PL/SQL Challenge Live event in Melbourne, Australia

Quest Software and AUSOUG sponsored a PL/SQL Challenge Live quiz at the Insync 2010 conference on 16 August (which took place just 3 hours after I arrived from a very long odyssey from Chicago). This is the second live quiz I have done (the first was at ODTUG's Kaleidoscope conference in June), and it went much smoother than the first, since I built a PL/SQL procedure to automatically compute winners (manual processes really are things to avoid whenever possible!).

Forty-two developers played the quiz and I am pleased to announce that Jeff Kemp, currently ranked #5 in this quarter on the daily quiz, took first place with a score of 37 points out of a possible maximum score of 43. He wins a $100 giftcard from Westfield Mall. Here is list of the top 20 scorers in the competition:

01 Player JEFF KEMP = 37
02 Player STUART WATSON = 34
03 Player INDU NEELAKANDAN = 33
04 Player TREVOR TRACEY-PATTE = 33
05 Player BRETT MCBRIDE = 32
06 Player MARIA DE MESA = 32
07 Player KHOI NGUYEN = 32
08 Player IAN CORKHILL = 31
09 Player MARC THOMPSON = 31
10 Player ROHAN MILTON = 31
11 Player SWEE KEONG TAN = 31
12 Player RAY FEIGHERY = 31
13 Player GARETH OWEN-CONWAY = 30
14 Player TIM DANIELL = 30
15 Player ASHOK SHOKKANNAA = 30
16 Player THOMAS WENDE = 29
17 Player PANKAJ DADOO = 29
18 Player ROGER SCHNEIDER = 29
19 Player ANTHONY BRUMBY = 29
20 Player R F = 29

Hopefully they will all register at and play the daily quiz of the PL/SQL Challenge as well. They clearly have lots of promise! And if you are not yet playing the daily quiz of the PL/SQL Challenge, well please do join the other 1400 developers who play almost every day, learning more about PL/SQL and winning weekly and monthly prizes.

Finally we were lucky enough to have Tom Kyte in attendance at the live quiz. He was kindly pointed out two subtle problems with the quiz, so I cleaned those up for the other quizzes this week. One point will also result in a minor change in our assumptions.