We started the PL/SQL Challenge in April 2010 with a daily PL/SQL quiz. Over the years since, we have added weekly APEX, SQL and Logic quizzes, as well as monthly quizzes, quarterly championships and much, much more: over 1,200 to date!
Through it all we published five new quizzes on PL/SQL each week, come rain or shine, holiday or workday. And it should come as no big surprise, given that this whole site was my idea (Steven Feuerstein), that I have written more quizzes than everyone else combined: over 1,000. Wow.
I've gotten pretty good at it (productive, that is) and I actually do enjoy it.
Yet I now feel that the time has come to end the daily quizzes. I know that many of you may have strong feelings about this, so I would like to share (a) my reasons for feeling this way and (b) what I would like to do in place of the daily quiz.
I plan to put these changes into effect on 1 January 2014, so I very much want your feedback.
Here are my reasons:
1. It's very time consuming to write five quizzes per week, along
with verification code and resources. It's also quite a job to review
all these quizzes, and much of that effort has fallen at this point to a
single, valiant player: Elic.
I have greatly enjoyed writing these quizzes. I've learned even more
about PL/SQL in the process and, certainly, feel good about the impact
of these quizzes on thousands of developers around the world.
But the bottom line is that by committing so much of my time to these quizzes, I have that much less time for other activities, both related to Oracle technologies and completely distinct from them.
And I must tell you that whether it is a mid-life crisis (I just celebrated my 55th birthday) or just one more human being coming to his or her senses, I feel more and more strongly with each passing day that I need to spend more time out in the natural world, away from computers and the Internet and plastic.
2. It's quite a burden on our reviewers to ensure a high quality for five quizzes each week. For a while, I had four-five PL/SQL developers checking my quizzes (well, usually 2-3 for any given quiz), but lately the main responsibility has fallen on our most excellent and diligent reviewer, Elic. He shows no signs of wear and tear, but it worries me....
3. Hmmm. I guess that's really about it. :-)
So what would I like to do instead? (with the PL/SQL Challenge, that is. Check out feuerthoughts.blogspot.com for occasional disclosures about what I plan to do with the rest of my life, overall. My views on that have been changing a lot in the past year.)
Here's what I am thinking about right now:
Offer THREE weekly quizzes on PL/SQL, as follows:
1. The PL/SQL Challenge: a weekly quiz authored by me that covers the gamut of PL/SQL features, as we have been going with the daily quiz - just once per week. See? I am not going to stop writing quizzes entirely!
2. The Community PL/SQL quiz: a weekly quiz that is authored by others (anyone but Steven Feuerstein). Currently we restrict how many questions authored by players can be used per quarter to just three. At least one player (Iudith Mentzel) has written lots of great questions that could be played and appreciated better with this new weekly quiz. And I hope that having a weekly quiz specifically showcasing the knowledge and creativity of others will encourage you to submit your own!
3. Deja Vu PL/SQL: a weekly quiz that features a question previously played in the daily PL/SQL quiz. Of course, if you spend lots of time practicing past quizzes, these will, over time, get ridiculously easy for you, but hey there's nothing wrong with that. You are internalizing programming patterns, leading to improved productivity and code quality in your own work. I am certain of it!
The PL/SQL Challenge quiz will be the primary quiz for rankings and qualifications for championships (more on that below). We would also rank the Community PL/SQL and Deja Vu PL/SQL quizzes, but they would not be used directly to qualify for championships. Instead, some players of these quizzes would qualify through a variety of special rules (play all quizzes in a quarter with N% correct or higher, that sort of thing).
Keep the Quarterly PL/SQL Championship
One could argue that there will no longer be enough quizzes in a quarter (12 weekly vs roughly 60 daily) to establish clearly who should participate in the championship. I was thinking about switching to a semi-annual (every 6 months) championship, but that complicates matters in our backend (support for a new frequency) and I don't really want to give players any fewer reasons to think about and visit the site.
We will probably adjust the rules around what it takes to qualify for the championship. And we will continue to play at a single time, to ensure the integrity of the competition.
Add a New Annual PL/SQL Championship
We are adding annual championships for SQL and Logic in 2014. We will do the same for PL/SQL, maybe starting in 2014 or wait until 2015.
