rust Code:
- Use Rust idioms and patterns
- Implement robust error handling
- Apply concurrency where it makes sense
2. System Design:
- Create clean, modular architecture
- Manage resources efficiently
- Keep the design scalable
Presentation (5-7 minutes)
- Show architecture overview
- Highlight Rust implementation
- Explain technical decisions
- Demo core functionality
- Show your chosen bonus feature
- Discuss performance
Judging Criteria
- Quality of Rust implementation
- Technical design decisions
- Working demonstration
- Feature integration
- Practical performance
- Creative approach
Don't Focus On:
- Complex UI/UX
- Extensive documentation
- Perfect test coverage
- Production deployment
- Multiple interfaces
Ready to make URLs blazingly fast? Let's code!
