From: James Gray <james@...>
Date: 2008-01-30T08:41:34+09:00
Subject: Re: Final Two Quizzes

On Jan 29, 2008, at 4:31 PM, Thomas Wieczorek wrote:

> I am not that much concerned about keeping it running, I have the will
> and time to do so,

That's 98% of what it takes.  Trust me.  This is the hardest part.  If  
you have that, the rest is easy.

> but I can't really come up with new quizzes.

This part isn't really that tough.  Here are some of the tricks I've  
used:

* Adapt challenges from other contests.  They are all over the  
Internet, so it's hard to run out of material for this.  I kept a list  
of favorite sites bookmarked and would often go back to them for more  
ideas.
* Do problems you read in programming books.
* Encourage submissions heavily.  The quiz once ran for over six  
months without me writing a problem.
* Offer small incentive for submitting ideas.
* Any time you are programming and find yourself thinking, that was a  
neat little problem to solve, make a quiz.

> I think that you have to work on many different quizzes to choose the
> right one which is not too complex and is fun to do.

When people send in an idea, ask them to solve it.  I do.  It shows  
you how hard it is.  (If they do it in three lines it's a lot  
different than if they send you over 200 lines.)  Eventually you get a  
good feel for what is just the right fit.

Another tip:  always err on the side of too easy.  The submissions get  
way more creative for the easy problems.

> I am always happy to see a new [QUIZ] mail in my folder.

Yeah, I would really miss the problem discussion if it went away from  
this list.  I'm speaking as a fan here, not the Ruby Quiz guy.

James Edward Gray II