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Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

492 points by 101008 4y ago

Dalewyn 4y ago
[flagged]
- saagarjha 4y ago
  I’m glad that they didn’t enter a competition meant to spur interest in technology, do something fairly reasonable, and be disqualified because they didn’t read the fine print instead of focusing on the competition itself. Oh, wait…
- rkachowski 4y ago
  > I'm happy to see them disqualified, it's a sign the world is still reasonably sane. The author is literally a schoolkid. The joy and validation you receive in seeing talented children denied recognition is fortunately not shared.
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    Yes, he's a kid, and I would hope he received a valuable lesson (for free!) in how the real world works. In the real world, if a project you work on has specific requirements and you violate those requirements, you're getting reprimanded. If you keep it up saying "they're dumb", you're getting fired. Same lesson learned, but this time with an expensive price tag you will have to pay. Reading and following the rules is a fundamental skill you need to learn and master if you want to survive and succeed in the real world. I'm happy that the education system is working.
  - the_only_law 4y ago
    Heh, talk about arrogance…
ugh123 4y ago
A [shitty] lesson learned for the unfair, arbitrary, or flat out incorrect decision-making by others that will affect you throughout life. How we react is what will make us.
- satvikpendem 4y ago
  Sometimes we need a different point of vue, sometimes more angular than others.
JoeyBananas 4y ago
> Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files, such as Webs, Wix, Weebly, GitHub, Jekyll, and Replit, are NOT permitted. LOL. It's like a muskets-only shooting competition.
- richbell 4y ago
  Sounds like an gentlemanly duel to me!
Reptur 4y ago
Teachers can be the biggest a-holes on earth when it comes to irrational judgements. I recall doing a website building elective in middle-school where we hand coded a simple site. They made the content of the site required to complete the project and get a grade. I had been writing sites already previous to the class for hire for 2 years at that point so I figured this class was an easy A. I had ADHD and this was the 90s (zero understanding/help), so writing filler content wasn't going to happen. I turned it in expecting to get like a B or C. Nope, F. The site was perfect valid code. Teacher was just a jerk. Dropped the elective.
anaganisk 4y ago
He is talking about Github, but Im more surprised to see Jekyll. On github, there is a slight possibility that you forked something. What does Jekyll do. If that's the case, they could even ban for using nodejs. Sorry folks, you can't use SASS here. But if it's explicitly stated in the rule book, I think the participant made the mistake of not getting to know the rules of competition.
- cratermoon 4y ago
  Jekyll is a static site generator along the lines of hugo or next.js edit: it doesn't seem to use jekyll, though.
  - anaganisk 4y ago
    Yeah, Im aware of that, but why is it on the same rank of Weevly and WIX? It's not a template generator. Im talking about the list of banned things they can't use.
    - trynewideas 4y ago
      Don't overthink it. It's just incompetence on the contest and judges.
    - HowTheStoryEnds 4y ago
      Probably because they googled 'list of html template creators ' and this was that which came out as a result on some random site they got presented as the first link.
Jensson 4y ago
> Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files Github pages allows you to write index.md instead of an index.html, and therefore they count it as a webpage generator. Not sure if these kids used a markdown file for a page, but the capability is there and that makes Github more than just a dumb web server that serves html. Possibly the judges are non technical, just basic designers so they can't tell the difference, so all Github pages would be banned and not just the markdown ones. But I think it would be better if they told the students so they could move it to a clean server in that case.
- deleted 4y ago
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- trynewideas 4y ago
  They used GitHub pages as a dumb host for HTML files, JavaScript, images, CSS. Repo link in the story, here for convenience: https://github.com/thstsa/spacetourism https://github.com/thstsa/spacetourism Even has a .nojekyll file in the repo, and they since moved publishing to Netlify.
  - Zetobal 4y ago
    They are technically right and are teachers... we all know what that means.
    - msla 4y ago
      Being "technically right" is more rightness than some teachers require: We all know about teachers who are right because they are teachers, ditto bosses and family members and so on. Learning this now is good experience, and learning it in a context where they might even be able to leverage it into a job interview is even better.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    But you can use pure html in many other generators, if they ban based on capability and not usage then the ruling is as intended. I agree they should have just been asked to move it to another site in that case so the judge can be sure there isn't anything going on behind the scenes, I wonder why they didn't just ask that the instant they saw it was github pages instead of just disqualifying it without notice?
satvikpendem 4y ago
And the most recent update: https://old.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/119j8o4/part_2_disqualified_from_a_national_web_design/ https://old.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/119j8o4/part_2_disq... It looks like they simply don't realize that GitHub is not GitHub Pages.
- whstl 4y ago
  They were using both Github and Github Pages, however it was Github Pages with self-crafted HTML, not with templates. I think the issue here is that they (EDIT: the teachers, not the participants) don't realize you can use Github pages for things other than template-based pages.
lxe 4y ago
Feels like whoever is running or judging entries for the TSA Webmaster Competition is not very literate in the field they are judging, if they consider Github a template engine.
newaccount74 4y ago
Ah... student competitions... that brings up memories... When I was 15 or so, I took part in a tech competition for under 19 year olds. I designed and programmed a website for "grading" your teachers, complete with an admin interface for generating anonymous 1 time use codes for students. The goal was to make it easy for schools to allow students to provide anonymous, private feedback to their teachers. I didn't win (there were a lot of other submissions that were pretty amazing, so no hard feelings about that). But a few months later, someone tipped me off about a public teacher grading website. It looked very similar to my website, it was the same design, just with different colors. I couldn't believe it, but digging into it I found out that one of the people running this website was a jury member in the tech competition. Because they were shoddy coders and didn't properly quote user input on HTML pages, I used a simple script injection attack to show a Java script alert on one of the pages. Their website went nowhere (turns out that allowing students to publically grade their teachers is not going to be used for constructive feedback...) But I was quite disillusioned how the jury of this competition cared so little about the contributions, they apparently just saw them as free ideas.
- OJFord 4y ago
  Not RateMyTeachers?
  - newaccount74 4y ago
    No. It seems that the idea isn't very unique :)
- giancarlostoro 4y ago
  I have a feeling you could of sued for copyright.
  - sacrosancty 4y ago
    [dead]
frodowtf 4y ago
If I were the OP, I would loooove to try that competition next year again.
- WesolyKubeczek 4y ago
  If I were the OP, I would refuse to participate in stupid games. Voluntarily undergo mental torture just to prove some point to a pompous fool? To what end?
justinclift 4y ago
Hmmm, the html files seem like the output of some form of generation, or perhaps a crappy web editor? eg: * https://github.com/thstsa/spacetourism/blob/main/technologies.html https://github.com/thstsa/spacetourism/blob/main/technologie... * https://github.com/thstsa/spacetourism/blob/main/index.html https://github.com/thstsa/spacetourism/blob/main/index.html * https://github.com/thstsa/spacetourism/blob/main/pricing.html https://github.com/thstsa/spacetourism/blob/main/pricing.htm... Those multi-line blank gaps all over the place are not something that generally occur in hand crafted or "from scratch" html. That being said, the teacher sounds out of their depth and should either gain a clue or refrain from being involved in judging next year. ** Optimal practical solution would probably be to try and get the rules fixed, so future participants don't get erroneously disqualified.
- lord_sudo 4y ago
  Just my 2c, but those gaps look too uneven to be produced by a framework. They remind me of my own html from scratch when I didn’t use a formatter or linter haha
  - justinclift 4y ago
    Yeah, to me they look like the output that I get when I'm writing with Go templates (non-minified afterwards). eg: <html> {{ if eq .FOO "bar" }} <some tags here> {{ end }} <other stuff> {{ if eq .BAZ "bim" }} <some tags here> {{ end }} </html> That ends up generating blank lines all over the place, very much like the output they have. ;)
    - mlyle 4y ago
