Update 5: We will have (Iron)Python! So you can write your entry in Python. Also, we will be there at 9:00am to help anyone who shows up early and needs help getting their system configured.
Update 4: There will be a professor team - The C.S. "Dream Team" will be Sriram, Evan, & Nikolaus.
Update 3: We have added support for additional languages. You will be able to write your entry in C#, Basic, C++, or Java. And 95% likely we will also support Python. Specifics below where I have updated this in the main part.
Update 2: Please pre-install Visual Studio 2010 Professional & ReSharper regardless of language. These both allow a 1 month trial so you can install them now and they'll be good on the day of the contest. (ReSharper is not required but it makes coding in Visual Studio a lot more productive and pleasant.)
Update 1: The code problem will be posted here when the competition starts. So if you are a student at another school and would like to try - you can download the code at the same time. I will put up a way to email me your solution and will run all emailed in ones against the top C.U. entries and post the results. Students only!
Windward is going to sponsor a code war at the C.U. Computer Science department this August 27. That's the first Saturday after school starts which should work well as most students will have little to no homework. I hope most of the incoming freshmen participate as it's a great way for them to meet other students (I remember how alone I felt when I first started at C.U.). It's also a really fun way to start off the school year.
If you're new to C.U. and don't know anyone - email Ken Anderson and he'll get you on a team (or they may create some teams composed of all new people).
For those wonder what a Code War is, read up on the recent code war we had at Windward – Prepare to fire a Broadside Mateys. If you've never done this before - it's a total kick in the ass (ie lots of fun). Don't miss it!
This post will be updated with additional details as we work them out so for C.S. students at C.U., please come back.
Supported languages you can write your entry in. For all languages pre-install Visual Studio 2010 - it is needed for all languages. Recomend you install IronPython to avoid one step in configuring the program. We will provide a sample project with a very simplistic solution to the programming problem in each language.
If you have any questions for us, please post as a comment and we'll be happy to answer them.
ps - If you would like a good laugh (totally unrelated to this), take a look at Cubicle Wars.
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Adds various capabilities such as inequalities,descending sort, joins, and other functions.
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SQL Select Debugger
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Added a Query tab as a field for typing or pasting in a select statement
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All tags using that Data source will be automatically updated with that name.
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New single interface to replace 2 separate dialog boxes
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Displays of all the tags in the template, structured as they are placed in the template. This provides a simple & intuitive way to see the structure of your template. Also provides the capability to go to any tag and/or see the properties of any tag.
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The ability to integrate the Windward Engine into Google’s cloud computing platform for developing and hosting web applications dubbed Google Applications Engine (GAE).
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This new integration will allow for processing of complex scripts and bi-directional text such as Arabic. Your PDF output will be much tighter and more closely match your template, and we’ll be able to respond rapidly to PDF requests and fixes.
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Includes support for new ForEach and slide break handling, table header row repeat across slide breaks, and native Microsoft support for charts and images.
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Tags are color coded in the template by type, making it easy to visually identify them.
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Version 13’s core code has been reworked and optimized to offer a reduced memory footprint, faster PDF generation and full documentation of supported features and limitations in the specifications for DOCX, XLSX and PPTX.
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Documents can include advanced Word image properties such as shadows, borders, and styles.
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Windward has updated HTML output to reflect changing HTML standards.
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Windward now works with a slew of new datasources: MongoDB, JSON, Cassandra, OData, Salesforce.com
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The Generate Code tool in the designer allows you to open an existing template and, with a click of a button, automatically create a window with the code needed to run your current template with all data sources and variables. Simply copy this code and paste into your application's code in the appropriate place. You now have Windward integrated into your application.
You only need to do this once. You do not do this for each template. Instead, where it has explicit files for the template and output, change that to parameters you pass to this code. Same for the parameters passed to Windward. This example uses explicit values to show you what to substitute in where.
Any pivot tables in an XLSX template are carried over to the XLSX output. The ranges in the pivot ranges are adjusted to match the generated output. So your final XLSX will have pivot tables set as expected in the generated file.
This makes creating an XLSX workbook with pivot tables trivial.
In an imported sub-template, if its properties for a style (ex. Normal) differ from the parent template's properties for the style, the use in the sub-template can be set to either use the properties in the sub-template, or the properties in the parent.
You set to retain when you don't want the child template's styling to change when imported. You set to use the parent when you want the styling of the imported template to match the styling in the parent.
Any explicit styling is always retained. This only impacts styling set by styles.
Tags can be placed in text boxes. Including linked text boxes. This gives you the ability to set the text in a textbox from your data.
Tags can be placed in shapes & smart art. This gives you the ability to set the text in a shape from your data.
When generating HTML output, the engine can either write bitmaps as distinct files the generate HTML references, or it can embed the images in the HTML providing a single file for the output.
You can place tags in pretty much any part of a template, including in footnotes & endnotes.
Any parts of a DOCX or XLSX (PowerPoint does not support this) file that are locked in the template, will be locked the same in the output.
If a font used in the template does not exist on the server generating a report, the font to substitute can be specified.
In addition, if a glyph to be rendered does not exist in the font specified, you can specify the replacement font. This can be set distinctly for European, Bi-Directional, and Far East fonts.
If you need this - it's essential. And if you don't need it, it's irrelevant.
Windward enables you to build a document by applying multiple datasources to the template simultaneously. When Windward is merging the data into a template, it processes the template by handling each tag in order, and each tag pulls from different datasources. (As opposed to processing all of one datasource, then processing the next.)
This allows the select tag to use data from another datasource in its select. For example, if you are pulling customer information from one data source, you can then pull data from the sales datasource using the customer ID of the customer presently processing to pull the sales information for that customer. If you're interested in patching together your data from multiple datasources, read this post on our blog.
