#BridgeHackathon
By Alex J. Coyne For Great Bridge Links
June, 2020 – The #BridgeHackathon is a new event created by developer and bridge enthusiast Kiat Huang allowing for coding, creativity and bridge cross over to create new, innovative open source software.
He hopes to turn his Hackathon into a regular event – and encourages other groups of bridge-loving coders and developers to do the same by organizing their own.
Here’s what you should know about the #BridgeHackathon.
What the Heck is a Hackathon?
The terms “hack” and “hacking” aren’t always used to refer to negative, malicious programming exploits; hacks can also be anything that explores what computer code can do out of the box – or other than the usual.
From this, we get terms like “hacktivist” and “hackathon” with a more positive spin.
More About #BridgeHackathon
“The #BridgeHackathon is a global, 24-hour coding event for bridge-loving software developers and techies collaborating to design, build and deploy world-class prototype online bridge software.”
- The Bridge Hackathon II is on 20th of June, 2020.
“My personal belief is that we are only scratching the surface with the number of potential bridge players globally – but to attract more players to this thrilling mindsport, we need more captivating, compelling and amazing experiences.” says Huang.
Huang hopes to generate enough interest to see bridge hackathons turn into a regular event. “People can build what they want, and we’ll support them with platforms, advice and contributions.”
Some bridge hacks might build on existing, open source code from other developers – but building software from scratch is also encouraged, says Huang.
The more available projects become part of the Hackathon, the easier it is to find open projects to join. “There are small teams – and contributions have an impact.”
The idea behind the hackathon is to build “modern, world-class bridge software with simple features.”
“We also encourage building front-ends that use our services, stand-alone apps and full bridge-playing experiences.”
All created bridge software is there to do something new; to innovate, to collaborate and to build. “No dealing machine at your club or cafe? Take a picture of the hands and get a digital hand record. Want a DDS service for your own software? No problem, use ours. Need some truly random hands dealt? Send an API call to our deal-server.”
The Hackathon welcomes any bridge software that builders are willing to release as open source to promote coder collaboration.
Sparking the Idea
The Bridge Hackathon was born when Huang couldn’t find an answer on his favorite bridge developer forum to the question, “Can this talented group work together in big teams on a small number of globally-impacting projects?”
Huang was hoping to find a way for a group of coders to work in unison.
Without a second thought, he headed to the internet to find fellow bridge enthusiasts who also happened to be coders.
Open source and the internet made this easier than he thought. Feedback from the first official Hackathon was great – and with excellent, tangible results from creative developers.
“Collectively, members of the Hackathon include a growing number of Knaves (our chat server group): Adam Wildavsky, Dan Braun, David Synnott, Grzegorz Pociejewski, Kiat Huang, Nuno Dâmaso , Shen Ting Ang, Teodor Tolev, Zhivko Draganov – a bunch of bridge-loving techies, software engineers and developers.
Links
- #BridgeHackathon Code Repository
https://github.com/online-bridge-hackathon
#BridgeHackathon web page