      The revision history doesn't seem to support that. They seem to just mash enter a lot. Especially it looks like they have lots of edits where they add blank lines and then another tag, and then remove the new tag but not the blank line. E.g. https://github.com/thstsa/spacetourism/commit/6411ce05009cc69941b0883e379f96e7867d8fa9 https://github.com/thstsa/spacetourism/commit/6411ce05009cc6... Or sometimes just replacing things they intend to outright remove with blank lines. With multiple committers, it seems unlikely they're all templating and then checking in the output of the template engine.
number6 4y ago
> You heard it here first folks, GitHub IS NOT the industry standard for code collaboration and version control, an expected tool for anyone entering the industry and a priceless skill for any aspiring developer. Git is, GitHub is not. Yes it gave us Pull Requests but it is just another Corporation build around Git.
- newaccount74 4y ago
  Github and the projects it inspired, like Gitlab and Bitbucket, are what made Git accessible to the huge audience of developers it has today. The way Github presents repos organized by organisation, allowing everyone to fork and host their version of the code, that's what made git popular. Without Github, I don't think Git would ever have been adopted by mainstream dev audiences and would just be some arcane tech used by kernel devs.
  - bluecalm 4y ago
    Git was already quite popular before GitHub at least in technical circles. I was using it as my first version control tool when I was learning programming. I asked some programmer friends and the answer was: "use Git, it's 10x better than SVN". Git is designed in a way that everyone has their version of the code locally. We were hosting our projects on another service back then. GitHub is the result of Git getting traction, not something that made Git popular.
    - newaccount74 4y ago
      Yeah, I was maybe exaggerating when I said "kernel devs". There obviously were people using git before Github. But I don't think source control in general was as common back then as it is now. Source control was something for serious projects, and a lot of code wasn't under version control at all. If you wanted to host code somewhere, services typically charged per repository, and setting up repo hosting yourself was a hassle. Github really made all that very easy, and popular. The alternative web interfaces for browsing git repos were atrocious, but even modern competitors like SourceHut are a hard sell to novices. I think calling Github "just another Corporation build around Git" is pretty disingenuous.
synunlimited 4y ago
As a former student that competed in both National and State TSA events from 2006 to 2012 (and won multiple trophies across events including the "webmaster" competition) I'm not really surprised by this outcome. That doesn't mean that its the right outcome but just a result of how these competitions are run. The judges are all volunteers that may or may not have a background in the actual event they are there to grade. So you get someone that just shows up, reads the rules for the event and then judges accordingly to those exact rules. Which in this case since the website is hosted by Github it automatically gets disqualified for not meeting the rules of the event. This is a pretty easy thing to fix which is either A) Just have a custom domain that hides the github hostname B) host it somewhere else. The students here seem to have taken the B approach and have it up on netlify now. I certainly empathize with the students here putting hard work into a project only to get disqualified on a technicality, it is a hard lesson to learn and one around maximizing your results within the rules as long as you follow all the rules. Hopefully they will be successful in getting the rules updated moving forward to be more clear about the default github page templates vs just raw HTML hosting.
- deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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- pksebben 4y ago
  my understanding was that they were DQed for using github, not hosting there. Which is just bananas. I can't think of a single decent piece of software that doesn't use Version Control, and 99.9999% of the software I know uses git for VC. We need a new format. This institutional nonsense is for the birds.
  - abracadaniel 4y ago
    I think the judge saw them being hosted on github and assumed github was something akin to squarespace.
  - 4y ago
personjerry 4y ago
> You heard it here first folks, GitHub IS NOT the industry standard for code collaboration and version control, an expected tool for anyone entering the industry and a priceless skill for any aspiring developer Indeed, it's not. It's a popular online hosting service for repositories for said tool, said tool being `git`, which by the way is fully functional for version control without a remote repository. GitHub uses Jekyll as a template engine for Github Pages, and it was even mentioned in the rules, so technically they are in the right.
- byyll 4y ago
  GitHub sucks but GitHub Pages allows you to upload any kind of HTML, CSS and JavaScript file. You are not forced to use Jekyll.
signin0305 4y ago
Hi, I'm Shiloh, the guy that made the original reddit post and medium article. After reading some comments, I clarified my statement on GitHub's role in the CS industry
- toastal 4y ago
  Training our next generation on proprietary tools like GitHub isn't the way though. Understanding a VCS (i.e. Git, Mercurial, darcs, Pijul, etc.) is great skill and almost certainly a job requirement, but a specific platform? Its classification as “industry standard” could and should be debated as well.
  - peterkelly 4y ago
    The skills you have to learn in order to use github effectively are pretty generic in nature and easily transferable to other platforms.
    - toastal 4y ago
      Is that why most people don't know stack-based Git flows or how to using send-email? GitHub only really works on the pull request model which is not the only way to use Git. There are pros and cons to these workflows, but if skills are generic, then you can just say "Git" or "Git forge" without needing to specify a platform.
      - antihero 4y ago
        Most major platforms use pull/merge requests.
        toastal 4y ago
        PostgreSQL uses a mailing list and Google uses Gerrit to name two "major" counters. There are plenty of big projects and orgs operating under different models.
darig 4y ago
[dead]
imagetic 4y ago
I had a professor who wanted to flunk me for using html/css over flash for a final project.
- whstl 4y ago
  What was their rationale for that?
peterkelly 4y ago
This is one of those important events in life where you realise that sometimes those who hold seniority over you aren't necessarily as smart as you are. This experience will help you to cultivate a healthy disrespect for authority. We all go through something like this at some point. The best thing to do is to find some sort of constructive way to channel your experience. One path I would suggest is to consider launching your own rival competition, where the judges are volunteers from industry, and the prize is an internship at a company or something like that. This would not only provide your peers with a great opportunity to get quality feedback, but also serve as a really useful experience that would help you in your future career. What have you got to lose? Perhaps you could even get GitHub to sponsor it :)
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - californical 4y ago
    The rule in question bans template generators. Their teacher didn’t understand that just because you can technically copy a template off of GitHub doesn’t mean that is the only thing GitHub is for.
  - weird-eye-issue 4y ago
    The rule is to not use "Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files..." They didn't do that. They uploaded the HTML to Github directly.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
      They quote the rule and link to the full rules. GitHub is explicitly mentioned. They failed on a technicality. https://tsaweb.org/docs/default-source/themes-and-problems-2018-2019/2022-2023/hs---webmaster.pdf?sfvrsn=9d75e16c_2 https://tsaweb.org/docs/default-source/themes-and-problems-2... She then points out this rule in the Official Rulebook: I. Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files, such as Webs, Wix, Weebly, GitHub, Jekyll, and Replit, are NOT permitted.
theknocker 4y ago
[dead]
boros2me 4y ago
I think how the situation turned out and how you dealt with it, gave you a much more important life experience! Dealing with BS project blockers by clients/execs and finding a way to turn it into something positive is not something they teach at school, well done team!
Animats 4y ago
These people are now better known among people likely to hire webmasters than whomever won the competition. The students did not violate the rules. The rules say that template sites like Wix, GitHub, etc. may not be used. They did not say "such as" GitHub. There's a difference. GitHub is merely illustrative of the template site concept, in this case incorrectly. The controlling requirement is that it be a "template site". Which GitHub is not. So this is a drafting error, not controlling language. "Like" vs. "such as" has been a question on the Graduate Management Admission Test, because it is a distinction which might matter in a contract. But that distinction is somewhat archaic and probably beyond many teachers.
- forgotpwd16 4y ago
  >They did not say "such as" GitHub. But that's what they said. https://tsaweb.org/docs/default-source/themes-and-problems-2018-2019/2022-2023/hs---webmaster.pdf?sfvrsn=9d75e16c_2 https://tsaweb.org/docs/default-source/themes-and-problems-2...
  - pksebben 4y ago
