January 31, 2010 at 21:26Laughter Through Tears: All-Ukrainian Information Technology Competition
Hi, man! I happened to take part in the "All-Ukrainian youth competition in information technology", in the nomination "Web-programming", which this year was held in the city of Brovary, not far from Kiev. What I saw there - frankly speaking, shocked me. More details - under the cut.
I came from there with spoiled nerves, with complete displeasure, with surprise and in general ... I can’t even find the words to convey with what else.
When I was driving, I was thinking all the same a state-level competition. Organization must be exemplary. The jury, I thought, would be professionals in their field. I thought for a long time how to surprise them. Yet - a state-level competition.
How wrong I was ...
On the first day of arrival, 75 people (these are only participants) + their leaders from different areas spent the whole day in the morning in a small assembly-like assembly hall.
Everyone gradually went crazy until the evening. You can really go crazy - to sit for half a day in one position on the chair without doing anything. In the room there was nothing corny to breathe, all the same there are so many people in a small assembly hall!
Finally evening came, what a blessing. Their schedule says: "Check-in at the hotel."
If it were all so literal. They drove an old little-riding bus from the times of the USSR (where everyone barely climbed) to the antediluvian dormitories.
They settled us on the 1st floor, 6 people in one boxed room, no comfort at all, there was so much dust that the nose simply snapped and it was generally difficult to breathe, the same dust fell from the ceiling.
We went to bed, all the same exhausted. Yeah - figurines :) Outside the window of the room, the cleaners watch TV, ride a mop, discuss the purchase of pans (without even thinking that maybe someone wants to sleep).
Of course, at the request of making the TV a little quieter, nothing happened.
Second day. Half a day I wait until there will be protection of homework in my nomination.
In the rules and regulations of the competition it was written that the use of modern website development technologies will be evaluated, namely: AJAX, jQuery, Flash, PHP, MySQL, CSS, compliance with code standards and much more.
Yeah, they, apparently, simply copied from the provisions of the competition last year.
The computers on which we must protect our homework did not contain a single Web server, not a single modern browser (only IE, although later the participants installed a minimum of FireFox).
The jury is a separate topic from which I was thrown right into the cold :) The jury is not competent in any of the above technologies. These are not website professionals, it’s generally ... it would be nice if they were computer science teachers, but I doubt it even.
The jury did not evaluate any of these points at all - since the jury is not competent in this field at all.
Upon a request to open the source code of the site, the jury falls into a trance. They don’t know what to do, until one of the participants suggested that they open in Notepad - ear, open. But what if they don’t know what the source code is.
In a word, I will not describe it all, but I think that you understood that here, in general, the assessment went purely “by eye” and that’s all.
The jury does not even know that in order to open the main page of a site you need to open an index-file - and this is not just me who saw it, everyone saw it and smiled quietly.
In fact, the works were evaluated according to this principle: the jury member likes / dislikes - and this is by their own qualities, since they have no idea about the relevance of the design today and in general, I doubt that they have a lot of experience in surfing sites on the Internet.
What sites "taxied" for the jury? Blue background, green text, brown color links. This was just a bomb for the jury.
And my W3C code using only tags and exclusively CSS, the design which is relevant for the day with easy navigation, none of the jury liked.
A separate story with web servers. When a certain percentage of participants said that in order to demonstrate the site they need to install a local server, a cool and murderous phrase was heard from the main member of the jury: “And what did you bring this? What are DENVER? This sho take, I didn’t allow it !!! 1 ” - I think, even after that it became clear to you about the competence of the jury?
I asked if it was possible to remodel the work from my laptop, the answer sounded simply gorgeous:“The rules clearly state - demonstrate from your UeSbE portals . ” The participants simply could not resist and throughout the competition the word "uesbe-partal" became the most popular joke.
To the question of one of the leaders to the organizers: What do you assess under the item “technical implementation?”
We just bent the jury into a stupor. 5 minutes of reflection, the answer: “Schaub had a lot of text . ” The
guy from the team from Ternopol who was in the “Programming” category was no less shocked.
A few hours before the competition, there was not a single programming environment on their computers, and when the participants made a list of software that they need, the “Petrosyan House” started again, the chairman of the jury reads, I quote:
- Visual Basik, Xie two pluses, Fre Pascal ... Visual Basik ?? What is it? No, that’s what I’m allowing.
The phrase "ce two pluses" knocked us off the rail and we just lay on the floor.
Actually, after such situations, it became clear to us all about the competition, the jury and the "uSeBE-portals" as well.
I think it’s not worth continuing, everything is already completely clear.
I did not like the candid lie of the chairman of the jury. On the day of the presentation of the homework of the jury, there was 2 + the chairman of the jury, and the next day we were told to do it again because a new jury member appeared o_O
But is it not a violation of the rules, people? When the defense has already passed, points are set and then a new jury member fell from the sky.
On that day, I didn’t actually take my homework from the hostel, and is it my fault? This is insanity.
When we spoke with them in a calm tone, the chairman of the jury began tugging at my hand, breaking down, screaming and raising the tone. Man is simply inadequate. Well, after this conversation, they decided to cancel the points for my homework.
In a word, I will not continue for there are simply hundreds of such aspects. The point is not that, just know how it was, draw certain conclusions for yourself.
