Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

Current Quizmaster Retiring

2 views
Skip to first unread message

James Edward Gray II

unread,
Nov 9, 2007, 10:05:15 AM11/9/07
to
When I started the Ruby Quiz project, I made some off-hand comment
along the lines of, "Surely I can keep it going for a couple of
years…" No matter how you measure, we have passed that goal.

The Ruby Quiz has now run for over three years calendar time. If you
prefer to count quizzes released, we're ten shy of three full years
of quizzes. That's beyond anything I ever imagined.

I cannot properly express how much I've enjoyed running the quiz. It
is, quite literally, how I learned the Ruby programming language.
Summarizing the solutions each week had me reading through countless
examples of great code where I picked up idioms, learned new
algorithms, and just generally saw what good programming looks like.
That's just what I personally got out of it.

Externally, the quiz grew well beyond my expectations. It spawned a
book, some of the quizzes have been translated into other languages,
and I've seen it referred to in many places as a terrific source of
"Getting Started with Ruby" projects.

I say it a lot, but I want to once again thank all who have
contributed to the quiz in any way. You have created an amazing
resource.

If there is a downside to running a project like this, it would have
to be that it eats time. I've automated the Ruby Quiz as much as I
am able to, but it still takes several hours a week for me. That's a
combination of all that it requires: generating quiz ideas, working
with contributors to get their ideas ready, preparing a problem for
release, collecting solutions as they come in, playing with the
solutions enough that I understand them, and summarizing what I saw.
I also try to participate in the discussions.

I've gladly maintained this continuing commitment, but I think we all
knew I couldn't keep it up forever. I'm involved in many Ruby
projects now and I would like to give some of them the time and
attention I've given to the Ruby Quiz these last three years.

Beyond the constraints of time, I'm running out of good quiz ideas.
The well isn't bone dry just yet, but I'm sometimes scrambling to
keep the ideas flowing now.

Given all of that, I've decided that the end of my watch over the
Ruby Quiz has come. I will run ten more quizzes, so we can say that
I covered three years no matter how the count is done. Quiz 156 will
be my last challenge.

Don't make the mistake of thinking this means the quiz is winding
down. We're going to have some great content in our last few months,
starting with this week's problem which I think is great. We're
going out at the top of our game like all the greats projects do.

My hope is that we'll see a new quizmaster grab the reigns and launch
Ruby Quiz 2.0. I often have to sit out problems I really want to
play in just because there isn't enough free time left for solving
after running the show, so you could count on the fact that at least
one person here would be an active contributor. Besides, if you want
to learn a whole lot of Ruby voodoo, I can assure you there's no
better way. Think it over.

I'll close this long message now and get back to running the quiz.
Send me your great ideas for our homestretch run.

Thanks again to all quiz fans.

James Edward Gray II


Robert Klemme

unread,
Nov 9, 2007, 10:15:36 AM11/9/07
to
2007/11/9, James Edward Gray II <ja...@grayproductions.net>:

James, thank *you* for the efforts you have put into this! I am
really surprised to hear that the quiz has been running for *three
years* now. Since I still clearly remember the first discussions
about creating this quiz this probably means I am a <place disgraceful
description for elderly people here>. Unfortunately I never managed
to try to solve quizzes as much as I would have liked to. Time is
tight on my side as well...

Thanks again!

robert

--
use.inject do |as, often| as.you_can - without end

Dale Martenson

unread,
Nov 9, 2007, 11:11:13 AM11/9/07
to
On Nov 9, 9:05 am, James Edward Gray II <ja...@grayproductions.net>
wrote:

> When I started the Ruby Quiz project, I made some off-hand comment
> along the lines of, "Surely I can keep it going for a couple of
> years..." No matter how you measure, we have passed that goal.

JEG II,

Ruby Quiz has become a valuable tool to the community to teach Ruby to
newcomers and allow existing Rubyists to flex their programming skill.
Your dedication of 3 years to this endeavor is much appreciated.