    Holy cow. They did say that. We're doomed. If this is how we introduce kids to tech, we can guarantee they bail and do something more intellectually rewarding, like Business Admin or Sales /s For real though, a similar thing nearly happened to me. over a decade ago I took a community college class CS101 - and it was taught by a guy with no knowledge and no investment (and they got you started with Java, of all things). Totally killed my interest. Fast forward to three years ago and I was lucky enough to find my way into the field through self-study, but quite nearly gave up on the whole thing forever because of a pug-ugly initial experience. And this was way after high school.
    - Animats 4y ago
      Ah, you're right. The article used "like" at one point, but the rules say "Such as".
- notfed 4y ago
pfoof 4y ago
It's funnier when you realize Markdown parsing is basic feature of every other repo hosting like GitLab or Bitbucket
salamo 4y ago
> OVERVIEW Applying leadership and 21st century skills, participants are required to design, build, and launch a website and present a given topic pertaining to technology. I think if the purpose of the competition is to apply 21st century skills then they shouldn't ban 21st century tools.
throwaway5371 4y ago
most people are pathetically bad at their jobs, the sooner you realise that the better sometimes thats you, so you should always reflect and improve
byyll 4y ago
I looked at the code and one important thing to note is that you should not use any element + onclick + window.open for links. Links should be <a> tags. The ones you currently have are impossible to navigate with a keyboard (that's called accessibility) and for someone that isn't running JavaScript.
yyyppp 4y ago
They obviously meant GitHub Copilot, but it got 'lost in the translation' and here we are.
- catfishx 4y ago
  You can also use GitHub copilot outside of a GitHub repository, and there would be no way to verify that
shanebellone 4y ago
"GitHub IS NOT the industry standard for hosting code collaboration and version control through Git, an expected tool for anyone entering the industry and a priceless skill for any aspiring developer." Is this a conflation of Git and GitHub?
- john_the_writer 4y ago
  Practically speaking Github is Git. It's the industry standard. In the last 10 years, I've not worked at one place that didn't use github.
  - shanebellone 4y ago
    Thanks for the clarification.
  - f1refly 4y ago
    Well, I haven't worked at a single place that used github. Ẁhat makes your experience more examplary?
    - shanebellone 4y ago
      Did you use Git but not GitHub?
      - amadvance 4y ago
        Where I work, we use Bitbucket Server, and as client vanilla git.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    I've had something like five jobs since GitHub came into existence, and only one of those used GitHub as its primary source control site. However, I'll grant that if your open source project can't be found by a duck duck go "!gh [keywords]" then I'm probably not going to find it.
  - deleted 4y ago
tanepiper 4y ago
From the original reddit thread, I emailed the TSA to point out this, and one other stupid point - they expected 100% uptime from the students sites. If this is supposed to be teaching the next generation of devs skills, then we've got a lot of Junior Developer Therapy ahead of us as we unteach the bad stuff.
- ovao 4y ago
  Hey, that’s fine. The kids now get to expect 100% uptime from their teachers.
gjs278 4y ago
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james_pm 4y ago
A custom domain probably would have saved them from DQ. The github.io domain really threw up a red flag regardless of whether they used Github Pages or not.
SMAAART 4y ago
When the people in charge are not only ignorant but also arrogant enough to not admit their mistakes. Life 101.
JackFr 4y ago
Credit to those kids. School should be ashamed of themselves for that teacher’s inability to understand the nuance of the rule and more importantly work with and advocate for those kids. The teachers role never should be adversarial. That being said, the cynic in me sees the “Technology Students Association” as a massive grift that would make the College Board blush and these competitions are simply college app padding, with enough categories and regional levels that everyone gets a line item (well I guess except these kids.) It’s disappointing and frustrating but ultimately of little importance.
- dotancohen 4y ago
  > The teachers role never should be adversarial. This is, very often, the root of so many problems that I've seen.
GTP 4y ago
To all the commenters that I see here writing comments among the lines of "rules are rules and must be followed to the letter", I strongly suggest you to read the book "Law for Computer Scientists and Other Folk" [1]. In one of the first chapters, it clearly explains that rules must be interpreted, and in doing so, one must take into account the specific situation a rule is being applied to. In this case, it seems quite clear to me that the intent of the rule was to prevent participants from using a tool that generates code for them, not to prevent them from using a version control system. So the real question to ask would be not if they used GitHub or not, but if they used it to generate HTML for their site or if they used it only for version control. In the former case, they deserve to be disqualified. In the latter, the rule doesn't apply. I think that the real lesson here is that if a rule is too subjective to interpretation, is better to discuss it beforehand, because even if you're right the person responsible for enforcing it could still get it wrong. [1] https://global.oup.com/academic/product/law-for-computer-scientists-and-other-folk-9780198860884?cc=nl&lang=en& https://global.oup.com/academic/product/law-for-computer-sci...
- deanCommie 4y ago
  > "rules are rules and must be followed to the letter" When I see this kind of blind obedience to authority I get absolutely terrified. I've lived through the Soviet Union (aside: which is why it's extra hilarious when HN posters who disagree with me think i'm a communist because I have "commie" in my username), I've spoken to people who lived through the after-effects of Nazi Germany. And our industry is at the forefront of so much of soceital development. Computer Scientists already have to make endless conscientious decisions about privacy, robotics, facial recognition, and how our tech is used or not used to perpetuate repression and discrimination. And it's only going to get worse with the rise of AI. So to see so many technologists just shrug and say "The rule said no GitHub" makes me terrified for how they critically evaluate (or don't) the requirements put in front of them for what they implement, and what it means for our dystopian future. It's also infuriating that "critical thinking" and "healthy distrust of authority" have become appropriated by the alt-right to spread COVID vaccine conspiracy theories, and at this point I even hesitate to say things like advocating for "challenging authority" because the concept has bene politicized to mean "challenge thinking for the benefit of your community and society instead of your own individual wants", or even more simply "challenge the left/progressives".
dusted 4y ago
> Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files That basically covers every tool.. I don't know what "generate HTML from text" means, HTML _IS_ text.. so.. notepad is disqualified too I guess? Since that generates HTML files from text if you save the file with the .html extension ?
- qup 4y ago
  If it's not obvious, they just don't want you to generate HTML, they want you to write it. The key word you're ignoring is "generate."
gabereiser 4y ago
In the rules for the competition, there's this: I. Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files, such as Webs, Wix, Weebly, GitHub, Jekyll, and Replit, are NOT permitted. [1] So the fact that you hosted it on Github disqualifies you. Regardless of whether you used their jekyll engine. I would immediately resubmit it from a shared hosting provider or by setting up an S3+CloudFront static site. [1] https://tsaweb.org/docs/default-source/themes-and-problems-2018-2019/2022-2023/hs---webmaster.pdf?sfvrsn=9d75e16c_2 https://tsaweb.org/docs/default-source/themes-and-problems-2...
- devhead 4y ago
  kids don't have credit cards; the organization should have been providing free paid hosting with git support and ability to deploy through github actions...it should have been: git and github is a requirement for hosting your code. imho
  - gabereiser 4y ago
    You're absolutely right. They should have provided VM's for each team using a secure linux os and instructions on how to connect and what their url is/would be along with a git repo to pull those instructions using the students ssh keys. If the students want to use actions to auto-deploy, that's fine, just make sure the key isn't in the repo and is supplied via params. This would have made any restrictions about "template engine" irrelevant and simplified the contest as well as provide a safe haven for the kids to "compute" in.
jame-se 4y ago
I’m not sure why the non technical teacher is getting flak, as much as I hate to admit it, they were just following rules and avoiding future headaches. Assuming they were super technical and didn’t disqualify the students, what would happen when other competitors call foul for using GitHub? Now this makes the approver look bad, but also could have unintended consequences in the competition. Me, I would have told the kids to use Gitlab or one of the other non explicitly mentioned repositories, because sometimes, as silly as rules can be, need to be followed literally.
- _fat_santa 4y ago
