Monday, September 8, 2008

Contest to review technologies... hmm

I came across this piece of news a few days ago

Welcome, Students!
Review Sun products, and you may win cool prizes...Contest Details

Use MySQL database and GlassFish application server to develop a web application and write a review for...
A chance to win a grand prize of $500 in Visa debit card, and
Five chances to win a prize of $250 in Visa debit card

Simply:
1. Download MySQL 5.1 Community Edition and GlassFish v2 Update Release 2 (UR2).
2. Develop a cool web application using the combination.
3. Create a project of your application at java.net.
4. Write a review of these products and post it in your blog.
5. Submit your java.net project's URL and your review's URL.
6. Do it before October 22, 2008.


You can read the complete thing here. It sounds like a worthy project, though I guess projects that demonstrate and test the more elaborate features will be given more weightage. As they should be, I'd think, writing a review that tests basic JSP code would not really amount to much. The best part is that the competition only requires these two technologies as the qualifying criteria. Any other technology might be used in combination. This is a more open-ended approach than competitions that other companies organize. You can program in Java, PHP, Python or Ruby. With PHP in the mix, I'm sure the playing field would expand. And with Netbeans 6.5 beta offering PHP support, I'm sure Sun wouldn't some reviews. Oops, I veered off a little there... you do not HAVE to use Netbeans.

There are actually two compeitions, one for all students, and there is a seperate category for Sun Campus Ambassdors such as myself. Well, you don't have to tell me twice. But I'm still unclear of what technology to make the center-piece. I'm mid-way through learning jMaki (an AJAX framework) and the Metro WebServices Stack. But I'm also interested in SailFin and Semantic Web technologies. Well, I'll try a few of these out and then decide... Watch this space.

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