It never ceases to amaze me how cynics and naysayers will come out of the
woodwork over the slightest things.
Lighten up! It's just a little contest, a challenge for those who like a
challenge. If you don't enjoy being intellectually challenged, it's not
mandatory that you enter the contest, and you don't need to complain about
it. The link that Jochem van Dieten provided
(http://www.depressedpress.com/DepressedPress/Content/ColdFusion/Challenge/Index.cfm)
is a great CF coding contest too. This one has a little cash prize and a
deadline, so what's wrong with that?
But Jochem, who apparently writes from the Netherlands, for some reason
worries that people are being asked to violate American copyright
laws. Jochem, maybe in Holland it is possible to copyright other people's
names, email addresses, and other publicly available information about
them, but that's not the case in the still-somewhat-free USA. Copyright
law protects the creators and owners of wordstrings and art, not the sole
right to pass along public information. It's not an issue here.
However, I did modify the Terms and Conditions of the contest to clearly
state that the developers retain the copyright to the code they write. I
hope nobody finds a problem with that! :)
Fortunately not everyone is as cynical as the couple of people who
complained of 'cheap code', as if a short little contest threatens to take
billable hours away from them or something. Christ, I wonder if they
object to the custom tags in the Developer's Exchange, too? I thought
Robert Forsyth's Tom Sawyer parody was cute, but Tom wasn't offering a cash
prize and recognition of an intellectual accomplishment. This contest is
not mainly about the money though, it's more about how smart you are
(although a hundred dollars might actually make a big difference in the
life of some poor starving coder in Appalachia or a Third World country,
who knows?), because it certainly isn't a whole application, or even a huge
amount of labor for the really bright kind of person who's likely to
win. Those of you who have been following the recent discussions on
CF-Jobs about 'resume and portfolio websites' know there are more and more
ColdFusion programmers looking for work these days, with some of them
finding it difficult to set themselves apart from the crowd with their
qualifications. Can you think of a better way of proving your capabilities
to a prospective employer than winning a worldwide ColdFusion coding
contest? If I were an employer, that would definitely look good on your
resum� to me! That gives me an idea: if you win my contest, I will mail
you a hardcopy letter attesting to your proven ColdFusion skills to add to
your portfolio of accomplishments, and I will serve as a personal reference
to that effect as well, anytime you need me to in the future.
I wish you good fortune in all your efforts.
Regards,
Karl Simanonok
PS: The Genealogy Search Coding Contest is at http://strategicbrains.com
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