Still sorting out the rules for participation. Maybe we will "loosen" things up and make it an "open" contest: anyone can play!Or have an open qualifier: take three quizzes (everyone at the same time), top 50 play in the annual championship.
Set Up More Tests
We recently rolled out the
new Tests feature, which currently gives you the ability to take a past
PL/SQL Quarterly Championship under the same conditions as the original
players.
We will add more tests with specific feature area foci, such as a test on dynamic SQL or bulk processing. These will consist of multiple quizzes (not from those already played) that are designed to test how thoroughly you understand a particular area of functionality, and will include a mix of code-based and word quizzes.
Build the Community
I spend so much time writing quizzes, I don't have enough time to more fully develop the community side of the PL/SQL Challenge. I would like to start highlighting player accomplishments (Player of the Year, Reviewer of the Year, etc.), as well as provide better-organized and fully-realized utilities and reusable code.
And more generally I want to make the site less about/from me and more about featuring the knowledge and experience of PL/SQL experts all around the world!
The PL/SQL Challenge (www.plsqlchallenge.com) offers a daily quiz on the PL/SQL language, through which thousands of Oracle technologists demonstrate and deepen their knowledge of PL/SQL. This blog contains posts by the PL/SQL Challenge founder, Steven Feuerstein, as well as comments from players.
22 October 2013
09 October 2013
Participants in the Q3 2013 PL/SQL Championship
The following players will be invited to participate in the Q3 2013 championship playoff. The number in parentheses after their names are the number of playoffs in which they have already participated.
Congratulations to all listed below on their accomplishment and best of luck in the upcoming competition!
We currently plan to hold the championship on 7 November (again, at a single time world-wide), and are waiting for confirmation from players.
See the FAQ for an explanation of the three ways a player can qualify for the playoff.
| Name | Rank | Qualification | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| swart260 (5) | 1 | Top 25 | Netherlands |
| Rakesh Dadhich (3) | 2 | Top 25 | India |
| Oleksiy Varchyn (0) | 3 | Top 25 | Norway |
| Stelios Vlasopoulos (8) | 4 | Top 25 | Belgium |
| Ajaykumar Gupta (2) | 5 | Top 25 | Singapore |
| Janis Baiza (7) | 6 | Top 25 | Latvia |
| mentzel.iudith (11) | 7 | Top 25 | Israel |
| Jerry Bull (9) | 8 | Top 25 | United States |
| Niels Hecker (12) | 9 | Top 25 | Germany |
| Frank Puechl (2) | 10 | Top 25 | Germany |
| Siim Kask (11) | 11 | Top 25 | Estonia |
| Viacheslav Stepanov (10) | 12 | Top 25 | Russia |
| Justin Cave (9) | 13 | Top 25 | United States |
| dannyg64 (2) | 14 | Top 25 | United States |
| Peter Schmidt (4) | 15 | Top 25 | Germany |
| Andrey Zaytsev (0) | 16 | Top 25 | Russia |
| Hamid Talebian (0) | 17 | Top 25 | Netherlands |
| Jeroen Rutte (5) | 18 | Top 25 | Netherlands |
| Michal Cvan (9) | 19 | Top 25 | Slovakia |
| Milibor Jovanovic (3) | 20 | Top 25 | Serbia |
| Zoltan Fulop (5) | 21 | Top 25 | Hungary |
| Pavel Vorontsov (0) | 22 | Top 25 | Russia |
| Frank Schmitt (6) | 23 | Top 25 | Germany |
| _tiki_4_ (4) | 24 | Top 25 | Germany |
| Ivan Blanarik (6) | 25 | Top 25 | Slovakia |
| Tony Winn (3) | 32 | Wildcard | Australia |
| Giedrius Deveikis (3) | 38 | Correctness | Lithuania |
| Denis Ivin (0) | 42 | Correctness | Russia |
| Tobias Stark (2) | 56 | Correctness | Germany |
| Martin_Scholz_Berlin_Berlin (0) | 57 | Correctness | Germany |
| james su (6) | 84 | Wildcard | Canada |
| Ingimundur Gudmundsson (1) | 87 | Correctness | Norway |
| Thierry Poels (5) | 92 | Correctness | Belgium |
| richb (0) | 133 | Correctness | United States |
| Dan Kiser (4) | 223 | Correctness | United States |
| Telmoc (0) | 224 | Correctness | Portugal |
| Upendra Motamarri (0) | 316 | Correctness | India |
07 October 2013
How One Team Enjoys the PL/SQL Challenge
A very nice thing about my announcement over the weekend regarding cheaters is that it prompted several players to write to me about how much they have enjoyed the PL/SQL Challenge.