  It would be like having a creative writing competition that includes the rule: "You must not use AI generated text tools such as: ChatGPT, Bing Chat, Microsoft Word, Notepad, Google Docs". The problem with their rule is that half the tools are actually templating tools, the other is a set of vital tools to any sort of development. Whoever wrote that rule clearly knows next to nothing about what tools are actually used to build websites.
  - jame-se 4y ago
    I don’t disagree with you at all, and your examples only exemplify my point. Someone, somewhere, has to make a decision or the rules need to be changed. If the competition rules explicitly stated your example above and someone submitted a docx file or link to a google docs, they shouldn’t be allowed. You could argue you used eMacs or vi instead of notepad (as long as you don’t publicly state otherwise). However, it should be pointed out how stupid this rule is and have it changed. Let’s use a real world example of this- if you apply to a job that only accepts docx resumes, what recourse do you have if they don’t take pdf? You can either not apply, or play by this specific “competition” rules, even if they were made by someone who is nontechnical.
- hbn 4y ago
  How about the teacher have some curiosity, hear what they're saying, figure out the thing you don't understand, and suggest changes to the rulebook? > Me, I would have told the kids to use Gitlab or one of the other non explicitly mentioned repositories, because sometimes, as silly as rules can be, need to be followed literally. After they were already disqualified? The teacher doesn't even seem to know what git is if they thought this was actual grounds for disqualification.
deleted 4y ago
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didntreadarticl 4y ago
People are dissecting the minutiae of the rules and the role of github but at the end of the day its bananas that some kids got banned from a 21st century web competition for using the proper tools. edit: As a consolation prize HNers could follow the OP and his team-mates on medium or elsewhere
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johnklos 4y ago
It's extremely frustrating when people CHOOSE to not understand something. On the other hand, it's bad to assume that because "everyone uses it", it's OK. Having dealt with people who send code as HTML email with quotes replaced with "smart quotes", having been sent links to files / tarballs that don't actually link to those file / tarballs but to a web page instead, having been sent to sites that require knowing how the site works and/or browsing around and being unable to use a link to download directly via curl / nbftp / wget, I can understand that a group that doesn't want to deal with superfluous distractions would have rules about what can and can't be used. GitHub is NOT trivial, and it is extremely browser centric. Trying to just download a file is an exercise in frustration if you're not familiar with GitHub. Copying a link to your clipboard that can actually be used to download a file is next to impossible, unless you already know how to use GitHub. I can fully understand why the competition organizers specifically forbid the use of GitHub in their rules.
- richbell 4y ago
  > GitHub is NOT trivial, and it is extremely browser centric. Trying to just download a file is an exercise in frustration if you're not familiar with GitHub. Copying a link to your clipboard that can actually be used to download a file is next to impossible, unless you already know how to use GitHub. > I can fully understand why the competition organizers specifically forbid the use of GitHub in their rules. These concerns and specifically banning GitHub (the version control platform) were never mentioned by the organizers. The only reference to GitHub is in a section explicitly about pre-built template and sites like Wix that generate websites. At the very least we ought to recognize that the rule is ambiguous and ought to be amended. ) H. Framework systems, such as Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress, Bootstrap, or other current technologies may be used; however, pre-built templates and themes for these sites are not permissible. If a framework system is used, a statement affirming that the template or theme used on the framework was built by the team must be posted on an “About” section or page. ) I. Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files, such as Webs, Wix, Weebly, GitHub, Jekyll, and Replit, are NOT permitted.
- treerunner 4y ago
  One fallacy of web design, of any design, is that in order to be “good” it must be easy. Sometimes there is a learning curve. Conceptual hurdles abound with a complex tool like GitHub. Working through hurdles help you grow as a technologist and as person —but having the right attitude going in, that’s on you.
butterfi 4y ago
It’s disappointing how many comments here focus on the trees and not the forest. Regardless of the intent of the GitHub rule, this is supposed to drive interest in web development among young people, and instead it’s an exercise in bureaucracy and semantics.
- LanceH 4y ago
  The rule is ambiguous and can be read two ways. Tools which pull code from places like ...github...are not allowed. # Github as a tool doesn't generate code. Tool like ...github... which generate code are not allowed. # Github is certainly a repository from which code templates are pulled. Love the "results are final". No flexibility from people running things is a great quality to prepare youth for the real world of navigating customer service. Also the teacher telling them to just wait when they're the one who judged it.
  - teaearlgraycold 4y ago
    Results are final means they’re too insecure to admit fallibility
    - eternalban 4y ago
      Is it a given they would have won? Who were the winners and what did their work look like? Even with the best of intentions they would have to (a) re-register the entry, (b) redo the competition or review against current winner. And then possibly (maybe!) judge it to be superior to the current winner and then open that can of worm, or not.
      - btschaegg 4y ago
        Well, with a quantum of class, they could 1) acknowledge that their judgement was erroneous, 2) publish that as a correction, listing the project, ideally with a small apology and at least some details on how the entry would have been judged if not for the GitHub link and 3) create a separate prize for "projects our judges learned valuable lessons from". As a good example of a similar precedent, look at this entry from 1994: https://web.archive.org/web/20200214094614/http://www0.us.ioccc.org/1994/smr.hint https://web.archive.org/web/20200214094614/http://www0.us.io...
zachlatta 4y ago
Many schools also block GitHub, Stack Overflow, Replit, and others on their networks while trying to promote STEM. Incredibly frustrating.
francisofascii 4y ago
Imagine having a US History important figure report contest. With a rule that forbid using anyone who was a US president. And someone uses Benjamin Franklin, and gets disqualified because someone on the rule committee thought "Franklin" was a US president.
bena 4y ago
This would be a facepalm moment for me if I were these guys. Because while they used GitHub in the most common manner, to host a code repository. Not only did they violate the rules technically, they also inadvertently violated them practically. README.md is a markdown file. GitHub parses this into that little blurb you see below the repo. This is technically a violation of the rules. Part of your project is technically generated by GitHub. Yes, it is dumb. Yes, I would have done the same in your position. Because I also would not have read the rules that deep. Or just forgot that they counted GitHub among the template generators. Ultimately, I would have just been kicking myself because I would have felt that this could have been avoided. I'd also ignore the statement from peterkelly that you're probably smarter than those running the competition or who made the rules. Also, consider that even if you were selected for consideration, you still may not have won. They didn't disqualify you because they were scared of your prowess. They disqualified you for violating a rule. I'm not sure how many entries they get per year, but it's likely they're looking more for reasons to drop than to add. Remember, there can be only one winner. And that winner will be the team that made the fewest mistakes.
- seanclayton 4y ago
  The winner used GitHub.
- jallen_dot_dev 4y ago
  > GitHub parses this into that little blurb you see below the repo. This is technically a violation of the rules. Part of your project is technically generated by GitHub. No, that's Github interpreting markdown for display on Github.com. That's not generating any part of the project that they submitted.
  - bena 4y ago
    You can't use a site that takes markdown and generates HTML. It is a file in the project. By the letter, it counts. And the reason stuff like this happens is because of people who like to bend the rules on technicalities. Where they hold to the letter but violate the spirit. You have to draw lines somewhere in a competition.
JustLurking2022 4y ago
Those who can't do...
thesneakin 4y ago
Just a bit jealous. We didn't have compos back when people mistakenly double clicked web site links. Was almost forced into using a barely templatable database engine.
schlauerfox 4y ago
Thats okay, these are always run by idiots. I graduated in 2001 and we worked really hard on our site to profesionally design a site for a real company and we lost to a crappy site with a marquee and blink tag because it was more "dynamic".
PM_me_your_math 4y ago
That's not even a tough break. It is the product of administrators who are not qualified to run the competition. I wonder if the same thing would have occurred if they used Plastic SCM.

