D : Not for me anymore

[Georg Wrede]

Walter Bright wrote:
> Knud Sørensen wrote:
>> clayasaurus wrote:
>>> Knud Sørensen wrote:
>>>
>>>> What about the library contest I suggested long ago ?? Is that a 
>>>> useful idea?
>>>
>>> How about a "Top 10 D libraries" page on digitalmars D where the D 
>>> community votes for the top 10 libraries each month on the newsgroups 
>>> and then they get a very special recognition on the digitalmars site?
>>
>> Yes, a monthly competition like this is also a good idea.
>>
>> We have several authors on the list maybe we can get them to donate a 
>> copy of one of there books for a first prize.
> 
> I've thought about cash prizes and contests. I just had the nagging 
> feeling that the result would be a circus rather than serious development.

A library contest would be far too much work _both_ for the 
administrators and for the programmers.

For any non-trivial stuff it would necessarily drag out over months (if 
not quarters), and get psychologically diluted -- especially knowing 
that most (not all) of the contestants are of the breed "get quickly 
enthused and equally quickly disinterested". (Just look at the number of 
started projects at, say dsource, versus actual progress in most of them.)

A bit more demanding on the "establishment", but a lot more rewarding 
for our end goal would be to have contests on smaller units! Such would 
be individual classes, maybe groups of functions, or even 
very-narrow-purpose libraries. There should also be a separate, on-going 
series for single functions!!

The administration would be more work, granted. And choosing the contest 
items would require much more work if we wanted to stay determined on 
keeping in mind the end-goals and overall progress of the D effort.

---

Just think about it. At the extremes, we could either have a 
whole-library contest every year, or we could have a singe-function 
contest every week.

The bias here really ought to be a no-brainer, IMHO.

---

About monetary compensation: if I'm not totatlly wrong, the kind of 
money we could have available as prize money, probably is trivial 
anyway. So why not just be in it for the glory? (We might instead have 
votings, jurys, inteviews of the winners (a la F-1), or something else 
that folks feel inspiring!)

(I know that Euphoria (http://www.rapideuphoria.com) has "always" had 
this "toy money, on-going economy" with folks trying to make very nice 
apps, libraries, or utilities. But look at the booties: even the top 
grossings are hardly worth the wear on your keyboard. So, at the end of 
the day, it inevitably has to come down to just pride in workmanship.)

---

Now, if Walter's hint about cash prizes implies outside sponsors, then 
the question rises, could we use those sponsors more effectively? Like 
donated programmer-hours, paid advertising of Digital Mars on Google, 
professional documentation writers... anything!

(( Heck, one of my recurring daydreams is to get Google-Labs or IBM 
Developer Works interested in D. Against the clout and horsepower they 
have, I'd even be ready to negotiate some (small part) of Walter's final 
say in D to them! Both these guys are in an position to gross simply 
preposterously from using D, and for that publicity I'd be willing to 
offer them some tidbits of their choosing from the D say. ))

//// Sorry Walter, I know I'm out of line here. But then, if I weren't 
this kind of person, I'd be doing something "useful" instead of beating 
an unborn horse here. :-)