[Baypiggies] Bay Area python competitive programming

[Glen Jarvis]

Of all of the materials that I've seen, the TopCoder videos were the most
informative. I watched the TopCoder videos to get a sense what this would
be like.

However, that particular style event is much more for the elite in the
field.  There were so many phrases like "Best and Brightest" and "Olympians
of the coding world" which exclude the people I'm considering this for.

I'm looking for something completely different -- the opposite of elitism.
TopCoders had some of this too, where one person said "You may not know the
answer yourself, but you can learn from someone else who has done that same
problem." Friendly competition can be motivating. Seeing others ideas
compared to your own can be enlightening.

After seeing these responses and processing them, I have these thoughts:

* Obviously, it can't be presented as well as the cooking shows - that
takes a production team

* This doesn't have to be in person to see what the interest this community
has

* We could create a site for people to suggest their problems

* Contestants could review the pool of problems to prepare [And, this is
the motivating factor to help people focus on particular topics for
increasing their skills].

* The community could vote and comment on what problems they like more

* On the day the contest begins, the participants that signed up would see
the final chosen problem and the clock starts

* After the period of time has elapsed (maybe two days over a weekend),
 the submissions are due. This is less about a "first to finish" than it is
about demonstrating skills learned

* All submissions are public but under a blind name (No one knows who
submitted what) and are voted/judged by the community

* Three final judges (if needed) weigh in with the community feedback to
pick a final winner

* The winner is announced and the identity of the winner revealed

The focus will always be on a particular skill in Python. For example,
"Best use of Generators" for beginners. Or, "Creative ways to use the dis
library" for more advanced, etc. The community would know this when they
submitted their challenges for vote/selection.

There could be winners in both challenges submitted and contests competing.

These are just ideas that are coming to me. But, as I have said forever and
ever... "Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard."

If there are a few "+1" votes for this, I may consider spending the time to
put it together. If not, I'll know there really isn't that much interest in
the community for such an online event.


Cheers,



Glen
--
glen at glenjarvis.com
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