492 points by 101008 4y ago

Dalewyn 4y ago

[flagged]

saagarjha 4y ago
I’m glad that they didn’t enter a competition meant to spur interest in technology, do something fairly reasonable, and be disqualified because they didn’t read the fine print instead of focusing on the competition itself. Oh, wait…
rkachowski 4y ago
> I'm happy to see them disqualified, it's a sign the world is still reasonably sane. The author is literally a schoolkid. The joy and validation you receive in seeing talented children denied recognition is fortunately not shared.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  Yes, he's a kid, and I would hope he received a valuable lesson (for free!) in how the real world works. In the real world, if a project you work on has specific requirements and you violate those requirements, you're getting reprimanded. If you keep it up saying "they're dumb", you're getting fired. Same lesson learned, but this time with an expensive price tag you will have to pay. Reading and following the rules is a fundamental skill you need to learn and master if you want to survive and succeed in the real world. I'm happy that the education system is working.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  Heh, talk about arrogance…

ugh123 4y ago

A [shitty] lesson learned for the unfair, arbitrary, or flat out incorrect decision-making by others that will affect you throughout life. How we react is what will make us.

satvikpendem 4y ago
Sometimes we need a different point of vue, sometimes more angular than others.

JoeyBananas 4y ago

> Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files, such as Webs, Wix, Weebly, GitHub, Jekyll, and Replit, are NOT permitted. LOL. It's like a muskets-only shooting competition.

richbell 4y ago
Sounds like an gentlemanly duel to me!

Reptur 4y ago

Teachers can be the biggest a-holes on earth when it comes to irrational judgements. I recall doing a website building elective in middle-school where we hand coded a simple site. They made the content of the site required to complete the project and get a grade. I had been writing sites already previous to the class for hire for 2 years at that point so I figured this class was an easy A. I had ADHD and this was the 90s (zero understanding/help), so writing filler content wasn't going to happen. I turned it in expecting to get like a B or C. Nope, F. The site was perfect valid code. Teacher was just a jerk. Dropped the elective.

anaganisk 4y ago

He is talking about Github, but Im more surprised to see Jekyll. On github, there is a slight possibility that you forked something. What does Jekyll do. If that's the case, they could even ban for using nodejs. Sorry folks, you can't use SASS here. But if it's explicitly stated in the rule book, I think the participant made the mistake of not getting to know the rules of competition.

cratermoon 4y ago
Jekyll is a static site generator along the lines of hugo or next.js edit: it doesn't seem to use jekyll, though.
- anaganisk 4y ago
  Yeah, Im aware of that, but why is it on the same rank of Weevly and WIX? It's not a template generator. Im talking about the list of banned things they can't use.
  - trynewideas 4y ago
    Don't overthink it. It's just incompetence on the contest and judges.
  - HowTheStoryEnds 4y ago
    Probably because they googled 'list of html template creators ' and this was that which came out as a result on some random site they got presented as the first link.

Jensson 4y ago

> Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files Github pages allows you to write index.md instead of an index.html, and therefore they count it as a webpage generator. Not sure if these kids used a markdown file for a page, but the capability is there and that makes Github more than just a dumb web server that serves html. Possibly the judges are non technical, just basic designers so they can't tell the difference, so all Github pages would be banned and not just the markdown ones. But I think it would be better if they told the students so they could move it to a clean server in that case.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
trynewideas 4y ago
They used GitHub pages as a dumb host for HTML files, JavaScript, images, CSS. Repo link in the story, here for convenience: https://github.com/thstsa/spacetourism https://github.com/thstsa/spacetourism Even has a .nojekyll file in the repo, and they since moved publishing to Netlify.
- Zetobal 4y ago
  They are technically right and are teachers... we all know what that means.
  - msla 4y ago
    Being "technically right" is more rightness than some teachers require: We all know about teachers who are right because they are teachers, ditto bosses and family members and so on. Learning this now is good experience, and learning it in a context where they might even be able to leverage it into a job interview is even better.
- Jensson 4y ago
  But you can use pure html in many other generators, if they ban based on capability and not usage then the ruling is as intended. I agree they should have just been asked to move it to another site in that case so the judge can be sure there isn't anything going on behind the scenes, I wonder why they didn't just ask that the instant they saw it was github pages instead of just disqualifying it without notice?

satvikpendem 4y ago

And the most recent update: https://old.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/119j8o4/part_2_disqualified_from_a_national_web_design/ https://old.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/119j8o4/part_2_disq... It looks like they simply don't realize that GitHub is not GitHub Pages.

whstl 4y ago
They were using both Github and Github Pages, however it was Github Pages with self-crafted HTML, not with templates. I think the issue here is that they (EDIT: the teachers, not the participants) don't realize you can use Github pages for things other than template-based pages.

lxe 4y ago

Feels like whoever is running or judging entries for the TSA Webmaster Competition is not very literate in the field they are judging, if they consider Github a template engine.

newaccount74 4y ago

Ah... student competitions... that brings up memories... When I was 15 or so, I took part in a tech competition for under 19 year olds. I designed and programmed a website for "grading" your teachers, complete with an admin interface for generating anonymous 1 time use codes for students. The goal was to make it easy for schools to allow students to provide anonymous, private feedback to their teachers. I didn't win (there were a lot of other submissions that were pretty amazing, so no hard feelings about that). But a few months later, someone tipped me off about a public teacher grading website. It looked very similar to my website, it was the same design, just with different colors. I couldn't believe it, but digging into it I found out that one of the people running this website was a jury member in the tech competition. Because they were shoddy coders and didn't properly quote user input on HTML pages, I used a simple script injection attack to show a Java script alert on one of the pages. Their website went nowhere (turns out that allowing students to publically grade their teachers is not going to be used for constructive feedback...) But I was quite disillusioned how the jury of this competition cared so little about the contributions, they apparently just saw them as free ideas.

OJFord 4y ago
Not RateMyTeachers?
- newaccount74 4y ago
  No. It seems that the idea isn't very unique :)
giancarlostoro 4y ago
I have a feeling you could of sued for copyright.
- sacrosancty 4y ago
  [dead]

frodowtf 4y ago

If I were the OP, I would loooove to try that competition next year again.

WesolyKubeczek 4y ago
If I were the OP, I would refuse to participate in stupid games. Voluntarily undergo mental torture just to prove some point to a pompous fool? To what end?

justinclift 4y ago

Hmmm, the html files seem like the output of some form of generation, or perhaps a crappy web editor? eg: * https://github.com/thstsa/spacetourism/blob/main/technologies.html https://github.com/thstsa/spacetourism/blob/main/technologie... * https://github.com/thstsa/spacetourism/blob/main/index.html https://github.com/thstsa/spacetourism/blob/main/index.html * https://github.com/thstsa/spacetourism/blob/main/pricing.html https://github.com/thstsa/spacetourism/blob/main/pricing.htm... Those multi-line blank gaps all over the place are not something that generally occur in hand crafted or "from scratch" html. That being said, the teacher sounds out of their depth and should either gain a clue or refrain from being involved in judging next year. ** Optimal practical solution would probably be to try and get the rules fixed, so future participants don't get erroneously disqualified.

