Got quest ideas?

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RE: Got quest ideas? by chromatic (Archbishop) on Apr 15, 2000 at 05:29 UTC
How about a Perl Golf contest, where the object is to solve a certain problem with the fewest number of (key)strokes? Maybe a "most twisted solution" contest. Anything that gets more well-written tutorials and Categorized Q&A is good. How come the Perl Monks code isn't available? :) Best Bugfix or Feature Enhancement.	[reply]
RE: Got quest ideas? by little_mistress (Monk) on Apr 15, 2000 at 04:21 UTC
How about something like this. There are a number of applications written in perl that one can download for free and use. Yet there is no place where you can get kind of unbiased reviews of them. So I propose this: A section of reviews on applications freeware, shareware, and commercial, written in, or with major components written in perl. Reviews should investigate several standard topics such as: Ease of Install Ease of Use for the end user Ease of Use for the adminstrator Documentation Support Ease of code modification, in apps that allow modification of code in their copyright. Comparisons to other simular applications I realize that this would require a moderator for postings to a Reviews section, however, anyone who would go to the length to write a well written review of a application would be doing the perl community well. And if promoted correctly it may even become a type of Seal of Aproval in the perl community providing folks with a place to find well written informative reviews on various freeware, shareware, and commercial products. The moderator in this case will be looking to make sure the review covers the appropriate topics, covers those topics with well thought out critical thinking. (ie. nothing like "this sucks cause i said so", but rather "this sucks for the following 10 reasons", or "this is a good app for the following 10 reasons"). The review can be good or bad but either way it must be well supported. By having a moderator on this group, the practice of companies posting their own "sweetheart reviews" can be curbed. Another, thing that this adds to the perl community is a place where students, the ones in universities, can put actual real work. Rather than just writing papers for classes they will be writing real articals that get really published and really read and really used and really sited in the real world, which looks really good on a real resume, and makes it real easy to get a real job. This also, because of the time and care that would have to go into writing a well written review, could be used to add bonus XPs for those who write publishable work. Because of the nature of it, I would be willing to wager that if only well screened reviews are allowed that this site would gain a fair amount of notice around the commercial software world as well and it could be an even more smashing edition to the resumes of those who work on this site, as well as providing a way for those who are interested in publishing a way to get some extra resume points on their resumes. I realize it does make more work for vroom and the others who work on this site, but I think the impact could be significant enough to warrent it. little_mistress@mainhall.com	[reply]
RE: Got quest ideas? by kryten (Scribe) on Apr 15, 2000 at 21:32 UTC
I'd like to see the quests running for a bit longer. Maybe a week or so, which gives people a bit more time to come up with contributions, and allows for busy days at work etc.	[reply]
RE: Got quest ideas? by btrott (Parson) on Apr 15, 2000 at 07:38 UTC
As an extension on chromatic's idea for a Perl Golf contest; perhaps just a contest with a bunch of different "prizes". Post a problem and ask for, eg.: the fastest solution the shortest solution (Perl Golf) the most extensible solution? most Perlish solution (sort of like Perl Golf, considering the nature of Perl :) and so on. You could attach different amounts of XP points to the different prizes, or you could make the points all the same. An example of a question might be along the lines of, but perhaps more complicated than: Given a sentence, write code to reverse the words in the sentence. (join ' ', reverse split / /, $sentence) Another example might be the recent post on the madlibs implementation, which was a really good starting point and, I thought, contributed to some really nice ideas and code. Something along those lines, basically. Just a thought.	[reply]
RE: Got quest ideas? by turnstep (Parson) on Apr 15, 2000 at 20:52 UTC
How about something similar to the POTM contest? Basically, the creator gives a fiendishly difficult problem to solve, and then all the solutions "compete" against each other in number or results, speed, and code size. (The latter two are used in case of a tie). For example, I recall one contest was where you had to write a program that would come up with as many legal words as possible, when it was fed in a 10x10 grid of letters, by going from letter to letter (and no backtracking). There were some other guidelines/clarifications as well, no need to go into them here. Then the program that output the most number of valid words (with a 10 minute time cap) won, and if a tie, the shortest code did. Let me dig out the URL for the POTM.... `http://members.tripod.com/~POTM/` [download] (I like the perl golf thing too. The Mad Libs was a fun problem to solve.)	[reply] [d/l]
RE: Got quest ideas? by markguy (Scribe) on Apr 20, 2000 at 23:46 UTC
I'd like to see something on XML... and while that's hardly a topic restricted to Perl, using Perl tools to implement an XML solution is surely a viable topic. Actually... and this might fall outside a strictly Perl domain... what I'd really like to see are case studies; here's the problem, here's why XML was used, here's what we did to reach our solution (Perl-y bits here), here's the solution. There's plenty of books, tutorials, etc on 'What is XML?', but bloody little on how/why you implement it. Or I'm being dense. :)	[reply]
RE: Got quest ideas? by muppetBoy (Pilgrim) on May 09, 2000 at 18:00 UTC
How about something focusing on the features (and pitfalls) of mod_perl. I don't know how many people this would be of use to though, as imagine most would not have that sort of access to the server....	[reply]