Ed Wilson: 2010 Scripting Games Kick-Off

Like a football team that sweats all summer preparing for opening day, so the Scripting Guys organize the 2010 Scripting Games. Just as a football team is more than just players on the field, so too the Scripting Guys involved nearly 100 people in bringing together the event. I wrote the events, but the commentaries on the games (solutions to the puzzles and the description of the solution) were written by people from the Microsoft Product Groups, Microsoft Premier Field Engineers and the scripting community such as Microsoft MVP’s, and others who are moderators for the Official Scripting Guys forum. Craig edited, and staged the events on the Hey Scripting Guy blog, but it is the judges who will actually grade the events. Our judges come from the Scripting Community (as well as a couple of people who are Microsoft Premier Field Engineers). Craig arranged to have the 2010 Scripting Games badge created, but it is the Scripting Community that was responsible for plastering it on dozens of web sites and blogs around the internet. Craig and I have sent out dozens of tweets on twitter, but it is our followers that are sporting the 2010 Scripting Games twibbon—and while we have are hosting the blog posts with the questions, it is the community at PoshCode that is providing the repository that holds the submitted answers. Craig and I designed the games, but it is our sponsors who are providing the prizes. On Monday the games kicked off, and everyone in the stadium deserves the applause.

Before the rosy fingered dawn stretched forth its hand to remove the inky night on the East Coast of the United States, contestants and judges in Europe were already hard at work on event one. Like a child who rushes downstairs on the morning of a special holiday to see what the day has brought forth, so I eagerly logged onto the PoshCode site to see the early returns for the first event. Nearly as fast as the entries were submitted, the judges were grading them. It was working like a dream.

The first day passed quickly like a triple scoop ice cream cone on a hot summer afternoon – fun, enjoyable, with enough minor incidents to make it interesting. Luckily we did not drop the cone, or knock off one of the scoops—when the inky dark sky began to crowd out the sun, our friends in the southern hemisphere stood ready to take over the baton.