lord_sudo 4y ago
Just my 2c, but those gaps look too uneven to be produced by a framework. They remind me of my own html from scratch when I didn’t use a formatter or linter haha
- justinclift 4y ago
  Yeah, to me they look like the output that I get when I'm writing with Go templates (non-minified afterwards). eg: <html> {{ if eq .FOO "bar" }} <some tags here> {{ end }} <other stuff> {{ if eq .BAZ "bim" }} <some tags here> {{ end }} </html> That ends up generating blank lines all over the place, very much like the output they have. ;)
  - mlyle 4y ago
    The revision history doesn't seem to support that. They seem to just mash enter a lot. Especially it looks like they have lots of edits where they add blank lines and then another tag, and then remove the new tag but not the blank line. E.g. https://github.com/thstsa/spacetourism/commit/6411ce05009cc69941b0883e379f96e7867d8fa9 https://github.com/thstsa/spacetourism/commit/6411ce05009cc6... Or sometimes just replacing things they intend to outright remove with blank lines. With multiple committers, it seems unlikely they're all templating and then checking in the output of the template engine.

number6 4y ago

newaccount74 4y ago
Github and the projects it inspired, like Gitlab and Bitbucket, are what made Git accessible to the huge audience of developers it has today. The way Github presents repos organized by organisation, allowing everyone to fork and host their version of the code, that's what made git popular. Without Github, I don't think Git would ever have been adopted by mainstream dev audiences and would just be some arcane tech used by kernel devs.
- bluecalm 4y ago
  Git was already quite popular before GitHub at least in technical circles. I was using it as my first version control tool when I was learning programming. I asked some programmer friends and the answer was: "use Git, it's 10x better than SVN". Git is designed in a way that everyone has their version of the code locally. We were hosting our projects on another service back then. GitHub is the result of Git getting traction, not something that made Git popular.
  - newaccount74 4y ago
    Yeah, I was maybe exaggerating when I said "kernel devs". There obviously were people using git before Github. But I don't think source control in general was as common back then as it is now. Source control was something for serious projects, and a lot of code wasn't under version control at all. If you wanted to host code somewhere, services typically charged per repository, and setting up repo hosting yourself was a hassle. Github really made all that very easy, and popular. The alternative web interfaces for browsing git repos were atrocious, but even modern competitors like SourceHut are a hard sell to novices. I think calling Github "just another Corporation build around Git" is pretty disingenuous.

synunlimited 4y ago

As a former student that competed in both National and State TSA events from 2006 to 2012 (and won multiple trophies across events including the "webmaster" competition) I'm not really surprised by this outcome. That doesn't mean that its the right outcome but just a result of how these competitions are run. The judges are all volunteers that may or may not have a background in the actual event they are there to grade. So you get someone that just shows up, reads the rules for the event and then judges accordingly to those exact rules. Which in this case since the website is hosted by Github it automatically gets disqualified for not meeting the rules of the event. This is a pretty easy thing to fix which is either A) Just have a custom domain that hides the github hostname B) host it somewhere else. The students here seem to have taken the B approach and have it up on netlify now. I certainly empathize with the students here putting hard work into a project only to get disqualified on a technicality, it is a hard lesson to learn and one around maximizing your results within the rules as long as you follow all the rules. Hopefully they will be successful in getting the rules updated moving forward to be more clear about the default github page templates vs just raw HTML hosting.

deleted 4y ago
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deleted 4y ago
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pksebben 4y ago
my understanding was that they were DQed for using github, not hosting there. Which is just bananas. I can't think of a single decent piece of software that doesn't use Version Control, and 99.9999% of the software I know uses git for VC. We need a new format. This institutional nonsense is for the birds.
- abracadaniel 4y ago
  I think the judge saw them being hosted on github and assumed github was something akin to squarespace.
- 4y ago

personjerry 4y ago

> You heard it here first folks, GitHub IS NOT the industry standard for code collaboration and version control, an expected tool for anyone entering the industry and a priceless skill for any aspiring developer Indeed, it's not. It's a popular online hosting service for repositories for said tool, said tool being `git`, which by the way is fully functional for version control without a remote repository. GitHub uses Jekyll as a template engine for Github Pages, and it was even mentioned in the rules, so technically they are in the right.

byyll 4y ago
GitHub sucks but GitHub Pages allows you to upload any kind of HTML, CSS and JavaScript file. You are not forced to use Jekyll.

signin0305 4y ago

Hi, I'm Shiloh, the guy that made the original reddit post and medium article. After reading some comments, I clarified my statement on GitHub's role in the CS industry

toastal 4y ago
Training our next generation on proprietary tools like GitHub isn't the way though. Understanding a VCS (i.e. Git, Mercurial, darcs, Pijul, etc.) is great skill and almost certainly a job requirement, but a specific platform? Its classification as “industry standard” could and should be debated as well.
- peterkelly 4y ago
  The skills you have to learn in order to use github effectively are pretty generic in nature and easily transferable to other platforms.
  - toastal 4y ago
    Is that why most people don't know stack-based Git flows or how to using send-email? GitHub only really works on the pull request model which is not the only way to use Git. There are pros and cons to these workflows, but if skills are generic, then you can just say "Git" or "Git forge" without needing to specify a platform.
    - antihero 4y ago
      Most major platforms use pull/merge requests.
      - toastal 4y ago
        PostgreSQL uses a mailing list and Google uses Gerrit to name two "major" counters. There are plenty of big projects and orgs operating under different models.

darig 4y ago

[dead]

imagetic 4y ago

I had a professor who wanted to flunk me for using html/css over flash for a final project.

whstl 4y ago
What was their rationale for that?

peterkelly 4y ago

This is one of those important events in life where you realise that sometimes those who hold seniority over you aren't necessarily as smart as you are. This experience will help you to cultivate a healthy disrespect for authority. We all go through something like this at some point. The best thing to do is to find some sort of constructive way to channel your experience. One path I would suggest is to consider launching your own rival competition, where the judges are volunteers from industry, and the prize is an internship at a company or something like that. This would not only provide your peers with a great opportunity to get quality feedback, but also serve as a really useful experience that would help you in your future career. What have you got to lose? Perhaps you could even get GitHub to sponsor it :)

2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
[flagged]
- californical 4y ago
  The rule in question bans template generators. Their teacher didn’t understand that just because you can technically copy a template off of GitHub doesn’t mean that is the only thing GitHub is for.
- weird-eye-issue 4y ago
  The rule is to not use "Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files..." They didn't do that. They uploaded the HTML to Github directly.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
    They quote the rule and link to the full rules. GitHub is explicitly mentioned. They failed on a technicality. https://tsaweb.org/docs/default-source/themes-and-problems-2018-2019/2022-2023/hs---webmaster.pdf?sfvrsn=9d75e16c_2 https://tsaweb.org/docs/default-source/themes-and-problems-2... She then points out this rule in the Official Rulebook: I. Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files, such as Webs, Wix, Weebly, GitHub, Jekyll, and Replit, are NOT permitted.

theknocker 4y ago

[dead]

boros2me 4y ago

I think how the situation turned out and how you dealt with it, gave you a much more important life experience! Dealing with BS project blockers by clients/execs and finding a way to turn it into something positive is not something they teach at school, well done team!

