February Programming ContestsGiven the success of last months flame contest foray, we are going to have not one, but two contests this month. The first contest will be another game contest, and the other will be to find the person or persons who can build the best property or component editor for Delphi and CBuilder, or the best property editor or bean customizer for JBuilder. The winners of the contest will receive their choice of Borland Pro CBuilder, Delphi or JBuilder product. There are three different contests, one for the best entry that runs on Delphi, one for the best entry that runs on CBuilder, and one for the best entry that runs on JBuilder. Borland employees may enter the contest for the glory, but they will not win any prizes. The prize will go to the best non-Borland entry in the contest. Here is a more detailed outline of the rules. Please send you contest submissions to me by March 5. Put your entries in a single zip file, include your name in each source module, and include a short readme describing your project. The ToolsAPI ContestThe winner of this contest will be the person who can build the best component or property editor for the Delphi and CBuilder IDE or the best property editor or bean customizer for JBuilder. There is the potential for some confusion here, because property editors are part of the ToolsAPI in Delphi, while they are simply part of the bean specification in Java. The end result, however, is more or less the same, and you should use the technology and terminology relevant to your particular product.There are no limits on the kind of property editor, component editor or bean customizer that you create. It can be one that affects only one bean or component, or one that effects a whole group of components. It can be a simple enhancement to a string editor, or it can be a complex example that makes it easier to use a database component. Do whatever you want. The general goal, however, will be to produce some kind of add on to the language or the IDE that makes it easier to use Delphi, CBuilder or JBuilder. The Game ContestThe Game Contest for this month will be for the person who can build the best maze generator. The program you create should be able to generate mazes that the user can view in some form of graphical output. The user should have the ability to tweak the maze that is generated. For instance, allowing the user to specify the size and complexity of the maze are obviously beneficial features. Extra points will be given to those who can add additional touches, such as cool looking mazes, programs that can automatically solve the maze, or programs that can help the user solve the maze by drawing his path or at least helping him "walk" through the maze. The maze can be of any type. It can be a flat maze, a three dimensional maze, a colored maze, a non-colored maze, etc. Just draw the best maze you can. The core of the program is the ability to generate the maze, but obviously the fact that the maze itself is aesthetically pleasing will be a major factor in the final judging of the product. SummaryThese contests are meant to be fun. They are, however, also meant to aid the community as a whole. People will want to use, study, and learn from your code. All the code that you submit should be public domain, and you should expect that other people will use your code. You can submit your code with any kind of license you want, so long as it does not limit other people's ability to use it freely. |