Thank you,
Dale Martenson

John Joyce

unread,
Nov 9, 2007, 11:23:06 AM11/9/07
to
Yes, thank you James.
Ruby Quiz has been and will (we hope) continue to be an invaluable
contribution to Ruby and simply to those wanting to learn and/or
improve their Ruby and/or their programming skills in general.

James Edward Gray II

unread,
Nov 9, 2007, 11:24:41 AM11/9/07
to
On Nov 9, 2007, at 10:15 AM, Dale Martenson wrote:

> Ruby Quiz has become a valuable tool to the community to teach Ruby to
> newcomers and allow existing Rubyists to flex their programming skill.

That brings up a good point I forgot to mention.

All of the existing Ruby Quiz material is going to stay right where
it is. I'm paid up on the domain for many years to come and it's
piggybacked on my personal hosting account, so have no fear of it
disappearing anytime soon. It will continue to be a great tool even
if no new quizzes are run.

James Edward Gray II

Phrogz

unread,
Nov 9, 2007, 11:52:30 AM11/9/07
to
On Nov 9, 8:05 am, James Edward Gray II <ja...@grayproductions.net>
wrote:

> Given all of that, I've decided that the end of my watch over the
> Ruby Quiz has come. I will run ten more quizzes, so we can say that
> I covered three years no matter how the count is done. Quiz 156 will
> be my last challenge.

I'd like to echo the thanks of others. Having authored and summarized
just a few quizzes myself, I know how much time it takes all too well.
I'm frankly amazed at your dedication that you kept it going this
long.

As I see it, ongoing Ruby Quiz requires:
* New ideas for quizzes
* Vetting of the quizzes (rejecting or improving bad ones)
* Scheduling and running the Quiz itself
* Interested parties actually solving the quiz
* (Ideally) A good writeup/summary

I'd like to direct this thread to brainstorming on how to make this
feasible for the future.

For sure, the simplest solution would be to find a new quizmaster to
take the reigns. But even that would almost certainly be a temporary
solution. It seems to me that this should be possible (like many open
source projects) as a community effort with a small amount of steering
by a group of individuals.


Here's what I envision/propose:

* RubyQuiz.com (or RubyQuiz2.com, or whatever) has an interface where
anyone can submit ideas for new quizzes. Perhaps a public wiki for
editing the quiz text, or perhaps a login-based system where only the
author can edit it. (Or perhaps an option that lets the quiz submitter
choose if it's publicly editable or not.)

* Everyone can vote on upcoming quizzes, granting each a rating based
on fun, estimated time to complete, difficulty level, and maybe even
real-world applicability. Maybe there are flags for quizzes that
involve performance optimizations, those that are about golfing, those
that are NP-Hard and require heuristics, those that are about route-
finding, and so on.

* Possibly a small-ish group of admins is given the ability to change
the scheduling of upcoming quizzes.

* The application automates the posting of the quiz to the mailing
list.

* Ideally, the application monitors the gateway or ruby-talk archive
for submissions with an appropriate topic and auto includes them in
the listing of solutions and/or discussion. (Again, maybe admins have
the ability to hand-pick posts to include.)

* Although it would be nice for someone to volunteer to write up a
summary, I'm not sure it's necessary. The summary might be implicit in
followup discussions about solutions held on the mailing list.


The potential downsides I see of this are:
* Giving everyone visibility to upcoming quizzes takes a little bit
away from the sense of competition. I like that everyone sees a quiz
at the same time and starts working on it at the same time. It's not
really a race, but at the same time the flavor of the event changes (I
think) if people can spend weeks programming for an upcoming quiz and
then drop a crazy huge solution. I feel that it would discourage smal-
time hackers.

* When the responsibility is on everyone's shoulders to submit
quizzes, it may be that no one will step up. That would be
disappointing, but not disastrous. If the queue is empty, there's no
quiz that week. Maybe even the system sends a polite encouragement to
the list asking for submissions in lieu of a quiz.


