From: Alexander Schofield <pcs3@...>
Date: 2002-02-10T03:06:25+09:00
Subject: Re: Google programming contest....

Check out google.public.programming-contest.
Only languages allowed are C++ and Java.  A recent post there said they
were also going to allow Python.  Frankly google is playing on the ego
of people to come up with something they might never have thought of,
and are doing it on the cheap, since there is only one $10,000 winner,
but they might incorporate any number of the submissions into their
service.
I agree it could be good publicity for Ruby, but only if Ruby were
somehow acknowledged.  The thing to do would be to develop a killer idea
in Ruby, put a demonstration up online, but then withhold the source and
let google know that it would be held until they allowed Ruby or
whatever other language you developed it in.  A more ruthless soul might
also give the source to an alternative search engine if your language
was not at least allowed, since if your idea is valuable enough they
could port it to whatever they wanted later on.

Mikkel Bruun wrote:
> 
> Im a little amazed that this hasn't been brought up yet...
> 
> It could be a MASSIVE pr stunt for the ruby community....
> 
> Google is having a programming contest...
> 
> The challenge:
> Google is providing a selection of about 900,000 web pages in pre-parsed
> and raw format, together with a "ripper" program that provides a
> framework for processing the pre-parsed data. Your mission is to write a
> program (most likely by adding code to the ripper) that does something
> interesting with the data, in such a way that it would scale to a
> web-sized collection of documents. Part of your job is to convince us of
> why your program is interesting and why it will scale; other than that,
> you're free to implement whatever strikes your fancy.
> 
> Check it out...and hopefully someone will make a ruby wrapper for the
> ripper program google is supplying...
> 
> http://www.google.com/programming-contest/
> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/02/06/2025229&mode=thread
> 
> Mikkel Bruun

-- 
Alexander Schofield