Software analysis and measurement specialist company CAST Software has sponsored the Dr. Dobb's BreakOut Award 2012, a developer competition designed to test programmers' abilities to identify, embrace, and embody the four key attributes of great application design as the company defines them; i.e., application purpose, appeal, quality, and exposure.
The winner will receive a total prize fund of US$10,000 and the prestige of a feature article written and published by Dr. Dobb's. The free-to-enter competition is live as of July 2012 and the deadline for submissions is August 28th, 2012. Judging will be carried out by American-European team composed of Andrew Binstock, editor in chief of Dr. Dobb's, and CAST Software’s own vice president of product development, Olivier Bonsignour.
Centralized around a competition open to all comers from the Dr. Dobb's website, the BreakOut Award 2012 invites entrants to register online and submit their app for evaluation by CAST Software's application examination engines and code analysis technology. Competitors will be able to view the best apps submitted so far on a daily basis and download the Local Analyzer tool to see how their own code stacks up.
CAST Software reminds us that 90% of the revenue made on online App Stores comprises only 10% of the apps. So to uncover what makes a great app truly great, this competition is designed to champion software that exhibits the following key operational attributes:
- Purpose — Customers want products that solve problems. How well does your application fit the purpose it has been designed for?
- Appeal — Does your application appeal to a large or growing market segment? Does it have revenue-generation potential?
- Quality — Nothing kills greatness like the inability to perform. How well-constructed is your application?
"Developer competitions come and go, but I think this one has some substance given the hard line code analysis which will be brought to bear over all of the submissions we are currently seeing presented to the judging panel," said Andrew Binstock, editor in chief of Dr. Dobb's. "I'm pleased to be backing a programmer challenge like this that I hope will drive developers to really think about the form and final substance of their builds, at the same time as they keep core code quality paramount too."
"CAST Software's own guiding principles of software application development hinge around tenets based on precision, efficiency, and operational effectiveness. Our wider remit also includes a responsibility to produce what we regard to be the world's most advanced 'Application Intelligence' technology. Given these values and ethics, we see the Dr. Dobb's BreakOut Award 2012 as the perfect vehicle to put our technology into working practice in front of programmers who will be able to witness its invaluable quantitative analysis capabilities," said Olivier Bonsignour, CAST Software's vice president of product development.
With a total judging panel made up of some the world's finest technology talents, Europe is strongly represented by Roman Stanek and Elizabeth Varley. Czech-born Stanek is the founder and CEO of GoodData, which this week secured $25 million in Series C funding. GoodData is the third start-up for Stanek; NetBeans and Systinet were successfully sold to Sun and HP. Varley is the CEO of TechHub, which was set up to provide support to London's technology start-ups. Varley was recently named one of the top 25 most influential women in technology by Computer Weekly.
