28 December 2011

Thanks for a Great Year!

As 2011 comes to a close, I would like to thank the thousands of players who have played the quizzes at the PL/SQL Challenge, especially the daily PL/SQL quiz, and who have also volunteered their time to write quizzes, edit and review quizzes, and provide many ideas for ways to improve the website.

At the PL/SQL Challenge website this year, 4,670 Oracle technologists from 104 countries spent over 32,000 hours submitting 213,077 answers to quizzes. These numbers reflect a very impressive commitment by all these players to improving their skill set in PL/SQL, SQL and APEX.

I am grateful beyond words to our reviewers, listed below with the number of questions they reviewed in parentheses:

Michael Brunstedt (270)
Ken Holmslykke (175)
Elic (172)
Darryl Hurley (129)
Kim Berg Hansen (25)
Patrick Barel (18)
Viji Thatai (6)
Munky (3)

The impact of our reviewers can be seen most clearly in the reduction in errors in our quizzes. In the eight months of play in 2010, we issued corrections for 31 quizzes. In all of 2011, with the addition of SQL and APEX quizzes, we only needed to issue corrections for 20 quizzes. And since January 2011, there have never been more than 2 corrections in a month. That's still too many - and I take full responsibility for all errors! - but it is certainly a big improvement. I expect to see the number decrease further in 2012.

Next, my thanks to the following players who found the time to submit quizzes that were then played in 2011, listed below with the number of questions authored in parentheses:

_Nikotin (8)
Kim Berg Hansen (8)
mentzel.iudith (8)
koko (6)
Scott Wesley (5)
Jeff Kemp (5)
Patrick Barel (5)
Gary Myers (4)
Tim Hall (4)
Christian Rokitta (3)
Ken Holmslykke (3)
Joaquin Gonzalez (2)
anil_jha (2)
Vinod Kumar (2)
Sergey Porokh (2)
Jan Leers (iAdvise.be) (2)
Christopher Beck (2)
Chris Saxon (2)
Keith Hollins (1)
poelger (1)
Radoslav Golian (1)
Ramesh Samane (1)
Marc Thompson (1)
Alexander Polivany (1)
David Codl (1)
Oleg Borodin (1)
Viacheslav Stepanov (1)
Sreeguruparan PA (1)
D.J. Alexander (1)
Darryl Hurley (1)
senthil prakash Muthu Irulappan (1)
Ralf Koelling (1)
Sohilkumar Bhavsar (1)
Neal Hawman (1)
David Alexander (1)
Randy Gettman (1)
Oleg Gorskin (1)
Joni Vandenberghe (1)
voltrik (1)
Sailaja Pasupuleti (1)
Dennis Klemme (1)
Tony Winn (1)

Finally, we have been working on some exciting new features for quite awhile now, and it looks like 2012 is the year in which they will appear, so please be on the lookout for announcements of big changes at the PL/SQL Challenge site soon.

Warmest holiday wishes to everyone!
Steven Feuerstein

1 comment:

  1. Hello Steven
    and the entire PL/SQL Challenge family !

    First and above all, we, all the players owe
    to you, Steven, a huge
    THANK YOU !
    for everything you are doing for us daily,
    for closely mentoring us and for the endless patience to always answer and sometimes argue
    over our opinions :)

    Thanks a million for being a BIG FRIEND of all of us !

    I cannot appreciate what percent of all the players share my feeling, but, if I compare
    our "PL/SQL Challenge family" with the closer
    "daily professional family", I feel much more at home here, what the PL/SQL Challenge
    represents for me is really invaluable,
    thank you all for being a part of it !

    Yes, we are closing a great year, a year of professional challenges, accomplishments and daily enrichment of our knowledge, many times (that's life !) after failing to correctly answer a quiz.

    I wish you all a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR !
    with lots of self-accomplishment and great joy
    continuing to play the PL/SQL Challenge !

    And, to the PL/SQL Challenge team,
    the power to keep it going and developing,
    you can really be proud of a great creation !

    Thanks a lot & Best Regards to all,
    Iudith Mentzel

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