As you may be aware, we posted Practice Events for the 2013 Scripting Games, in an effort to give people an idea of what the events would look like and involve. There’s been a lively discussion in the PowerShell.org forums about the Beginner Practice, so I thought I’d weigh in. Here’s my solution: Of course, that’s hardly the only way to go about it. I used this approach because it minimizes the use of extra variables, and doesn’t create a script-style approach - it’s a “one-liner,” although I’ve broken it across several physical lines for readability. I think it makes good use of PowerShell’s native ability to deal with multiple objects in a stream - there’s no need for a ForEach loop, here.
We’ve made some minor fixes and clarifications to the 2013 Scripting Games Competitors’ Guide and Instructions booklet. I encourage you to download them and review them once more before we kick off next week. In addition, we have some additional prizes for our winners in each event - I’ve updated the prize list post to include this new information. That post, going forward, will be the authoritative prize list. Registration is now open, and the Games will formally kick off on April 22nd. The first event opens April 25th. Please rely on the Scripting Games Home Page for a complete list of links and information, and make sure you’re watching this announcement category for breaking news. Because we are not collecting e-mail addresses, this is the best way for us to communicate with you.
These are the folks who do the best overall. This prize will be awarded in mid-June. The overall winners from both the Advanced and Beginner events will win a free pass (travel expenses not included) to TechEd North America 2014 or TechEd Europe 2013 - your choice. We realize the TechEd Europe dates are pretty close to when this prize will be awarded… so we’ll try and intervene and make it a 2014 pass, if we can. Second place overall winners will receive a SAPIEN Software Suite 2012, valued at $699, from SAPIEN Technologies. Third place overall winners will receive 5 ebooks (per person) from Manning.
I’ve posted an instruction booklet for the 2013 Scripting Games. Although you can’t register until April 22nd, you can get a sneak peek at what the new Games Web site looks like, and start preparing yourself to compete. READ THE FRIENDLY MANUAL. There are some one-time decisions you’ll have to make, and some “if you mess this up, you’re screwed” moments (like forgetting your password). It’s all on you - so familiarize yourself with the potential “gotchas” right away. You’re welcome to leave a comment on this post if you have any questions, or ask in the forums. Note that the forums may not be used to ask for feedback on your entry from judges - they won’t be monitoring the forum. It should also not be used for technical support questions about the Web site; the site will have a “feedback” link on the bottom of every page for that purpose.
As described in the 2013 Scripting Games Competitors’ Guide, our expert judges this year will not be awarded numeric scores. Frankly, folks seem more interested in having their entries peer-reviewed than just getting a number - and why not? Expert review is a great way to learn! Unfortunately, there aren’t enough judges in the world to review all the entries we’ll receive, so our judges will be picking their own “best and worst” lists, and commenting on those (taking care to not reveal authors’ names, as much as possible).
As revealed in the 2013 Scripting Games Competitors’ Guide, the 2013 Games will invite the community in general to award numeric votes for entries. Our expert judges will instead focus on commentary, helping make the Games into an even better learning experience. They’ll be commenting without revealing competitors’ names, and even if you don’t recognize your entry in their comments, you’ll hopefully find plenty to learn from.
Our top prizes, however, will be awarded by a Mighty Panel of Celebrity Judges. They’ll review all the other judges’ top picks, stack-rank them, and through some Ingenious Number Crunchingâ„¢ award the top prizes. Bet you’d like to meet the judges.
Registration for the 2013 Scripting Games will begin April 22nd (check this post in case we need to make a change to that). You will register for either the Beginner or Advanced track.
Each event will kick off on a Thursday, which is when you will be able to download the event details in a PDF file. You will have until the end of the following Monday to upload your one and only entry. Please pay attention to the time zone information displayed on the Web site so that you don’t misunderstand when the event starts and stops! The dates in this schedule refer to 00:00 hours, GMT, on the date given. So “April 25” means “00:00 hours on April 25, GMT,” or just as the clock ticks from April 24 to April 25 GMT. This is especially important for the end time - “April 30” means “as soon as it stops being April 29, GMT.”
Our Competitor Guide is now online - you can download it here: 2013 Competitor Guide We’re doing things a bit differently this year. We’ll be engaging the overall PowerShell community for numeric grades - and those doing the grading have an awesome chance to win some great prizes! Our expert Judges will be focused on commentary, making this even more of a learning event. Download the Guide and see what’s in store - the Games are scheduled to start the week of April 22nd. As a note, you should get used to checking our Scripting Games Announcements thread (https://powershell.org/category/announcements/scripting-games/) so that you don’t miss any goodies.
I know, this took forever. Mea culpa. I’ve been working my shell off, and finally got around to pulling the info.
Beginner Track
Wouter Beens (4.667)
Laurel Raven (4.5)
Chris Davis (4.5)
Advanced Track
Alexander Kuzin (4.5)
Lido Paglia (4.5)
(anonymous) (4)
Those are the average scores from those entries, and in case of a tie we broke it by submission timestamp. Things will be working a bit differently in the actual Games, coming your way in April, so stay tuned. In fact, you can subscribe to a specific topic for Scripting Games announcements, if you like.