The potential upsides I see of this are:
* Seeing upcoming quizzes may give good ideas for interesting
variations. I actually anticipate occasional interesting influxes that
may queue up 10-20 quizzes at a time.

* Voting for quizzes on multiple axes will record that information for
newcomers to Ruby. Right now we say "Go browse the quiz site, and look
for entries with lots of answers; they're probably easy." Wouldn't it
be cool to be able to view all solved quizzes and say "Show me the
quizzes that probably only take about an hour, with a high rating of
real-world applicability, and that are rated moderate or difficult to
solve?"


I dunno how much of the above JEG II has already written for personal
administration, but I bet it would be a nice starting step.

Phrogz

unread,
Nov 9, 2007, 11:57:27 AM11/9/07
to
On Nov 9, 9:52 am, Phrogz <phr...@mac.com> wrote:
> * Giving everyone visibility to upcoming quizzes takes a little bit
> away from the sense of competition. I like that everyone sees a quiz
> at the same time and starts working on it at the same time. It's not
> really a race, but at the same time the flavor of the event changes (I
> think) if people can spend weeks programming for an upcoming quiz and
> then drop a crazy huge solution. I feel that it would discourage smal-
> time hackers.

If others also feel that this would change the flavor too much, my
previous proposal could be modified as such:

* Everyone can submit ideas, but they can only ever see their own
idea. They may carry on a conversation (on the site) with the site
admins about how to improve the quiz.

* Site admins (maybe a group of 10-15) can see all quizzes, and are
the only ones who can vote/categorize quizzes.

This removes the fun of seeing a huge upcoming queue from everyone,
but keeps the surprise aspect of the quizzes.

Tom Copeland

unread,
Nov 9, 2007, 12:19:53 PM11/9/07
to
On Sat, 2007-11-10 at 00:05 +0900, James Edward Gray II wrote:
> The Ruby Quiz has now run for over three years calendar time. If you
> prefer to count quizzes released, we're ten shy of three full years
> of quizzes. That's beyond anything I ever imagined.

Thanks, James, for all the work you've done on this! And the book (*)
is great; it's a wonderful set of lessons in Ruby idioms. Thanks again,

Yours,

Tom

(*) http://www.pragprog.com/titles/fr_quiz

Drew Olson

unread,
Nov 9, 2007, 12:26:47 PM11/9/07
to
James Gray wrote:
> Thanks again to all quiz fans.
>
> James Edward Gray II

James -

Thanks so much for everything you've done. Your site basically taught me
the language and your attitude on the site and quiz reviews has been a
major influence on the great culture of the ruby community today.

Thanks again and let's hope someone worthy will take up the site after
you've left.

- Drew
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Matthew Moss

unread,
Nov 9, 2007, 12:44:14 PM11/9/07
to
Message.new("Simply, thanks.").sendTo(:James)


On the future of RubyQuiz... I almost jumped up, waving my arms, to
say, "Pick me! Pick me!" Then my brain kicked in...

Seriously, though, I think I could manage much of what James has done,
perhaps with a bit of help. I have plenty of webspace going unused in
a textdrive account, so could setup shop there. I have to run off at
the moment, so I haven't read through Phrogz comments just yet, though
I will later...

In any case, gotta run at the moment, but will come back later to put
some an additional "too sense" in.

James Edward Gray II

unread,
Nov 9, 2007, 1:28:07 PM11/9/07
to
On Nov 9, 2007, at 10:55 AM, Phrogz wrote:

> I'd like to echo the thanks of others. Having authored and summarized
> just a few quizzes myself, I know how much time it takes all too well.
> I'm frankly amazed at your dedication that you kept it going this
> long.

Thanks to all of you for the kind words.

> * RubyQuiz.com (or RubyQuiz2.com, or whatever) has an interface where
> anyone can submit ideas for new quizzes.

This is a side concern, but I do vote we split any new Ruby Quiz
efforts off on a new domain.