Here's the best story I got - it really made my day!
Here's the best story I got - it really made my day!
Thank you very much for this great project. I love the challenge and learn
(almost every day) new aspects of PL/SQL.
I thought you might like to hear how we "celebrate" the PL/SQL Challenge at our
company.
We are currently 6 developers
using PL/SQL and playing the PL/SQL Challenge.
We made our own trophies:
- Bronze for the leader in the previous week
- Silver for highest ranking player in the last month
- And gold for the best player in last quarter
It's always a fun and funny moment when the previous owner of the trophy presents it to the new winner.
How wonderful and entertaining! Thanks so much, Peter,for sharing this with me.
Do you have a fun story about the PL/SQL Challenge in your life and/or your job? Please let us know and we will post it on the blog!
Steven
05 October 2013
Sad Day for the PL/SQL Challenge: Cheaters Removed
Since the early days of the PL/SQL Challenge, we have been aware of the possibility of cheating by players. In response, we developed a set of tools to analyze player data to identify patterns of answer submissions that could reflect one or another form of cheating (such as a single person having multiple accounts, or multiple people colluding to achieve high scores).
We have in the past applied these tools to identify players who answer too quickly, and made adjustments to their scores accordingly. When we apply the adjustment, we notify the players that:
It is certainly quite possible that a person answering so quickly (and correctly) is cheating by taking the quiz under a different account, figuring out the correct answers, and then submitting the answer under their "real" account. It is also possible that they knew that subject very well or simply guessed. Rather than automatically reject such answers, we analyze player patterns over a longer period of time, usually no less than two weeks. We then make adjustments to the timings and ranks of those players who answer, cumulatively, in so short an amount of time that there is no way to distinguish their pattern of play from someone who would be cheating.
Today, it is my distinct non-privilege to announce that I have removed from the website three players who I believe have colluded over many quarters to take a whole bunch of the top prizes in the quarterly PL/SQL Championships. The players are (with their championship history under their names):
Frank Schrader
Q3 2010:12th, Q4 2010:30th, Q1 2011:1st, Q2 2011:5th, Q3 2011:1st, Q4 2011:1st, Q1 2012:13th, Q2 2012:3rd, Q3 2012:2nd, Q4 2012:4th, Q1 2013:2nd, Q2 2013:22nd
Dieter Kowalski
Q1 2012:21st, Q2 2012:8th, Q4 2012:16th, Q1 2013:24th, Q2 2013:16th
Konrad Schmidt (kowido)
Q1 2011:26th, Q2 2011:9th, Q3 2011:17th, Q4 2011:21st, Q1 2012:4th, Q2 2012:1st, Q3 2012:9th, Q4 2012:2nd, Q1 2013:1st, Q2 2013:15th
As you can see, two of our consistent champions dropped dramatically in ranking when in the Q2 2013 championship everyone played at the same time.
After I notified all three players of my determination and asked for a response, all three "people" immediately stopped playing. Only Frank even replied to my request and he protested his innocence. Unfortunately, it was not a convincing protest. The bottom line is that there is no way to distinguish their pattern of play from someone who would be cheating.
Frank and Konrad cumulatively won $2800 in prizes on the PL/SQL Challenge site. This is, of course, a source of extreme frustration for me....but what can you do?
Well, here's what we can do: all rankings have been recalculated after these players' removal. We therefore have in many cases new winners for the championships. I am sorry that we will not be able to issue prizes to these new winners, but at least you will be able to print off and display your certificate of achievement - and these new achievements become a part of your profile and history on the PL/SQL Challenge website.
