December Phrogram Programming Contest

JonS Posted: Fri, Dec 1 2006 2:51 PM | Locked

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We’ve been talking about this month’s contest being based on File I/O – and so it is!

We are offering three prizes this time: 

• an embroidered Phrogram golf shirt
• a CD copy of Phrogram Standard
• a souvenir t-shirt from Phrogram’s conference presentation at the SBGames conference in Recife, Brazil, signed on the back by all of us at The Phrogram Company

If we had thought more about the holidays coming, we would have made the December contest one for the best holiday-themed program.  Doh!  Since we didn’t, we’re going to give different awards for different winners, so you have more than one way to win!

First prize will go to the program we choose that demonstrates the most interesting and/or powerful use of File I/O.  The first prize winner will get to choose first from among the prizes offered.  Winning this prize does not require a holiday theme. 

Second prize will go to the program that demonstrates the best holiday-themed design, including graphics or sound or storytelling or any combination of those.  The holiday theme can be any holiday – Phrogram is very international, after all!

Third prize will go to the program which demonstrates the best programming style and skill, based on factors such as code readability, modularity, efficiency and good use of explanatory comments.  One of the goals of Phrogram is to encourage computer science education, and the best way to do that, of course, is for there to be great high-quality examples available to the community. 

To summarize, all submissions for the December contest must include file I/O, but only first prize will be awarded based on excellent use of file I/O.  Second or third prize could still be awarded to a program which makes only minimal use of file I/O.  File I/O examples are included in Phrogram, under the 5) Advanced Learning Examples / File IO folder, and are also available here at this download link.

We know that holidays happen at various times during December, so it’s not fair to ask for holiday program submissions to be made by the date of the holiday they are about.  The official deadline for submissions is December 31.  But in the interests of holiday cheer, we hope that you will finish your programs before your own holiday date, whatever that is!

The basic rules for our contests remain the same:

1) No employee of or family member associated with Phrogram can participate
2) Competition ends December 31^st
3) You have to have Fun in the process!