From: John Carter Date: 2001-08-06T11:30:28+09:00 Subject: [ruby-talk:19186] Re: ANN: Code Amelioration Contest (presented by Ruby Conference 2001) On Mon, 6 Aug 2001, David Alan Black wrote: > > > CODE AMELIORATION CONTEST > > > PLEAC - Programming Language Examples Alike Cookbook > > > > I'm not in any way accusing Guillaume of having code that needs > > ameliorating... I just think Guillaume's work combined with the > > contest would provide a good basis for Ruby advocacy. > > I'm afraid I don't follow. What's the connection? Well, the contest takes cruddy but arbitary code and improves it. PLEAC is a collection of semi-useful snippets from the "perl cookbook" that have a largish weight in 'net legend as being useful "cookbook" recipes. Let's face it, if google.com returns 25600 hits for the phrase "perl cookbook", there _is_ substantial mindshare to these snippets. Compare that to 3050 hits on "programming ruby". Hey! That's actually pretty good going by the "pick axe" book! Especially considering that the "mountain goat" was first to market and has been on the market a lot longer than Dave and Andrew's book. Anyway, I propose that instead of improving arbitary code, the contest should aim to improve cookbook code. One could then lay the best Ruby rendition of these useful cookbook recipes along side the Perl originals and the other languages in Pleac, thereby (hopefully) demonstrating Rubies unassailable superiority. One could either take Guillaume's code as the "code" to improve. Or simply asked Guillaume to suggest "recipes" to Rubify. Or have a "free style" version of the competition where contestants can select any of the recipes that they feel can best demonstrate the superiority of Ruby. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait Electronics Fax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 Christchurch Email : john.carter@tait.co.nz New Zealand I'm becoming less and less convinced of humans as rational beings. I suspect we are merely meme collectors, and the reason meme is only kept on to help count our change.