And - do I really need to say this? - let this be a warning to other players who are cheating or contemplating such: we will continue to enhance and apply our tools to root our cheaters, remove them from the site, and announce their crimes to the world.
We may also make our tools available on the website itself, so that any players can run the analysis and see if they can uncover cases of potential cheating to report to us.
We have in the past applied these tools to identify players who answer too quickly, and made adjustments to their scores accordingly. When we apply the adjustment, we notify the players that:
It is certainly quite possible that a person answering so quickly (and correctly) is cheating by taking the quiz under a different account, figuring out the correct answers, and then submitting the answer under their "real" account. It is also possible that they knew that subject very well or simply guessed. Rather than automatically reject such answers, we analyze player patterns over a longer period of time, usually no less than two weeks. We then make adjustments to the timings and ranks of those players who answer, cumulatively, in so short an amount of time that there is no way to distinguish their pattern of play from someone who would be cheating.
Today, it is my distinct non-privilege to announce that I have removed from the website three players who I believe have colluded over many quarters to take a whole bunch of the top prizes in the quarterly PL/SQL Championships. The players are (with their championship history under their names):
Frank Schrader
Q3 2010:12th, Q4 2010:30th, Q1 2011:1st, Q2 2011:5th, Q3 2011:1st, Q4 2011:1st, Q1 2012:13th, Q2 2012:3rd, Q3 2012:2nd, Q4 2012:4th, Q1 2013:2nd, Q2 2013:22nd
Dieter Kowalski
Q1 2012:21st, Q2 2012:8th, Q4 2012:16th, Q1 2013:24th, Q2 2013:16th
Konrad Schmidt (kowido)
Q1 2011:26th, Q2 2011:9th, Q3 2011:17th, Q4 2011:21st, Q1 2012:4th, Q2 2012:1st, Q3 2012:9th, Q4 2012:2nd, Q1 2013:1st, Q2 2013:15th
As you can see, two of our consistent champions dropped dramatically in ranking when in the Q2 2013 championship everyone played at the same time.
After I notified all three players of my determination and asked for a response, all three "people" immediately stopped playing. Only Frank even replied to my request and he protested his innocence. Unfortunately, it was not a convincing protest. The bottom line is that there is no way to distinguish their pattern of play from someone who would be cheating.
Frank and Konrad cumulatively won $2800 in prizes on the PL/SQL Challenge site. This is, of course, a source of extreme frustration for me....but what can you do?
Well, here's what we can do: all rankings have been recalculated after these players' removal. We therefore have in many cases new winners for the championships. I am sorry that we will not be able to issue prizes to these new winners, but at least you will be able to print off and display your certificate of achievement - and these new achievements become a part of your profile and history on the PL/SQL Challenge website.
And - do I really need to say this? - let this be a warning to other players who are cheating or contemplating such: we will continue to enhance and apply our tools to root our cheaters, remove them from the site, and announce their crimes to the world.
We may also make our tools available on the website itself, so that any players can run the analysis and see if they can uncover cases of potential cheating to report to us.
New Weekly Quiz on Database Design
Since April 2010, the PL/SQL Challenge
has offered daily, weekly and monthly quizzes on Oracle PL/SQL, SQL,
deductive logic and Oracle Application Express. Oracle technologists
have submitted over 740,000 answers to these quizzes. Hundreds have
raved about how much they have learned, how much fun it is to compete
(or not, as you choose!)....
This website is one of my proudest achievements, but I sure would love to have more of my developer and DBA friends around the world using the site.
So I am excited to announce a new weekly quiz on Database Design, which will start on 5 October.
Relational databases form the backbone of thousands, if not millions, of applications around the globe. A key part of building these applications is designing and implementing the data structures they use. Proper table design can mean the difference between a scalable, high performing database that is a joy to query and an unscalable mess that makes your brain melt.
Given the importance of databases, understanding good data modelling techniques and physical implementation methods are essential skills for architects, database administrators and developers creating database applications.