And finally, the most delicious: first place was given, of course, to guys with templates, with CMS like Joomla or DLE, and to sites on frames with a black background and unreadable text, well, or a blue background and green text - in that spirit.
Thank you for attention.
I came from there with spoiled nerves, with complete displeasure, with surprise and in general ... I can’t even find the words to convey with what else.
When I was driving, I was thinking all the same a state-level competition. Organization must be exemplary. The jury, I thought, would be professionals in their field. I thought for a long time how to surprise them. Yet - a state-level competition.
How wrong I was ...
Organization
On the first day of arrival, 75 people (these are only participants) + their leaders from different areas spent the whole day in the morning in a small assembly-like assembly hall.
Everyone gradually went crazy until the evening. You can really go crazy - to sit for half a day in one position on the chair without doing anything. In the room there was nothing corny to breathe, all the same there are so many people in a small assembly hall!
Finally evening came, what a blessing. Their schedule says: "Check-in at the hotel."
If it were all so literal. They drove an old little-riding bus from the times of the USSR (where everyone barely climbed) to the antediluvian dormitories.
They settled us on the 1st floor, 6 people in one boxed room, no comfort at all, there was so much dust that the nose simply snapped and it was generally difficult to breathe, the same dust fell from the ceiling.
We went to bed, all the same exhausted. Yeah - figurines :) Outside the window of the room, the cleaners watch TV, ride a mop, discuss the purchase of pans (without even thinking that maybe someone wants to sleep).
Of course, at the request of making the TV a little quieter, nothing happened.
Competition
Second day. Half a day I wait until there will be protection of homework in my nomination.
In the rules and regulations of the competition it was written that the use of modern website development technologies will be evaluated, namely: AJAX, jQuery, Flash, PHP, MySQL, CSS, compliance with code standards and much more.
Yeah, they, apparently, simply copied from the provisions of the competition last year.
The computers on which we must protect our homework did not contain a single Web server, not a single modern browser (only IE, although later the participants installed a minimum of FireFox).
The jury is a separate topic from which I was thrown right into the cold :) The jury is not competent in any of the above technologies. These are not website professionals, it’s generally ... it would be nice if they were computer science teachers, but I doubt it even.
The jury did not evaluate any of these points at all - since the jury is not competent in this field at all.
Upon a request to open the source code of the site, the jury falls into a trance. They don’t know what to do, until one of the participants suggested that they open in Notepad - ear, open. But what if they don’t know what the source code is.
In a word, I will not describe it all, but I think that you understood that here, in general, the assessment went purely “by eye” and that’s all.
The jury does not even know that in order to open the main page of a site you need to open an index-file - and this is not just me who saw it, everyone saw it and smiled quietly.
In fact, the works were evaluated according to this principle: the jury member likes / dislikes - and this is by their own qualities, since they have no idea about the relevance of the design today and in general, I doubt that they have a lot of experience in surfing sites on the Internet.
Work
What sites "taxied" for the jury? Blue background, green text, brown color links. This was just a bomb for the jury.
And my W3C code using only tags and exclusively CSS, the design which is relevant for the day with easy navigation, none of the jury liked.
A separate story with web servers. When a certain percentage of participants said that in order to demonstrate the site they need to install a local server, a cool and murderous phrase was heard from the main member of the jury: “And what did you bring this? What are DENVER? This sho take, I didn’t allow it !!! 1 ” - I think, even after that it became clear to you about the competence of the jury?
I asked if it was possible to remodel the work from my laptop, the answer sounded simply gorgeous:“The rules clearly state - demonstrate from your UeSbE portals . ” The participants simply could not resist and throughout the competition the word "uesbe-partal" became the most popular joke.
To the question of one of the leaders to the organizers: What do you assess under the item “technical implementation?”
We just bent the jury into a stupor. 5 minutes of reflection, the answer: “Schaub had a lot of text . ” The
guy from the team from Ternopol who was in the “Programming” category was no less shocked.
A few hours before the competition, there was not a single programming environment on their computers, and when the participants made a list of software that they need, the “Petrosyan House” started again, the chairman of the jury reads, I quote:
- Visual Basik, Xie two pluses, Fre Pascal ... Visual Basik ?? What is it? No, that’s what I’m allowing.
The phrase "ce two pluses" knocked us off the rail and we just lay on the floor.
Actually, after such situations, it became clear to us all about the competition, the jury and the "uSeBE-portals" as well.
I think it’s not worth continuing, everything is already completely clear.
I did not like the candid lie of the chairman of the jury. On the day of the presentation of the homework of the jury, there was 2 + the chairman of the jury, and the next day we were told to do it again because a new jury member appeared o_O
But is it not a violation of the rules, people? When the defense has already passed, points are set and then a new jury member fell from the sky.
On that day, I didn’t actually take my homework from the hostel, and is it my fault? This is insanity.
When we spoke with them in a calm tone, the chairman of the jury began tugging at my hand, breaking down, screaming and raising the tone. Man is simply inadequate. Well, after this conversation, they decided to cancel the points for my homework.
In a word, I will not continue for there are simply hundreds of such aspects. The point is not that, just know how it was, draw certain conclusions for yourself.
And finally, the most delicious: first place was given, of course, to guys with templates, with CMS like Joomla or DLE, and to sites on frames with a black background and unreadable text, well, or a blue background and green text - in that spirit.
Thank you for attention.