Nov 05, 2013; 17:03
jolle
For the record
Regarding the Rosetta Challenge. I understood from Seans letter that there were complaints that Lassosoft/Treefrog staff was allowed to enter.
It is common when a company announces a competition it disallows it's own staff. But this is usually when the outcome is jury based to rule out accusations of jury being biased. Or when the company provides the tools or the settings for the competition. Another reason could be that the purpose of the competition is to attract new clients to the company. Having staff competing would not benefit that purpose.
None of the above apply in the Rosetta Challenge. The purpose is to show the world what a great language Lasso is. Thus every able hand on deck will help. No one can deny that Lassosoft has some very able hands onboard.
It is also not Lassosoft that supplies the context of the competition. No one at Lassosoft can influence the tools or the platform used.
Nor is it a jury based outcome. Winner is decided by quantity and nothing else. The results to calculate points are open for anyone to examine. Thus Lassosoft or their staff can't trick the result.
All in all, there are no fair reasons for L/T staff to be excluded. Leaving only unfair reasons. And, yes, there are a couple of those. The foremost being that L/T has some bloody good Lasso developers. I do find it deeply unfair and frustrating that there are other participants in the same competition that I'm entering that are better and faster than I am. How am I going to win if the others are beating me?
Anyway, what we're talking about in reality is that Jono went all in when the competition was announced. Seeing the head start he got it had to be cheating. Right?
Apparently some saw it that way and complained. Loudly.
I just want to put on record that it wasn't me. And I have it from a reliable source (himself) that it wasn't Ke. And if anyone should have the right to complain it should be him or me, seeing that we are the other participants that has put in noticeable contributions and so far are the only ones who could threaten Jono for first place.
There could be one more argument left regarding Jono. That he did it on work hours and thus are being payed to do it. I took a closer look at his contribution list, especially the date time stamps for each of them.
http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/jono
Turns out that Jono did a few entries on the 31 and 1. All of them very late in the evening; 9.13 PM to 11.34 PM. The rest was done during the 2-3 of November. For those of you with bad memory, that was Saturday and Sunday. Are we to assume that Jono is forced to work holidays?
As I see it someone did pay for Jonos participation in the challenge. But it was not Sean or Lassosoft. It was Rachel and the Guthrie kids. Same with my family by the way, they were less than thrilled to see me crouched over a computer for the entire weekend.
But, dear fellow competitors and Lassosoft community, that it what it takes if you want to win a programming competition where I, Ke, Jono and Brad are participants. And that's how you can win it. By actually contributing, not by protesting that the other participants are better or more devoted than you.
Jono got really hurt by the accusations and wanted to withdraw. I urge him to rethink that. Having Lasso take a prominent position in the Rosetta Code project is good for the community. Jono can contribute a lot to achieve that. It is also of a tremendous value to see the different solutions and approaches. Where each language has benefits and drawbacks. That includes Lasso itself. As Ke pointed out, it highlights areas where Lasso is strong, but also where it can be improved.
And anyway. I'm going to beat Jono and all the rest of you on the finish line. The game is not over yet. So do your best, Jono! But prepare to eat my dust!
HDB
Jolle
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