Animats 4y ago

These people are now better known among people likely to hire webmasters than whomever won the competition. The students did not violate the rules. The rules say that template sites like Wix, GitHub, etc. may not be used. They did not say "such as" GitHub. There's a difference. GitHub is merely illustrative of the template site concept, in this case incorrectly. The controlling requirement is that it be a "template site". Which GitHub is not. So this is a drafting error, not controlling language. "Like" vs. "such as" has been a question on the Graduate Management Admission Test, because it is a distinction which might matter in a contract. But that distinction is somewhat archaic and probably beyond many teachers.

forgotpwd16 4y ago
>They did not say "such as" GitHub. But that's what they said. https://tsaweb.org/docs/default-source/themes-and-problems-2018-2019/2022-2023/hs---webmaster.pdf?sfvrsn=9d75e16c_2 https://tsaweb.org/docs/default-source/themes-and-problems-2...
- pksebben 4y ago
  Holy cow. They did say that. We're doomed. If this is how we introduce kids to tech, we can guarantee they bail and do something more intellectually rewarding, like Business Admin or Sales /s For real though, a similar thing nearly happened to me. over a decade ago I took a community college class CS101 - and it was taught by a guy with no knowledge and no investment (and they got you started with Java, of all things). Totally killed my interest. Fast forward to three years ago and I was lucky enough to find my way into the field through self-study, but quite nearly gave up on the whole thing forever because of a pug-ugly initial experience. And this was way after high school.
  - Animats 4y ago
    Ah, you're right. The article used "like" at one point, but the rules say "Such as".
notfed 4y ago

pfoof 4y ago

It's funnier when you realize Markdown parsing is basic feature of every other repo hosting like GitLab or Bitbucket

salamo 4y ago

> OVERVIEW Applying leadership and 21st century skills, participants are required to design, build, and launch a website and present a given topic pertaining to technology. I think if the purpose of the competition is to apply 21st century skills then they shouldn't ban 21st century tools.

throwaway5371 4y ago

most people are pathetically bad at their jobs, the sooner you realise that the better sometimes thats you, so you should always reflect and improve

byyll 4y ago

I looked at the code and one important thing to note is that you should not use any element + onclick + window.open for links. Links should be <a> tags. The ones you currently have are impossible to navigate with a keyboard (that's called accessibility) and for someone that isn't running JavaScript.

yyyppp 4y ago

They obviously meant GitHub Copilot, but it got 'lost in the translation' and here we are.

catfishx 4y ago
You can also use GitHub copilot outside of a GitHub repository, and there would be no way to verify that

shanebellone 4y ago

"GitHub IS NOT the industry standard for hosting code collaboration and version control through Git, an expected tool for anyone entering the industry and a priceless skill for any aspiring developer." Is this a conflation of Git and GitHub?

john_the_writer 4y ago
Practically speaking Github is Git. It's the industry standard. In the last 10 years, I've not worked at one place that didn't use github.
- shanebellone 4y ago
  Thanks for the clarification.
- f1refly 4y ago
  Well, I haven't worked at a single place that used github. Ẁhat makes your experience more examplary?
  - shanebellone 4y ago
    Did you use Git but not GitHub?
    - amadvance 4y ago
      Where I work, we use Bitbucket Server, and as client vanilla git.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  I've had something like five jobs since GitHub came into existence, and only one of those used GitHub as its primary source control site. However, I'll grant that if your open source project can't be found by a duck duck go "!gh [keywords]" then I'm probably not going to find it.
- deleted 4y ago

tanepiper 4y ago

From the original reddit thread, I emailed the TSA to point out this, and one other stupid point - they expected 100% uptime from the students sites. If this is supposed to be teaching the next generation of devs skills, then we've got a lot of Junior Developer Therapy ahead of us as we unteach the bad stuff.

ovao 4y ago
Hey, that’s fine. The kids now get to expect 100% uptime from their teachers.

gjs278 4y ago

[dead]

james_pm 4y ago

A custom domain probably would have saved them from DQ. The github.io domain really threw up a red flag regardless of whether they used Github Pages or not.

SMAAART 4y ago

When the people in charge are not only ignorant but also arrogant enough to not admit their mistakes. Life 101.

JackFr 4y ago

Credit to those kids. School should be ashamed of themselves for that teacher’s inability to understand the nuance of the rule and more importantly work with and advocate for those kids. The teachers role never should be adversarial. That being said, the cynic in me sees the “Technology Students Association” as a massive grift that would make the College Board blush and these competitions are simply college app padding, with enough categories and regional levels that everyone gets a line item (well I guess except these kids.) It’s disappointing and frustrating but ultimately of little importance.

dotancohen 4y ago
> The teachers role never should be adversarial. This is, very often, the root of so many problems that I've seen.

GTP 4y ago

To all the commenters that I see here writing comments among the lines of "rules are rules and must be followed to the letter", I strongly suggest you to read the book "Law for Computer Scientists and Other Folk" [1]. In one of the first chapters, it clearly explains that rules must be interpreted, and in doing so, one must take into account the specific situation a rule is being applied to. In this case, it seems quite clear to me that the intent of the rule was to prevent participants from using a tool that generates code for them, not to prevent them from using a version control system. So the real question to ask would be not if they used GitHub or not, but if they used it to generate HTML for their site or if they used it only for version control. In the former case, they deserve to be disqualified. In the latter, the rule doesn't apply. I think that the real lesson here is that if a rule is too subjective to interpretation, is better to discuss it beforehand, because even if you're right the person responsible for enforcing it could still get it wrong. [1] https://global.oup.com/academic/product/law-for-computer-scientists-and-other-folk-9780198860884?cc=nl&lang=en& https://global.oup.com/academic/product/law-for-computer-sci...

deanCommie 4y ago
> "rules are rules and must be followed to the letter" When I see this kind of blind obedience to authority I get absolutely terrified. I've lived through the Soviet Union (aside: which is why it's extra hilarious when HN posters who disagree with me think i'm a communist because I have "commie" in my username), I've spoken to people who lived through the after-effects of Nazi Germany. And our industry is at the forefront of so much of soceital development. Computer Scientists already have to make endless conscientious decisions about privacy, robotics, facial recognition, and how our tech is used or not used to perpetuate repression and discrimination. And it's only going to get worse with the rise of AI. So to see so many technologists just shrug and say "The rule said no GitHub" makes me terrified for how they critically evaluate (or don't) the requirements put in front of them for what they implement, and what it means for our dystopian future. It's also infuriating that "critical thinking" and "healthy distrust of authority" have become appropriated by the alt-right to spread COVID vaccine conspiracy theories, and at this point I even hesitate to say things like advocating for "challenging authority" because the concept has bene politicized to mean "challenge thinking for the benefit of your community and society instead of your own individual wants", or even more simply "challenge the left/progressives".

dusted 4y ago

> Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files That basically covers every tool.. I don't know what "generate HTML from text" means, HTML _IS_ text.. so.. notepad is disqualified too I guess? Since that generates HTML files from text if you save the file with the .html extension ?

qup 4y ago
If it's not obvious, they just don't want you to generate HTML, they want you to write it. The key word you're ignoring is "generate."

gabereiser 4y ago

In the rules for the competition, there's this: I. Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files, such as Webs, Wix, Weebly, GitHub, Jekyll, and Replit, are NOT permitted. [1] So the fact that you hosted it on Github disqualifies you. Regardless of whether you used their jekyll engine. I would immediately resubmit it from a shared hosting provider or by setting up an S3+CloudFront static site. [1] https://tsaweb.org/docs/default-source/themes-and-problems-2018-2019/2022-2023/hs---webmaster.pdf?sfvrsn=9d75e16c_2 https://tsaweb.org/docs/default-source/themes-and-problems-2...

devhead 4y ago
kids don't have credit cards; the organization should have been providing free paid hosting with git support and ability to deploy through github actions...it should have been: git and github is a requirement for hosting your code. imho
- gabereiser 4y ago
  You're absolutely right. They should have provided VM's for each team using a secure linux os and instructions on how to connect and what their url is/would be along with a git repo to pull those instructions using the students ssh keys. If the students want to use actions to auto-deploy, that's fine, just make sure the key isn't in the repo and is supplied via params. This would have made any restrictions about "template engine" irrelevant and simplified the contest as well as provide a safe haven for the kids to "compute" in.

jame-se 4y ago

I’m not sure why the non technical teacher is getting flak, as much as I hate to admit it, they were just following rules and avoiding future headaches. Assuming they were super technical and didn’t disqualify the students, what would happen when other competitors call foul for using GitHub? Now this makes the approver look bad, but also could have unintended consequences in the competition. Me, I would have told the kids to use Gitlab or one of the other non explicitly mentioned repositories, because sometimes, as silly as rules can be, need to be followed literally.

