Alas, we (the Nerds) fell to the media (the Geeks) in the clash of the Golden Penguin Bowl. The score ended up at something like 18K to 16K, but in truth it wasn’t that close. Us analysts lead after Round 1 but got absolutely torched in Round 2. We managed to pick up 8K points in the last round when my old boss, Jonathan Eunice, was able to code repeating processes in 7 different languages (including Prolog – who knew?). My own contribution was COBOL:
100 PRINT “X”
200 GOTO 100
I didn’t totally embarass myself, as I was able to field questions on Miguel de Icaza, Mono, and even 2001: A Space Odyssey, but I predictably stuck out when stabbing for a Star Trek answer. The whole audience groaned when I said, “Umm, Star Trek V?”
All in all, it was a very fun event, and I hope the audience enjoyed it. Thanks to Jeremy Allison from the Samba team and Dave Rosenberg from IDG for the invite. Jeremy told us losers that it took him four tries to win his first Golden Penguin Bowl, so there’s hope for me yet.