Building on the SQL and PL/SQL quizzes already available at the PL/SQL Challenge, the weekly Database Design Quiz kicks off on 5 October to help you build these skills. The quiz will cover many areas of database design, from logical design all the way to physical database design, including topics such as:
The person who has made this quiz possible is Chris Saxon, a long-time player on the PL/SQL Challenge. Chris is a database technologist with 10 years experience designing and building Oracle database applications. He currently works as the Data Architect for the airline Flybe, a role which sees him creating the data structures for the flybe.com database and the company's enterprise data warehouse. He also runs the blog www.sqlfail.com, a project to explain database concepts and other topics of interest using just SQL and PL/SQL. While not thinking about data, his spare time is filled chasing after his daughter Isabelle, born in January this year.
I have, by the way, seen pictures of Isabelle. She is beautiful!
But Chris is so devoted to his craft and so interested in helping others that he is going to give up precious time with his daughter to create and manage the quizzes.
So play the quiz! Every week! Starting 5 October (this Saturday).
If you have not yet visited the PL/SQL Challenge, it's easy to register and entirely free. Check it out!
This website is one of my proudest achievements, but I sure would love to have more of my developer and DBA friends around the world using the site.
So I am excited to announce a new weekly quiz on Database Design, which will start on 5 October.
Relational databases form the backbone of thousands, if not millions, of applications around the globe. A key part of building these applications is designing and implementing the data structures they use. Proper table design can mean the difference between a scalable, high performing database that is a joy to query and an unscalable mess that makes your brain melt.
Given the importance of databases, understanding good data modelling techniques and physical implementation methods are essential skills for architects, database administrators and developers creating database applications.
Building on the SQL and PL/SQL quizzes already available at the PL/SQL Challenge, the weekly Database Design Quiz kicks off on 5 October to help you build these skills. The quiz will cover many areas of database design, from logical design all the way to physical database design, including topics such as:
- Normalization - ensuring you have high quality data
- Referential integrity - saving you the time and effort of writing your own constraints
- Indexing - enabling you to write fast and efficient queries
The person who has made this quiz possible is Chris Saxon, a long-time player on the PL/SQL Challenge. Chris is a database technologist with 10 years experience designing and building Oracle database applications. He currently works as the Data Architect for the airline Flybe, a role which sees him creating the data structures for the flybe.com database and the company's enterprise data warehouse. He also runs the blog www.sqlfail.com, a project to explain database concepts and other topics of interest using just SQL and PL/SQL. While not thinking about data, his spare time is filled chasing after his daughter Isabelle, born in January this year.
I have, by the way, seen pictures of Isabelle. She is beautiful!
But Chris is so devoted to his craft and so interested in helping others that he is going to give up precious time with his daughter to create and manage the quizzes.
So play the quiz! Every week! Starting 5 October (this Saturday).
If you have not yet visited the PL/SQL Challenge, it's easy to register and entirely free. Check it out!
06 September 2013
Q2 2013 PL/SQL Championship Results!
You will find below the rankings for the 2013-2 playoff; the number next to the player's name is the number of times that player has participated in a playoff.
Congratulations first and foremost to our top-ranked players:
1st Place: Frank Schmitt of Germany wins: Amazon.com US$250 Gift Card .
2nd Place: Chris Saxon of United Kingdom wins: Amazon.com US$175 Gift Card.
3rd Place: Niels Hecker of Germany wins: Amazon.com US$100 Gift Card.
Congratulations to everyone who played in the playoff. I hope you found it entertaining, challenging and educational. And for those who were not able to participate in the playoff, you can take the quizzes next week through the Practice feature.
Warm regards,
Steven Feuerstein
Note: Below the table of results for this playoff, you will find another list showing the playoff history of each of these players.
Congratulations first and foremost to our top-ranked players:
1st Place: Frank Schmitt of Germany wins: Amazon.com US$250 Gift Card .
2nd Place: Chris Saxon of United Kingdom wins: Amazon.com US$175 Gift Card.
3rd Place: Niels Hecker of Germany wins: Amazon.com US$100 Gift Card.
Congratulations to everyone who played in the playoff. I hope you found it entertaining, challenging and educational. And for those who were not able to participate in the playoff, you can take the quizzes next week through the Practice feature.