I've tried building my own version two site in the past and one of
the issues with something like that is incorporating all of the old
material. It's a pain and thus I vote we just don't do it. It's far
easier to just turn the old site into the archive for the old content
and have it link to current efforts.

> * Ideally, the application monitors the gateway or ruby-talk archive
> for submissions with an appropriate topic and auto includes them in
> the listing of solutions and/or discussion. (Again, maybe admins have
> the ability to hand-pick posts to include.)

I've tried to do this a couple of times now. It's pretty dang
tough. Most of my problems came from wanting to extract the code
from the messages though, so if you avoid that it might not be so bad.

> The potential upsides I see of this are:
> * Seeing upcoming quizzes may give good ideas for interesting
> variations. I actually anticipate occasional interesting influxes that
> may queue up 10-20 quizzes at a time.

The quiz has worked like this, though maybe not 20 at a time. We had
some terrific runs where I didn't build a quiz for quite some time.

> I dunno how much of the above JEG II has already written for personal
> administration, but I bet it would be a nice starting step.

All of my old scripts are pretty tied to my current setup, so they
won't be of much use. I've been wanting to replace them for a long
time now, so you're definitely going to want to build new tools.

Of course, if you want to know about all the mistakes I made with my
setup, I have a lot to say about that. ;)

James Edward Gray II

_why

unread,
Nov 9, 2007, 3:12:48 PM11/9/07
to
On Sat, Nov 10, 2007 at 02:44:14AM +0900, Matthew Moss wrote:
> Message.new("Simply, thanks.").sendTo(:James)

Oh, say, that's rich. Golf your thanks to the quizmaster.

%!%sJEG1!.succ%%!thx!

_why

MenTaLguY

unread,
Nov 9, 2007, 4:18:23 PM11/9/07
to
James,

Thanks for all your hard work!

-mental


John Joyce

unread,
Nov 9, 2007, 4:21:07 PM11/9/07
to
Oh why. why not make that the quiz of the week next week...

Michal Suchanek

unread,
Nov 9, 2007, 6:14:22 PM11/9/07
to
Hmm, maybe I am not really a programmer. I can appreciate elegant code
(for my subjective definition of elegant) but I rarely struggle to
perfect my (or somebody else's) code in my free time. For the three
long years I have been aware there's a quiz running. Sure I have
looked at some quizzes that seemed particularly interesting, but I
haven't contributed a single solution.

On the other hand, the exposure to programming has left some permanent
traces. You know, people who can understand programmer jokes are no
longer considered normal ;-)

I wonder why we have so many galleries with paintings and sculptures
but I haven't heard of one displaying exceptional pieces of code.

Sure, I can browse the quiz site. However, the presentation is limited
by my not-so-large screen, and often a tool for presenting the results
of a quiz solution nicely would make for another quiz. And there's no
guide who would explain peculiarities of particular programmer schools
and hint about the best masterpieces.

Well, maybe I just get weird ideas late in the night.

Good night, and thanks for all the quizzes

Michal

Trans

unread,
Nov 9, 2007, 6:23:23 PM11/9/07
to
On Nov 9, 10:05 am, James Edward Gray II <ja...@grayproductions.net>
wrote:

> I say it a lot, but I want to once again thank all who have


> contributed to the quiz in any way. You have created an amazing
> resource.

I'm actually in a book thanks to you. So, You Rock Dude! ;)

Honestly, I am quite amazed at the level to which you were able to
take this whole idea. Simply incredible work!

Thanks James,

T.


James Edward Gray II

unread,
Nov 9, 2007, 7:06:04 PM11/9/07
to
On Nov 9, 2007, at 5:14 PM, Michal Suchanek wrote:

> Hmm, maybe I am not really a programmer. I can appreciate elegant code
> (for my subjective definition of elegant) but I rarely struggle to
> perfect my (or somebody else's) code in my free time. For the three
> long years I have been aware there's a quiz running. Sure I have
> looked at some quizzes that seemed particularly interesting, but I
> haven't contributed a single solution.

