Hi --

On Sat, 20 Apr 2002, Pat Eyler wrote:

> On Sat, Apr 20, 2002 at 01:11:54AM +0900, David Alan Black wrote:
> > Hello --
> >
> > On Sat, 20 Apr 2002, Christian Szegedy wrote:
> >
> > > I start the golf game:
> >
> > I highly recommend including the following disclaimer in every
> > golf-related post:
> >
> >   DISCLAIMER: I do not believe that reducing code to the
> >   smallest possible size is always or even usually a good
> >   idea.  However, I tend to learn a lot about Ruby from
> >   this kind of exercise, and that's why I do it.
> >
> > :-)
> >
>
> Does it make sense to try to find a non-golf metaphor for a ruby coding
> contest?  Maybe something where 'elegance' and 'correctness' are the
> deciding factors?  (How would these be judged?)

Funny you should ask.  Last year we *almost* had a sort of
"de-obfuscation" contest at the Ruby Conference.  But it never
happened, because there weren't enough entries, which in turn I think
had to do with the very understandble hiatus in fun/semi-frivolous
activities for a lot of people after 9/11 (i.e., the month or so
leading up to the conference).

The actual name of the contest was the "Code Amelioration Contest".
Reviving it is not out of the question -- it was sort of hard to tell
how much underlying interest there was.

Anyway, as for judging in a non-contest sense (e.g., for stuff we do
here), I guess it's just a question of how many people remark on how
elegant and cool your solution is :-)


David

-- 
David Alan Black
home: dblack / candle.superlink.net
work: blackdav / shu.edu
Web:  http://pirate.shu.edu/~blackdav