Warm regards,
Steven Feuerstein
Note: Below the table of results for this playoff, you will find another list showing the playoff history of each of these players.
| Rank | Name | Country | Total Time | % Correct | Total Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Frank Schmitt (6) | Germany | 23 mins 28 secs | 92% | 2971 |
| 2 | Chris Saxon (6) | United Kingdom | 27 mins 56 secs | 92% | 2881 |
| 3 | Niels Hecker (12) | Germany | 29 mins 10 secs | 92% | 2857 |
| 4 | Janis Baiza (7) | Latvia | 22 mins 49 secs | 88% | 2834 |
| 5 | Peter Schmidt (4) | Germany | 30 mins 57 secs | 92% | 2821 |
| 6 | Ivan Blanarik (6) | Slovakia | 33 mins 42 secs | 92% | 2741 |
| 7 | mentzel.iudith (11) | Israel | 34 mins 38 secs | 92% | 2682 |
| 8 | Chad Lee (9) | United States | 32 mins 35 secs | 88% | 2663 |
| 9 | Alexey Ponomarenko (1) | Ukraine | 32 mins 45 secs | 88% | 2635 |
| 10 | Jason H (2) | United States | 30 mins 31 secs | 84% | 2520 |
| 11 | Michal Cvan (9) | Slovakia | 29 mins 01 secs | 80% | 2485 |
| 12 | Mike Pargeter (11) | United Kingdom | 23 mins 51 secs | 76% | 2473 |
| 13 | Randy Gettman (11) | United States | 32 mins 28 secs | 80% | 2451 |
| 14 | Vincent Malgrat (6) | French Republic | 34 mins 42 secs | 84% | 2431 |
| 15 | kowido (10) | Germany | 34 mins 27 secs | 84% | 2416 |
| 16 | Dieter Kowalski (5) | Germany | 34 mins 13 secs | 80% | 2356 |
| 17 | Jerry Bull (9) | United States | 31 mins 05 secs | 80% | 2353 |
| 18 | Siim Kask (11) | Estonia | 25 mins 03 secs | 76% | 2289 |
| 19 | Tony Winn (3) | Australia | 31 mins 34 secs | 80% | 2244 |
| 20 | Jeroen Rutte (5) | Netherlands | 32 mins 26 secs | 76% | 2241 |
| 21 | Ajaykumar Gupta (2) | Singapore | 33 mins 57 secs | 76% | 2211 |
| 22 | Frank Schrader (12) | Germany | 32 mins 21 secs | 76% | 2143 |
| 23 | Veera Marimuthu (2) | Singapore | 30 mins 45 secs | 76% | 2135 |
| 24 | Matthias Rogel (3) | Germany | 18 mins 02 secs | 60% | 1869 |
| 25 | Viacheslav Stepanov (10) | Russia | 31 mins 11 secs | 64% | 1751 |
| 26 | Stelios Vlasopoulos (8) | Belgium | 23 mins 17 secs | 56% | 1674 |
| 27 | Leszek Grudzień (1) | Poland | 25 mins 17 secs | 56% | 1599 |
| 28 | Pavel Noga (1) | Czech Republic | 34 mins 52 secs | 60% | 1593 |
| 29 | swart260 (5) | Netherlands | 33 mins 40 secs | 64% | 1582 |
| 30 | Vinu Garg (4) | India | 24 mins 03 secs | 56% | 1569 |
| 31 | Rakesh Dadhich (3) | India | 27 mins 45 secs | 56% | 1550 |
| 32 | Naresh Kumar (1) | India | 32 mins 00 secs | 60% | 1540 |
| 33 | Yuan Tschang (7) | United States | 34 mins 43 secs | 60% | 1531 |
| 34 | Livio (1) | Luxembourg | 34 mins 51 secs | 44% | 878 |
Playoff Performance History
After each name, the quarter in which he or she played, and the ranking in that playoff.| Name | History |
|---|---|
| Frank Schmitt | Q4 2011:24th, Q2 2012:4th, Q3 2012:23rd, Q4 2012:5th, Q1 2013:15th, Q2 2013:1st |
| Chris Saxon | Q4 2010:16th, Q2 2011:2nd, Q4 2011:8th, Q3 2012:22nd, Q4 2012:3rd, Q2 2013:2nd |
| Niels Hecker | Q2 2010:2nd, Q3 2010:1st, Q4 2010:15th, Q1 2011:7th, Q3 2011:8th, Q4 2011:11th, Q1 2012:2nd, Q2 2012:5th, Q3 2012:3rd, Q4 2012:9th, Q1 2013:8th, Q2 2013:3rd |