This is off-topic and I'm obviously biased, but I really believe
anyone who has never tried a programming challenge should. You don't
really think all those Ruby Quiz solutions are built because we like
extra work, do you? You might be surprised to find that it can be
quite fun.

> I wonder why we have so many galleries with paintings and sculptures
> but I haven't heard of one displaying exceptional pieces of code.

http://pragdave.blogs.pragprog.com/pragdave/2007/10/art-in-
programm.html#comments

James Edward Gray II

Morton Goldberg

unread,
Nov 9, 2007, 9:59:08 PM11/9/07
to
On Nov 9, 2007, at 10:05 AM, James Edward Gray II wrote:

> Given all of that, I've decided that the end of my watch over the
> Ruby Quiz has come. I will run ten more quizzes, so we can say
> that I covered three years no matter how the count is done. Quiz
> 156 will be my last challenge.

Thanks ever so much for the three years of effort you have put in.
Ruby Quiz has been both fun and very instructive. Special thanks for
the quizzes you personally authored and all your well-written
summaries. You have made a great contribution to the Ruby community.

> My hope is that we'll see a new quizmaster grab the reigns and
> launch Ruby Quiz 2.0. I often have to sit out problems I really
> want to play in just because there isn't enough free time left for
> solving after running the show, so you could count on the fact that
> at least one person here would be an active contributor. Besides,
> if you want to learn a whole lot of Ruby voodoo, I can assure you
> there's no better way. Think it over.

I certainly hope we will be able to continue Ruby Quiz is some form.
I would like the opportunity to continue participating, both as a
quiz author and solver -- at least from time to time.

Regards, Morton

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky

unread,
Nov 10, 2007, 12:03:29 AM11/10/07
to
Michal Suchanek wrote:
> I wonder why we have so many galleries with paintings and sculptures
> but I haven't heard of one displaying exceptional pieces of code.


Well, there may not be much *code* in museums, but there certainly are
plenty of ancient computing devices in them, including chunks of
Babbage's creations, Pascal's calculator, "Napier's Bones", and
calculating devices retrieved from shipwrecks in the Mediterranean that
date back before the birth of Jesus. Then there's Stonehenge and the
Mayan calendar. ;)

James Edward Gray II

unread,
Nov 10, 2007, 11:02:54 AM11/10/07
to

I saw the German "Enigma" in a museum last time I was in Washington
D.C. It was awesome.

James Edward Gray II


Alec Ross

unread,
Nov 10, 2007, 12:33:50 PM11/10/07
to
In message <47353BA0...@cesmail.net>, "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky"
<zn...@cesmail.net> writes

ISTR visiting a small room serving as such a museum in Manchester many,
many years ago. It was IIRC in the CS dept of the University, but was
possibly open to the public. In it were artefacts from the first days
of computing, including a log book, something like a school science book
for recording experiments. The entries included program code
represented in binary (presumably for entry via toggle switches), and
the experimental record of program runs.

See also:

http://www.computer50.org/

and:

http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/subject_detail.cfm?key=32&colke
y=11

However I take the point about scarcity of _code_ archives; and museums
of exceptional code. At the moment I guess that most of this might be
found in a few books (e.g. C++ Gems), on the net, and in some (few)
people's heads.

I'd be interested to know of any such museums, though.

Regards,

Alec
--
Alec Ross

Michal Suchanek

unread,
Nov 10, 2007, 3:46:12 PM11/10/07
to
On 10/11/2007, James Edward Gray II <ja...@grayproductions.net> wrote:
> On Nov 9, 2007, at 5:14 PM, Michal Suchanek wrote:
>
> > Hmm, maybe I am not really a programmer. I can appreciate elegant code
> > (for my subjective definition of elegant) but I rarely struggle to
> > perfect my (or somebody else's) code in my free time. For the three
> > long years I have been aware there's a quiz running. Sure I have
> > looked at some quizzes that seemed particularly interesting, but I
> > haven't contributed a single solution.
>
> This is off-topic and I'm obviously biased, but I really believe
> anyone who has never tried a programming challenge should. You don't
> really think all those Ruby Quiz solutions are built because we like
> extra work, do you? You might be surprised to find that it can be
> quite fun.

