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Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

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Re: Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

#111

Post by dutchCourage »

Dalewyn wrote: post #90
onli wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really do not like that you continue to call these students ignorant and arrogant.

Are they not? The rules clearly state "no Github", and when confronted with that fact their response is "it's stupid" and to go off on tangents about Github this and Github that. That's being ignorant of the rules, and being arrogant when you are told to abide them next time.

Rules are inherently subject to interpretation.

I actually learned the opposite of what you're preaching in school. I struggled to shorten a report to meet requirements. A friend of mine was 10 pages over the limit and went on to win a laptop with his report.

Some rules are more akin to guidelines, turns out. It's not unreasonable to interpret this instances' rule as "no templates" rather than "no GitHub".

Re: Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

#112

Post by john_the_writer »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #97
pjc50 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always hard to tell whether the sarcasm tag is missing. But the entirety of startup culture is "what if we didn't follow these rules that don't make sense". Sometimes you get a failure, sometimes you get spectacular success, and sometimes it dumps a problem on someone else. But mindless rule-following, however inevitable it is, is also organizational poison. That's how you get situations where you're "doing everythin…

I’m just going to eat the down votes because I know teachers in real life. And they have plenty of things to do besides running a competition. As a group they don’t deserve the flak. You can’t be so reductive. This is a competition. This is not a startup. Competitions have rules. There is no evidence that the rules were withheld from these students. There is no evidence that the other kids were judged by different st…

These teachers crushed some students. They 100% deserve the flak.

If they teach math and can't add or teach english and can't read then they deserve the flak. If a teacher doesn't know the difference between hosting a site and using a template they shouldn't be teaching Computer courses.

Showing kids that the rules are enforced by ignorant people is an excellent lesson. Squashing hope early is a great way to educate the young.

Re: Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

#113

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

frodowtf wrote: post #8

If I were the OP, I would loooove to try that competition next year again.

If I were the OP, I would refuse to participate in stupid games.

Voluntarily undergo mental torture just to prove some point to a pompous fool? To what end?

Re: Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

#114

Post by vertis »

toastal wrote: post #95
vertis wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I notice from your blog that you have links to a number of commercial services including Keybase. Keybase is another really great example of the disconnect between the underlying open source (GPG, etc) and something that is easily approachable and just lets people get on with the things they want to do. We shouldn't use Keybase, but the nearest alternative open-source, Keyoxide, is not functional unless you're an eng…

> I notice from your blog that you have links to a number of commercial services including Keybase... Blog has been under redesign-rebuild for a long time--other priorities. Said services were planning on being removed and replaced with alternatives as mentioned. Blender is a better option I agree.

They always are the last to be updated (mine also).

We don't disagree in principle about open tools being better. I do however think that there isn't a viable alternative to GitHub at this point. The same could have been said about ExpertExchange at one point, and while StackOverflow isn't perfect, they do at make everything Creative Commons.

Tackling GitHub would require building a platform where all of the other tools such as Pull Requests, Actions, Issues were also represented in a portable format. Recognising that Git is just one interface to GitHub now rather than the main part of it.

Re: Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

#115

Post by Dalewyn »

denton-scratch wrote: post #102
Dalewyn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smartness has nothing to do with project requirements. If the requirements say "no Github", you don't use Github. It's really that simple. The rules don't specify "github.io" or "load .md files", it broadly specifies "Github" the website "that generate[s] HTML from text" in no uncertain terms. If you then proceed to use Github, it's only fair you are disqualified.

The rule didn't say "No github".

No, in fact the rules specify a "Github" among others as examples of "Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files" that you are "NOT permitted" (their emphasis) to use.

Translating that into practical terms, it means "no Github", and also "no Jekyll" and all the other examples named and not named.

Re: Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

#116

Post by aurbano »

Dalewyn wrote: post #63
onli wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really sorry you feel that way. I dont even disagree that this BS exists, but it is almost nonexistent in my world. Just to say this is not the lesson the students have to learn.

It's good that students learn this lesson now than later. Right now they get to learn these lessons with no skin off their backs. They're kids, most of the stuff they do is of no consequence one way or another. Once they enter the real world and the workforce, they get to learn these lessons with prices ranging from reprimands to terminations. Hardly a fun thing to go through.

We should foster a world full of people who use their brains to interpret rules.

If we're going to blindly do something because "it's the exact rule written here" then we might as well replace all decision makers with an AI that never interprets anything.

Their teacher was wrong for not interpreting the rules correctly - everyone's aware of that. On top of that the people writing those rules were wrong as well for either assuming that teachers would interpret them correctly, or not being more explicit when writing them.

It's a competition that includes writing code as a team: one of the main things you'd want them to do is to use git and thus a website like Github.

Re: Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

#117

Post by tanepiper »

From the original reddit thread, I emailed the TSA to point out this, and one other stupid point - they expected 100% uptime from the students sites.

If this is supposed to be teaching the next generation of devs skills, then we've got a lot of Junior Developer Therapy ahead of us as we unteach the bad stuff.

Re: Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

#118

Post by [deleted] »

synunlimited wrote: post #19

As a former student that competed in both National and State TSA events from 2006 to 2012 (and won multiple trophies across events including the "webmaster" competition) I'm not really surprised by this outcome. That doesn't mean that its the right outcome but just a result of how these competitions are run. The judges are all volunteers that may or may not have a background in the actual event they are there to grad…

[deleted]

Re: Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

#119

Post by Dalewyn »

aurbano wrote: post #116
Dalewyn wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's good that students learn this lesson now than later. Right now they get to learn these lessons with no skin off their backs. They're kids, most of the stuff they do is of no consequence one way or another. Once they enter the real world and the workforce, they get to learn these lessons with prices ranging from reprimands to terminations. Hardly a fun thing to go through.

We should foster a world full of people who use their brains to interpret rules. If we're going to blindly do something because "it's the exact rule written here" then we might as well replace all decision makers with an AI that never interprets anything. Their teacher was wrong for not interpreting the rules correctly - everyone's aware of that. On top of that the people writing those rules were wrong as well for ei…

>or not being more explicit when writing them.

You really can't get anymore explicit than "sites that generate HTML from text ... such as ... GitHub ... are NOT permitted."

They even emphasized the "NOT" in "NOT permitted" to try and drive the point home for the particularly dense: You are not allowed to use Github, and all the others, period.

Is excluding Github okay? If you ask me, that question is irrelevant. The contest is about making a website by hand, nothing more and nothing less. This is an artificial environment and situation, and you either accept the rules and play by them or don't accept them and go elsewhere.

Incidentally, if you really, really want to use Github in spite of the rules forbidding you: You can just as easily do all your work on Github, even get Github to generate the HTML for you, then take all the results and upload it onto some web hosting server and just not mention you used Github anywhere.

Nobody would be the wiser and you successfully broke the rules you found so objectional (read: cheated, but nobody will know).

Re: Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

#120

Post by john_the_writer »

shanebellone wrote: post #109

"GitHub IS NOT the industry standard for hosting code collaboration and version control through Git, an expected tool for anyone entering the industry and a priceless skill for any aspiring developer." Is this a conflation of Git and GitHub?

Practically speaking Github is Git. It's the industry standard. In the last 10 years, I've not worked at one place that didn't use github.
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