| Janis Baiza | Q2 2010:3rd, Q4 2010:7th, Q3 2011:10th, Q4 2011:2nd, Q3 2012:25th, Q1 2013:6th, Q2 2013:4th |
| Peter Schmidt | Q3 2010:2nd, Q4 2010:14th, Q3 2012:29th, Q2 2013:5th |
| Ivan Blanarik | Q1 2012:3rd, Q2 2012:15th, Q3 2012:18th, Q4 2012:27th, Q2 2013:6th |
| mentzel.iudith | Q4 2010:4th, Q1 2011:18th, Q2 2011:25th, Q3 2011:6th, Q4 2011:5th, Q1 2012:8th, Q2 2012:19th, Q3 2012:35th, Q4 2012:6th, Q1 2013:4th, Q2 2013:7th |
| Chad Lee | Q2 2011:28th, Q3 2011:19th, Q4 2011:13th, Q1 2012:1st, Q2 2012:26th, Q3 2012:30th, Q4 2012:25th, Q1 2013:22nd, Q2 2013:8th |
| Alexey Ponomarenko | Q2 2013:9th |
| Jason H | Q3 2012:19th, Q2 2013:10th |
| Michal Cvan | Q3 2010:23rd, Q4 2010:25th, Q3 2011:23rd, Q1 2012:12th, Q3 2012:16th, Q4 2012:17th, Q1 2013:16th, Q2 2013:11th |
| Mike Pargeter | Q4 2010:22nd, Q1 2011:16th, Q2 2011:10th, Q4 2011:6th, Q1 2012:6th, Q2 2012:20th, Q3 2012:6th, Q4 2012:23rd, Q2 2013:12th |
| Randy Gettman | Q3 2010:8th, Q1 2011:27th, Q2 2011:12th, Q3 2011:4th, Q4 2011:12th, Q1 2012:20th, Q2 2012:22nd, Q3 2012:32nd, Q4 2012:14th, Q1 2013:5th, Q2 2013:13th |
| Vincent Malgrat | Q4 2011:10th, Q1 2012:15th, Q2 2012:16th, Q4 2012:8th, Q1 2013:3rd, Q2 2013:14th |
| kowido | Q1 2011:26th, Q2 2011:9th, Q3 2011:17th, Q4 2011:21st, Q1 2012:4th, Q2 2012:1st, Q3 2012:9th, Q4 2012:2nd, Q1 2013:1st, Q2 2013:15th |
| Dieter Kowalski | Q1 2012:21st, Q2 2012:8th, Q4 2012:16th, Q1 2013:24th, Q2 2013:16th |
| Jerry Bull | Q2 2011:34th, Q3 2011:9th, Q1 2012:14th, Q2 2012:14th, Q3 2012:15th, Q4 2012:18th, Q1 2013:11th, Q2 2013:17th |
| Siim Kask | Q1 2011:30th, Q2 2011:7th, Q3 2011:11th, Q4 2011:4th, Q1 2012:9th, Q2 2012:6th, Q3 2012:33rd, Q4 2012:12th, Q1 2013:13th, Q2 2013:18th |
| Tony Winn | Q3 2010:17th, Q2 2013:19th |
| Jeroen Rutte | Q3 2010:20th, Q3 2012:12th, Q4 2012:13th, Q1 2013:10th, Q2 2013:20th |
| Ajaykumar Gupta | Q1 2013:7th, Q2 2013:21st |
| Frank Schrader | Q3 2010:12th, Q4 2010:30th, Q1 2011:1st, Q2 2011:5th, Q3 2011:1st, Q4 2011:1st, Q1 2012:13th, Q2 2012:3rd, Q3 2012:2nd, Q4 2012:4th, Q1 2013:2nd, Q2 2013:22nd |
| Veera Marimuthu | Q1 2013:21st, Q2 2013:23rd |
| Matthias Rogel | Q2 2013:24th |
| Viacheslav Stepanov | Q1 2011:9th, Q2 2011:4th, Q3 2011:14th, Q4 2011:20th, Q1 2012:19th, Q2 2012:12th, Q3 2012:7th, Q4 2012:24th, Q1 2013:20th, Q2 2013:25th |
| Stelios Vlasopoulos | Q4 2010:38th, Q4 2011:22nd, Q1 2012:30th, Q2 2012:33rd, Q3 2012:1st, Q4 2012:1st, Q1 2013:30th, Q2 2013:26th |
| Leszek Grudzień | Q2 2013:27th |
| Pavel Noga | Q2 2013:28th |
| swart260 | Q2 2012:24th, Q3 2012:27th, Q4 2012:28th, Q1 2013:32nd, Q2 2013:29th |
| Vinu Garg | Q2 2012:32nd, Q1 2013:31st, Q2 2013:30th |
| Rakesh Dadhich | Q2 2012:13th, Q1 2013:26th, Q2 2013:31st |
| Naresh Kumar | Q2 2013:32nd |
| Yuan Tschang | Q2 2012:27th, Q3 2012:26th, Q4 2012:30th, Q2 2013:33rd |
| Livio | Q2 2013:34th |
03 August 2013
On the Importance of Being Emailed
I don't know about you, but my In box functions as my to-do list. Not my only to-do list, mind you. I still scratch out lists on paper with an ancient technology known as a pen. But my In box plays a critical role in reminding me of upcoming items of interest.
