Programming contests in academic environments

Abstract

The objectives of a competition, called the International Challenge for Eclipse (ICE), are discussed. The programming competition has been arranged to promote the use of Eclipse, an open source platform designed to help developers work with tools from multiple vendors. The competition is open to developers and university-level educators and students. It will include mentored academic participant entries in one category and un-mentored entries in second category. The way to implement the useful Eclipse plug-in is described. A game-based competition called CodeRally, sponsored by IBM to raise Eclipse awareness, has been successful with student participants.