All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

Google Progamming Contest

pudge on 2002-02-07T12:05:15

Win money, achieve net.fame, and advocate Perl: Google's got a programming contest to do something interesting and scalable with their data. The test data they provide is about 900,000 web pages' worth ... for some geeks, the sample data might be more interesting than any of the code that gets written for it. Enjoy!

But can we submit Perl as a solution??

Steve Jayna on 2002-02-07T13:30:54

But they don't accept Perl as a solution only Java and C++!!!!!

That sucks!!!!

Check it out here!

Re:But can we submit Perl as a solution??

pudge on 2002-02-07T13:47:59

Wow. That's retarded.

Re:But can we submit Perl as a solution??

krellis on 2002-02-07T14:22:26

Well, it doesn't explicitly say that only C++ and Java are acceptable, though it does imply it. You can also list required software packages; so just require Perl :) There's no reason you can't write a Makefile that would "compile" and install your Perl script - that seems to be the only major requirement. And I'm sure if enough people complained, they might add Perl. So start your letter-writing now! :)

Re:But can we submit Perl as a solution??

autrijus on 2002-02-07T14:33:13

And there's always the good ol' perlcc...

Re:But can we submit Perl as a solution??

Steve Jayna on 2002-02-07T14:51:22

Must admit those were my initial thoughts before I read Sharon's (Google Employee) comment but they still might hold true.

Even though I have already written my letter asking, begging and pleading for them to accept my entry in Perl..

(Not that I have a clue what I'm doing yet).

Re:But can we submit Perl as a solution??

samtregar on 2002-02-07T18:26:39

Don't bother. If the contest were being judged on a quantitative measure then you might have a shot. But it's being judged on a subjective scale by "staff scientists" - read, "dedicated C++ programmers." They'll take one look at even the best Perl and run screaming in the other direction.

-sam

Re:But can we submit Perl as a solution??

autrijus on 2002-02-07T15:05:51

On the other hand, if taken literally, submitting Perl as 'the' solution might work too: "Just install this, and any huge amount of data will suddenly make sense..."

As an extention, that could allow users to write arbitary data-mining perl code on agent.google.com, to be run in a Safe compartment or so... ☺

Re:But can we submit Perl as a solution??

vsergu on 2002-02-09T15:15:26

As if to maximize outrage in the Perl community, they've now added Python as the third acceptable language.

Re:But can we submit Perl as a solution??

pudge on 2002-02-10T03:54:10

What is a word for "worse than retarded"?

Re:But can we submit Perl as a solution??

jeek on 2002-02-11T15:41:17

"jeek"