I am not the only one, as I was reminded rather forcefully this week.
The PL/SQL Challenge reminds players (who have asked for reminders) about their daily and weekly quizzes. We also send out emails with results, once the quiz has closed.
Unfortunately, the email queue for our site (and perhaps others?) got backed up this week. Emails did not go out. And I did not pay sufficient attention to notice.
As a result, we received some painful emails like:
I got reminder for 2013-07-30 quiz at early morning of 2013-08-03. Looking at the email headers it is not my local SMTP server problem. All other emails from plsql challenge also is very late, so I missed Fridays quiz :(
I didn't get "Quiz Results"-mails on 31 July and 01 August and I also didn't get a "Reminder"-mail yesterday (or already some days before). So I forgot to play the quiz yesterday.
and worst of all:
I have been playing PL/SQL quizzes without having missed a single quiz since last 2 years. Since I am working, I rely on reminder emails, But I missed out the 1st August 2013 quiz. If you can please resolve the issue with reminder emails and consider my waiver for 1st August Daily Quiz, which I could not take.
Sadly, we cannot issue waivers or give you credit for a missed quiz. Hundreds of people did play on Thursday and Friday (though I wondered at the time why the count was lower than usual - I just figured it was due to summer holidays).
We will do our best to ensure that the emails keep on flowing, but remember:
I am not the only one, as I was reminded rather forcefully this week.
The PL/SQL Challenge reminds players (who have asked for reminders) about their daily and weekly quizzes. We also send out emails with results, once the quiz has closed.
Unfortunately, the email queue for our site (and perhaps others?) got backed up this week. Emails did not go out. And I did not pay sufficient attention to notice.
As a result, we received some painful emails like:
I got reminder for 2013-07-30 quiz at early morning of 2013-08-03. Looking at the email headers it is not my local SMTP server problem. All other emails from plsql challenge also is very late, so I missed Fridays quiz :(
I didn't get "Quiz Results"-mails on 31 July and 01 August and I also didn't get a "Reminder"-mail yesterday (or already some days before). So I forgot to play the quiz yesterday.
and worst of all:
I have been playing PL/SQL quizzes without having missed a single quiz since last 2 years. Since I am working, I rely on reminder emails, But I missed out the 1st August 2013 quiz. If you can please resolve the issue with reminder emails and consider my waiver for 1st August Daily Quiz, which I could not take.
Sadly, we cannot issue waivers or give you credit for a missed quiz. Hundreds of people did play on Thursday and Friday (though I wondered at the time why the count was lower than usual - I just figured it was due to summer holidays).
We will do our best to ensure that the emails keep on flowing, but remember:
If it is a weekday, there is a PL/SQL quiz for you to take!
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