Wednesday, May 07, 2008 by Niels Hartvig

Win an XBOX 360 with Rockband at CodeGarden CodeGarden keeps getting better and better and we're finally able to announce one of our favorite events - The Package Coding Contest.

The mighty fine folks from the Microsoft Developer Evangelist team have sponsored a brand new XBOX 360 with Rockband to the best package announced and produced during CodeGarden (there'll also be some prizes for those coming 2nd and 3rd).

The precise terms of the contest will be revealed during the Keynote as they'll need to use some technology revealed there, but start preparing your packages and ideas already (it'll be easy to adopt your package and the whole core team is there to help you). We're looking for simple packages that only does one job.

We're not looking for complete website packages, but smaller things like cool navigation, a vacancy package, FAQ list, a great news system or something like that. It's also a requirement that your package is licensed under the open source MIT License and the html produced is valid and strict (x)html.

If you haven't registered for CodeGarden yet, hurry up - there's only a few seats left.

10 comment(s) for “Make a package - win an xbox 360 with Rockband”

  1. Darren Ferguson Says:
    07 May 08 @ 11:52 GMT+1

    Does the package have to be 100% your own work? Or can you make use of any 3rd pary DLL's? Also, if you are allowed to use external DLL's would they have to be released under a similar MIT license?

  2. Hartvig Says:
    07 May 08 @ 11:57 GMT+1

    The package must be "self contained" and not using any foreign dlls (except the ones in the umbraco distribution).

    However you're free to include 3rd party code as long as that's MIT'ed as well (it just needs to be a part of your package and not referenced as a dll).

  3. Warren Buckley Says:
    07 May 08 @ 12:35 GMT+1

    What a great motivation to the Umbraco community, after codegarden there will be a flood of packages that will able to speed up our development.

    I look forward to participating in this and any other competition/bingo/pass the parcel activity at CodeGarden !

    //Warren

  4. Ismail Mayat Says:
    07 May 08 @ 03:19 GMT+1

    Niels,

    Could you do a blog listing for all countries attending CG08? Would be interesting to see worldwide reach and also it may spur last minute ticket sales? :-}

  5. Darren Ferguson Says:
    08 May 08 @ 04:39 GMT+1

    Another Question? Which versions of Umbraco does the package have to be compatible with and is any post configuration acceptable after the installer has run.....

  6. Hartvig Says:
    09 May 08 @ 09:38 GMT+1

    It should work with 3.0.3+ and not contain any configuration afterwards (background configs are ok, but not anything that will require user interaction)

  7. Darren Ferguson Says:
    09 May 08 @ 12:08 GMT+1

    Just to be clear. I can ask for configuration information during the package install and write my own config file?

    D.

  8. Anders Says:
    09 May 08 @ 10:58 GMT+1

    @Niels, please explain more indepth about the "no configuration".

    Is properties on a macro allowed, or must the whole package create content and add macros to templates and such?

  9. Hartvig Says:
    09 May 08 @ 12:14 GMT+1

    @Darren: No. For this contest we're looking for packages so simple that configuration shouldn't be needed.

    @Anders: Properties on a macro is cool, but not a final configuration screen in the installer like the "WebsiteWizard" or the "Umbraco Dashboard" got.

    A rule of thumb could be that if you need to append an installation usercontrol in the package (in the /control element), there's a big chance that your package won't qualify. However minor background configuration like creating tables in the db or creating some additional files/directories would be ok as long as it's done automatically and doesn't require any user interaction during the install process.

    Keep the questions coming, rather too many than to few :-)

    /n

  10. Darren Ferguson Says:
    09 May 08 @ 01:17 GMT+1

    Seems as though we are going to have to keep things very simple then.

    Guess this rules out my tweet on publish idea as you'd need to tell the package about your twitter account.

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