Well, I did not said I never do so. I know the thrill of solving a
puzzle, be it in programming or otherwise.

>
> > I wonder why we have so many galleries with paintings and sculptures
> > but I haven't heard of one displaying exceptional pieces of code.
>
> http://pragdave.blogs.pragprog.com/pragdave/2007/10/art-in-
> programm.html#comments
>

Wow, so we have one already. Good to know.
I like the comment at the end of the page. It may be that I am more
into taking things apart than building them ;-)

Thanks

Michal

Eric Mahurin

unread,
Nov 10, 2007, 3:49:06 PM11/10/07
to
Note: parts of this message were removed by the gateway to make it a legal Usenet post.

On 11/9/07, James Edward Gray II <ja...@grayproductions.net> wrote:
>
> I cannot properly express how much I've enjoyed running the quiz. It
> is, quite literally, how I learned the Ruby programming language.
> Summarizing the solutions each week had me reading through countless
> examples of great code where I picked up idioms, learned new
> algorithms, and just generally saw what good programming looks like.
> That's just what I personally got out of it.


Hi James,

Thank you so much for all of the work you've put into ruby quiz. Although I
was only able to do a few, I learned quite a bit. There is a lot to learn
that applies to ruby and to computer science in general (any language). I
am envious of the knowledge you obtained running the quiz. I hope to find
time to go back and do some of the old quizzes.

Again, thanks for all of your work!

Eric

Paulo Schneider

unread,
Nov 10, 2007, 4:32:00 PM11/10/07
to
The current Quizmaster is retiring! Long live the Quizmaster!

James, thanks a lot for all your hard work. You certainly made
learning Ruby a lot more fun.

Paulo

Martin DeMello

unread,
Nov 10, 2007, 9:24:11 PM11/10/07
to
On Nov 9, 2007 7:05 AM, James Edward Gray II <ja...@grayproductions.net> wrote:
>
> Given all of that, I've decided that the end of my watch over the
> Ruby Quiz has come. I will run ten more quizzes, so we can say that
> I covered three years no matter how the count is done. Quiz 156 will
> be my last challenge.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

martin

mortee

unread,
Nov 11, 2007, 3:38:34 AM11/11/07
to
Phrogz wrote:
> * Although it would be nice for someone to volunteer to write up a
> summary, I'm not sure it's necessary. The summary might be implicit in
> followup discussions about solutions held on the mailing list.

Let me argue that the summary is an important feature of a quiz. In many
cases I didn't have the time to wade through all the responses and
solutions posted for a quiz, but I ran through the summary poted at the
end. I guess many people looking for ideas or just being interested may
be in similar position.

mortee


Eric I.

unread,
Nov 11, 2007, 11:22:23 AM11/11/07
to
Hi James,

I was always amazed while reading the quiz solution summaries you
wrote at the amount of effort and care you invested into the Quiz.
It's impressive that you were able to sustain that level for three
years while keeping the quality level so high.

Thank you for your efforts, for injecting so much fun into the Ruby
community, and for creating such an incredible resource!

Eric

thefed

unread,
Nov 11, 2007, 11:39:03 PM11/11/07
to

James, you have turned me into a programmer. No joke. If it weren't
for Ruby Quiz, I would not be here now.

To simplify an effect you've had on my brain, try this on a *nix:

File.read("/dev/zero")

Memory overload, you say?

First it overloads the RAM. The computer can't do anything. The user
contemplates what has just happened, and fumbles a bit with the
keyboard.

Then it hits him and the RAM clears. Life makes sense now. Things
work together and flow. Code is art.

Thanks again, James!

puts "here is what my brain looks like now!"
puts "1#{File.read("/dev/zero")}"

Thanks,
Ari Brown

0 new messages