Re: New ACM challenge is language-discriminatory

[wwilson <leon.winslow@notes.udayton.edu>]

On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:56:28 -0500, Stephen Leake  
<stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org> wrote:

> KarlNyberg <karl@grebyn.com> writes:
>
>> On Dec 18, 6:26ï¿œam, Jean-Pierre Rosen <ro...@adalog.fr> wrote:
>>> ACM has launched a new programming  
>>> challenge:http://queue.acm.org/icpc/index.cfm?page=faq
>>>
>>> However, the only languages allowed are C++, C# and Java.
>>> I could understand reasons for having everyone compete with the same
>>> language, but if more than one is allowed, it should be open to all
>>> (including our favorite language, of course ;-) ).
>>>
>>> Is anyone on this list influential enough at ACM to address this issue,
>>> or should we start a (mail) mass action?
>>> --
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------
>>> ￜ ￜ ￜ ￜ ￜ ￜJ-P. Rosen (ro...@adalog.fr)
>>> Visit Adalog's web site athttp://www.adalog.fr
>>
>>
>> There is a feedback page associated with the ACM Queue initiative.
>
> http://queue.acm.org/feedback.cfm ? or some thing more specific?
>
>> As a longtime ACM member (since 1978), I have used this feature to
>> request justification for the limitation specified in the
>> competition and the mechanisms necessary to remove it.
>>
>> Similar feedback is certainly welcome, I'm sure... :-)
>
> I sent a similar message.
>

I also sent a message that the choice of platform limits the entrants to a  
small subset of posssible ones and this will result in meaningless results.

I didn't mention it in the message, but a lot of ACM members program in  
such "wierd" languages as Cobol, Perl, and so forth.  In fact, one survey  
I saw ssaid that Visual Basic is still commonly used.
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