_fat_santa 4y ago
It would be like having a creative writing competition that includes the rule: "You must not use AI generated text tools such as: ChatGPT, Bing Chat, Microsoft Word, Notepad, Google Docs". The problem with their rule is that half the tools are actually templating tools, the other is a set of vital tools to any sort of development. Whoever wrote that rule clearly knows next to nothing about what tools are actually used to build websites.
- jame-se 4y ago
  I don’t disagree with you at all, and your examples only exemplify my point. Someone, somewhere, has to make a decision or the rules need to be changed. If the competition rules explicitly stated your example above and someone submitted a docx file or link to a google docs, they shouldn’t be allowed. You could argue you used eMacs or vi instead of notepad (as long as you don’t publicly state otherwise). However, it should be pointed out how stupid this rule is and have it changed. Let’s use a real world example of this- if you apply to a job that only accepts docx resumes, what recourse do you have if they don’t take pdf? You can either not apply, or play by this specific “competition” rules, even if they were made by someone who is nontechnical.
hbn 4y ago
How about the teacher have some curiosity, hear what they're saying, figure out the thing you don't understand, and suggest changes to the rulebook? > Me, I would have told the kids to use Gitlab or one of the other non explicitly mentioned repositories, because sometimes, as silly as rules can be, need to be followed literally. After they were already disqualified? The teacher doesn't even seem to know what git is if they thought this was actual grounds for disqualification.

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didntreadarticl 4y ago

People are dissecting the minutiae of the rules and the role of github but at the end of the day its bananas that some kids got banned from a 21st century web competition for using the proper tools. edit: As a consolation prize HNers could follow the OP and his team-mates on medium or elsewhere

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johnklos 4y ago

It's extremely frustrating when people CHOOSE to not understand something. On the other hand, it's bad to assume that because "everyone uses it", it's OK. Having dealt with people who send code as HTML email with quotes replaced with "smart quotes", having been sent links to files / tarballs that don't actually link to those file / tarballs but to a web page instead, having been sent to sites that require knowing how the site works and/or browsing around and being unable to use a link to download directly via curl / nbftp / wget, I can understand that a group that doesn't want to deal with superfluous distractions would have rules about what can and can't be used. GitHub is NOT trivial, and it is extremely browser centric. Trying to just download a file is an exercise in frustration if you're not familiar with GitHub. Copying a link to your clipboard that can actually be used to download a file is next to impossible, unless you already know how to use GitHub. I can fully understand why the competition organizers specifically forbid the use of GitHub in their rules.

richbell 4y ago
> GitHub is NOT trivial, and it is extremely browser centric. Trying to just download a file is an exercise in frustration if you're not familiar with GitHub. Copying a link to your clipboard that can actually be used to download a file is next to impossible, unless you already know how to use GitHub. > I can fully understand why the competition organizers specifically forbid the use of GitHub in their rules. These concerns and specifically banning GitHub (the version control platform) were never mentioned by the organizers. The only reference to GitHub is in a section explicitly about pre-built template and sites like Wix that generate websites. At the very least we ought to recognize that the rule is ambiguous and ought to be amended. ) H. Framework systems, such as Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress, Bootstrap, or other current technologies may be used; however, pre-built templates and themes for these sites are not permissible. If a framework system is used, a statement affirming that the template or theme used on the framework was built by the team must be posted on an “About” section or page. ) I. Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files, such as Webs, Wix, Weebly, GitHub, Jekyll, and Replit, are NOT permitted.
treerunner 4y ago
One fallacy of web design, of any design, is that in order to be “good” it must be easy. Sometimes there is a learning curve. Conceptual hurdles abound with a complex tool like GitHub. Working through hurdles help you grow as a technologist and as person —but having the right attitude going in, that’s on you.

butterfi 4y ago

It’s disappointing how many comments here focus on the trees and not the forest. Regardless of the intent of the GitHub rule, this is supposed to drive interest in web development among young people, and instead it’s an exercise in bureaucracy and semantics.

LanceH 4y ago
The rule is ambiguous and can be read two ways. Tools which pull code from places like ...github...are not allowed. # Github as a tool doesn't generate code. Tool like ...github... which generate code are not allowed. # Github is certainly a repository from which code templates are pulled. Love the "results are final". No flexibility from people running things is a great quality to prepare youth for the real world of navigating customer service. Also the teacher telling them to just wait when they're the one who judged it.
- teaearlgraycold 4y ago
  Results are final means they’re too insecure to admit fallibility
  - eternalban 4y ago
    Is it a given they would have won? Who were the winners and what did their work look like? Even with the best of intentions they would have to (a) re-register the entry, (b) redo the competition or review against current winner. And then possibly (maybe!) judge it to be superior to the current winner and then open that can of worm, or not.
    - btschaegg 4y ago
      Well, with a quantum of class, they could 1) acknowledge that their judgement was erroneous, 2) publish that as a correction, listing the project, ideally with a small apology and at least some details on how the entry would have been judged if not for the GitHub link and 3) create a separate prize for "projects our judges learned valuable lessons from". As a good example of a similar precedent, look at this entry from 1994: https://web.archive.org/web/20200214094614/http://www0.us.ioccc.org/1994/smr.hint https://web.archive.org/web/20200214094614/http://www0.us.io...

zachlatta 4y ago

Many schools also block GitHub, Stack Overflow, Replit, and others on their networks while trying to promote STEM. Incredibly frustrating.

francisofascii 4y ago

Imagine having a US History important figure report contest. With a rule that forbid using anyone who was a US president. And someone uses Benjamin Franklin, and gets disqualified because someone on the rule committee thought "Franklin" was a US president.

bena 4y ago

This would be a facepalm moment for me if I were these guys. Because while they used GitHub in the most common manner, to host a code repository. Not only did they violate the rules technically, they also inadvertently violated them practically. README.md is a markdown file. GitHub parses this into that little blurb you see below the repo. This is technically a violation of the rules. Part of your project is technically generated by GitHub. Yes, it is dumb. Yes, I would have done the same in your position. Because I also would not have read the rules that deep. Or just forgot that they counted GitHub among the template generators. Ultimately, I would have just been kicking myself because I would have felt that this could have been avoided. I'd also ignore the statement from peterkelly that you're probably smarter than those running the competition or who made the rules. Also, consider that even if you were selected for consideration, you still may not have won. They didn't disqualify you because they were scared of your prowess. They disqualified you for violating a rule. I'm not sure how many entries they get per year, but it's likely they're looking more for reasons to drop than to add. Remember, there can be only one winner. And that winner will be the team that made the fewest mistakes.

seanclayton 4y ago
The winner used GitHub.
jallen_dot_dev 4y ago
> GitHub parses this into that little blurb you see below the repo. This is technically a violation of the rules. Part of your project is technically generated by GitHub. No, that's Github interpreting markdown for display on Github.com. That's not generating any part of the project that they submitted.
- bena 4y ago
  You can't use a site that takes markdown and generates HTML. It is a file in the project. By the letter, it counts. And the reason stuff like this happens is because of people who like to bend the rules on technicalities. Where they hold to the letter but violate the spirit. You have to draw lines somewhere in a competition.

JustLurking2022 4y ago

Those who can't do...

thesneakin 4y ago

Just a bit jealous. We didn't have compos back when people mistakenly double clicked web site links. Was almost forced into using a barely templatable database engine.

schlauerfox 4y ago

Thats okay, these are always run by idiots. I graduated in 2001 and we worked really hard on our site to profesionally design a site for a real company and we lost to a crappy site with a marquee and blink tag because it was more "dynamic".

PM_me_your_math 4y ago

That's not even a tough break. It is the product of administrators who are not qualified to run the competition. I wonder if the same thing would have occurred if they used Plastic SCM.