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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

#131

Post by spiffytech »

signin0305 wrote: post #22

Hi, I'm Shiloh, the guy that made the original reddit post and medium article. After reading some comments, I clarified my statement on GitHub's role in the CS industry

Your project is prettier than most commercial sites I've seen, and prettier than anything I've built after nearly two decades in the industry.

I noticed the more prominent "Purchase" color on the upsell plan. That either means you went above and beyond on your design research, or have better instincts than many founders.

Good work! Keep it up and you'll really go places.

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

#132

Post by richbell »

Dalewyn wrote: post #110
denton-scratch wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The rules clearly state "no Github" Did you actually read the rules? "Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files, such as Webs, Wix, Weebly, GitHub, Jekyll, and Replit, are NOT permitted." That rule is NOT clear; it implies that Github is forbidden specifically as a "site that generates HTML". There's no reason to interpret it as meaning that you can't even li…

The rule is "Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files ... are NOT permitted." and goes on to mention an inexhaustive list of examples which names Github among others. That is abundantly clear you cannot use Github. If you didn't read the rules, that's ignorance. If you read the rules and knowingly violate them, that's arrogance. If you unintentionally violate…

> The rule is "Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files ... are NOT permitted." and goes on to mention an inexhaustive list of examples which names Github among others.

> That is abundantly clear you cannot use Github.

This would be like calling someone ignorant and arrogant because they were browsing hackernews at school and a clueless administrator thought it was a criminal website.

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

#133

Post by Aeolun »

bitwize wrote: post #54
peterkelly wrote: post #28

This is one of those important events in life where you realise that sometimes those who hold seniority over you aren't necessarily as smart as you are. This experience will help you to cultivate a healthy disrespect for authority. We all go through something like this at some point. The best thing to do is to find some sort of constructive way to channel your experience. One path I would suggest is to consider launc…

[flagged]

Of course you don’t actually have to be in compliance. You only have to pretend to be in compliance. Maybe they’d have a chance if they argued that they used Github, instead of GitHub, which must clearly be a different website.

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

#134

Post by Dalewyn »

richbell wrote: post #126
Dalewyn wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

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

>Ask yourself: would they have been disqualified if they used GitLab?

Does Gitlab generate HTML from text files of some description like Github (eg: README.md -> HTML-formatted presentation)?

If so, yes. If not, no.

Github is only named as one of many potential examples of "Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files". Ergo, anything that automagically generates HTML is "NOT permitted".

>If you aren't able or willing to correct demands from people who are blatantly incompetent in a low stakes high-school competition, you're not going to have a valuable or fulfilling career.

Two problems:

1. Kids are still learning. By definition they have no idea nor standing to judge what is competent and what isn't; they flat out /don't know yet/. You need real world experience under your belt if you want to go around declaring rights and wrongs.

2. The students completely missed their mark in how to bring about their objections. They should have read the rules beforehand and brought up questions and objections with the staff before the contest began. You don't complain about this long after the fact, and going off on tangents only worsens your standing.

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

#135

Post by richbell »

forgotpwd16 wrote: post #86
olivermuty wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only use the template engine if you go through github.io or if you look at .md files in the UI. So you are not even «technically» using the template engine part of Github. However root commenters sentiment is still very valid, the sooner you realize how many people who are not particularly smart also work in this business the sooner :D Developers are starting to become a pretty decent average representation of th…

>You only use the template engine if you go through github.io That's where the site was deployed...

GitHub pages also deploys straight HTML if available, which is what they did. They did not use the template engine functionality.

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

#136

Post by antihero »

toastal wrote: post #100
antihero wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most major platforms use pull/merge requests.

PostgreSQL uses a mailing list and Google uses Gerrit to name two "major" counters. There are plenty of big projects and orgs operating under different models.

I'm talking about stuff like Gitlab, Bitbucket, etc. What I am saying is that most of the paradigms that GitHub has have familiar if slightly different implementations in other places.

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

#137

Post by antihero »

Dalewyn wrote: post #65
antihero wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, they learned that stupid rules are there to be broken, just you have to be aware of the consequences and be prepared to fight and sometimes lose.

[flagged]

There are lots of situations in life where you can't "leave for greener pastures", especially when it comes to the laws of the land.

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

#138

Post by alpaca128 »

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…

> Competitions have rules

Yes, but blind application of rules without context isn't the way. Even courts have to take the original intent behind laws into account.

> I know teachers in real life. And they have plenty of things to do besides running a competition

How does that prevent them from knowing what Github is, as the "person in charge of tech education" at that school? Nobody demands they keep up with every trend but someone able to disqualify teams in a web design competition should probably know one of the 5 most visited development websites in the world.

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

#139

Post by dutchCourage »

Dalewyn wrote: post #122
dutchCourage wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

The rule is: "Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files ..." Followed by an inexhaustive list of examples: "such as Webs, Wix, Weebly, GitHub, Jekyll, and Replit ... " Finally closing off with a strongly emphasized: " ... are NOT permitted." No matter the interpretation, you're not supposed to use something that can automagically generate HTML, which Github abs…

Sometimes rules are poorly written, outdated or straight up mistaken.

I doubt the original intent of the rule was to disallow GitHub as a collaboration tool since it's the largest coding collaboration tool out there. It's even its primary use case .

Interpreting the rule as what it meant to be seems appropriate to me. The world isn't as rigid as you paint it to be.

If you were to really code a website without tools capable of generating html from text you'd find yourself coding with pen and paper.

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

#140

Post by weird-eye-issue »

Dalewyn wrote: post #115
denton-scratch wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The Internet also allows such behavior so really it shouldn't have been allowed to use the Internet either.

A reasonable person would realize the key part is "Template engine" and would think they are okay as long as they avoid those. They did avoid that, and still got disqualified. That is why it isn't reasonable

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