FUTURE CONTESTS

[stuart]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to keep these contests interesting and have an idea for a future contest. I would like to invite student teams from universities or colleges around the world to compete against each other.

I need you to help make this happen. Do any of you know of (or go to) a University or college that have an interest in PHP? if so please post their URL and contact info.

I still intend to run individual contests - this is just an extra one (or more) that may run for a longer period.

All the best
Stuart

[carl]

I don't think you'll find any University that officially has any interest with PHP - PHP has a lot of problems with it that make it far from ideal for teaching programming theory, it's object-orientated interface and a backwards view of variable scope to name just two.

That said, I'm sure some universities will run modules in web-based technologies and I would think PHP would feature there due to it's ease-of-use and how widespread it is. Also, I would say a lot of students would pick it up for personal use (I learnt PHP while I was at uni, but it wasn't even mentioned as part of my Comp. Sci. degree, for instance.) Therefore you'll likely find a lot of interest for such contests.

May I make the suggestion though that you run contests that any team can enter, and have special awards for student entries - This will make the contests more interesting for all due to the increased participation, and the students would still get the recognition they deserve by entering.

Of course, you might find everything I've wrote is not true, and many unis are offering modules specifically teaching PHP

Regards,
Carl.

[stuart]

Yes, im sure your right about the popularity of PHP in normal coursework, but im hoping enough interst will be generated and teams can be brought together in a more less formal manner. The actual University doesn't have to be involved directly, it could just be a bunch of students getting together.
I agree that other teams should also join in, but it wouldn't be fair for a group of full time programmers to compete agianst students.
I really want to get team contests up and running, and do see any other way of getting together teams from around the world. Suggestions welcome

thanks for your comments

Stuart

[carl]

Whilst I agree it would be unfair for a team of students to take on a team of professional programmers, I guess it would also be unfair for a team of computer science students to take on a team of students who just mess with PHP in their spare time.

I guess however, you are targetting the student contests to those who are learning PHP and I would guess that those students who are already proficient in the language would enter the other contests you would run.

It's certainly a good idea, anything that encourages people to pick up PHP and work in a team is a good thing, I hope it turns out to be popular and successful.

Would you consider opening a team-based contest for all-comers too?

Regards,
Carl.

[TomVu]

I like the fast, short type algorithms on topcoder.

For our future contest the price must include a Macromedia Product and :unsure: a Bradbury Software... no ? :blink:

[jlawrence]

I think that a student team would be a great inclusion. I am a student programmer and have a team that would like to enter into the contests. (speaking of which, can a team enter the current contest, or need it be only one person?) There has been a great surge of interest among friends at my University in PHP, and it is not supported by the University - which has, sadly, converted to all Windows-based development, and requires the use of IDEs such as Microsoft Visual Studio .NET in place of allowing for standard languages which are supported in most OSes and require at least a tab bit of skill.)

So there is no drive from the CS department here - and the team that I have been on the past two years has gone to international competition for ACM - showing that it is a large, and decent department.

[quadra23]

I think an excellent contest would be one that implements the Condorcet Voting method ( explained for example, at http://electionmethods.org/ ). Since it's a more fair voting system that improves immensely on our current voting system. This would be a worthwhile and very real life project IMHO.

I'm sure this could be done with PHP and MySQL although it will probably get far more complicated with a variable number of candidates (adding more to the programming fun and learning!). Anyone else think this is a good idea?