Just yesterday I came across the so called “Node knockout”. It was a large topic on twitter and a few of the guys I am following there were tweeting about it in general or about their submissions. The knockout is/was a coding competition using mainly node.js, which is target at building scalable network programs. This post will be more about coding competitions than the Node framework in general. To find out more about Node – which sure is an interesting framework – make sure to check their website.

node.js – an intro?

Actually I was just about to write and post an introduction on node.js. But I was also sure I am probably not the best to write an introduction to it and I am sure there were others with more experience on the topic to write an introduction, so I collected a few links for you:

• Node.js is javascript. Server Side, Event Driven javascript…
• Introduction to node.js (Slideshare)
• Node is used for server side development in Javascript

Also make sure to check YouTube Vimeo and ontwik | NodeJS for videos and or presentations on node.js!

The Knockout

The Knockout is a 48-hour hackathon featuring node.js – meaning that each team (or single participant) has exactly 48 hours to hack on a project or idea using node.js. In the best cases teams have finished websites or apps up and running after this time frame. 48 hours might sound like a lot of time, taking into account that a team can consist of up to four members, so technicall that would make 192 hours of work. 192 hours, that’s 24 working days (when a day has 8 working hours). But those 48 hours are not to be split into several blocks over the course of one or more weeks. The Knockout started 12am on a Saturday night and finished on 12 am Monday night. So if you wanted to work on the project for 48 hours, you would not have been able to sleep. I am sure there were a few contestants that did not sleep (a lot) on that weekend.

Besides the time limit one had to use node.js as the tool for all applications. Not that a surprise when you take a look at the name of the competition. As one only had a short amount of time to work on her idea, one should have been fluent with node.js before starting. I think the time to get to know the tool and start working on a project during those 48 hours would have been too short.

The results

There were some really nice projects coming out of this competition. The actual judging of the applications, which consists of Utility/Fun, Design, Innovation and Completeness, has not yet been completed. I took a look at some of the entries and here are my Top 3:

1. A service that allows watching YouTube videos with friends, providing full synchronization
2. Pöng is an umlauted take on the classic game Pong with a multiplayer circular twist.
3. A shared online noticeboard

Let me know what your favorites are?

Benefits for you

By looking at the prizes for the winner one could easily come up with a few reasons to take part in the competition, there are MacBook Airs, iPads, hosting plan, DropBox storage, boxing gloves and more to win. But, more importantly than any prizes:

This is a competition for fun

Most people do it for the fun. They do it for competing against other developers. I think most don’t do it for the prizes, though they sure help to keep the ideas innovative and the designs spectecular.

Coding competitions

The node.js knockout is not the only coding competition out there. Pretty similar to the knockout are other competitions such as

• Rails Rumble which is a 48 hour coding competition for the Ruby on Rails framework. The last Rumble took place in 2010, some pretty nice results came out of this one, too.
• Django Dash – a 48 hour competition using Python and the Django web framework. I took part in this one in 2010, see Django Dash – Lessons learned. It was a pretty nice experience and I met some nice and helpful people on IRC. Unfortunately I was not able to finish the work on my project idea due to lack of knowledge of the Django framework.

I am not sure if there are similar contests in the Java or .NET community. Grails, Lift (Scala), etc. might be nice tools to use for such a coding competition. Maybe even Java EE 6 and / or Spring might come up with a competition. I am sure there would be a few interested people in taking part. A Java EE 6 vs. Spring competition could actually be really fun, the teams decide what tool to use and the best result wins. Hosting could be handled on JBoss Open Shift or Heroku, which has Java support now, too. The more I think about it, the more fun that sounds.

It is up to you

Signing up for coding competitions is free (as in “no fee” is required). The only expense you are definately going to have is your time (OK, plus maybe a bit of hosting and Red Bulls to stay awake). Noone will ever tell you not to take part besides your inner devil telling you not to do it. Which of the competitions would sound the most interesting to you? Why are you not taking part? Do you have any ideas what to work on during a coding competition?

Let me know in the comments!