"140 characters isn't good for debugging code."
Yesterday evening, when @kevinSuttle said that to me on Twitter it sparked a thought, that grew into an experiment, that expanded into an idea, and finally ballooned into a contest.
Kevin's tweet got me thinking... "What could you code in 140 characters of AS3?" I spent a little time experimenting, and found out the answer was "not a lot". Still, it crystallized the idea of building a contest around it. I spent a little bit of time assembling a simple page to outline the contest, asked for feedback, revised, and launched the contest.
You can check out the #tweetcoding page for full details, but here is a quick overview. You are provided with a framework of 140 characters of "gimme" code. To this, you can add up to 140 characters of additional AS3 code. You submit your entry via Twitter, and if your work is judged as the best, you win a full copy of Flash CS4.
The thing I find coolest is how this came together so rapidly and organically. It was about 6 hours from the initial thought to the start of the contest (including an hour for dinner), and it incorporated feedback from a handful of people. Within 24 hours there were already a number of interesting entries, a prize (FlashCS4 - thanks Adobe!), and online tools to help people track and participate in the contest.
You can check out one of these online tools, made by @machine501 that compiles entries directly from Twitter using the Flex compiler, and lets you follow all the #tweetcoding action without needing to start up Flash.
Check out the #tweetcoding rules page to enter the contest, or for more information.
Comments (12)
Why is it always [visual] / [maths generated grahpics] stuffs when it comes to this kinds of [mini coding block] contests?
I prefer something that really functional by itself, instead of visual things
Posted by: Unreality at February 18, 2009 11:26 PMURL: http://www.infunity.com
Just one little suggestion for the judging: there should be some kind of modifier which rewards the order in which the entries were submitted - since once someone has demonstrated a certain technique it is out in the open and makes it's rather easy for everybody else to take that code and build on top of it - which is absolutely a good thing - only not as original as the first one. It's like if some artist came today and made paintings in Pollock style.
How about a point system:
Posted by: Mario Klingemann at February 19, 2009 07:38 AMAestetics 10pts
Technical 10pts
Originality (at time of publishing) 10pts
Performance 5pts
URL: http://www.quasimondo.com
Very cool indeed. I'm impressed. Maybe also give extra points if you can quickly crash the Flash player.
Posted by: Phillip Kerman at February 19, 2009 03:47 PMMario, just don't post until the end of the contest if you don't want us learning from you. But, actually, your codes are so good that it makes me feel like a dummy.
URL: http://www.phillipkerman.com/blog
So a newb question here. I just installed a twitter client (twhirl) to start using twitter a couple days ago. The question is, do I need to do anything to submit an entry, or does putting the #tweetcoding text in the post do it?
Posted by: Steve M at February 20, 2009 09:26 AMURL: http://www.artjumble.com/blog
hey Grant,
It's a pity your comp's skewed towards making crappy graphics eg
g=graphics;
mt=g.moveTo;
lt=g.lineTo;
ls=g.lineStyle;
Why not afford other mediums the same allowances?
The first thing I thought of was to pass binary data into the sound object (which apparently was a whole lot of other people's first thoughts too). I’m sure there are heaps of other cool hacks that I could think of... video?.
Either allow everything or nothing.
Don't mean to be a hater, I think it's a cool comp!
Posted by: sam at February 20, 2009 08:20 PMJust thought we'd moved on from doing bad generative "art".
URL: http://www.future-primitive.net
sam - I'm trying to establish a base format for the competition, part of which is limiting the "gimme code" to 140 characters. This way, each round could have a different framework, which would favour different types of entries (ex. you could have a sound oriented framework).
Hopefully this helps ensure that each round has unique entries.
Considering that the heart and soul of ActionScript "tinkering" has always been "bad generative art", I thought it was an appropriate start for the competition.
Cheers.
Posted by: Grant Skinner at February 21, 2009 10:12 AMURL: http://gskinner.com/blog/
The 140 chars as3 code contest is really a cool idea for Twitter lovers :)
BTW, ... Actually I'm here to report that TweetDeck is not working for Chinese characters. I really really love the idea and I'm also a little aestheticly tired for Twhirl. I followed your twitter for a while and seems that you're using this, so maybe you can help me notice the author.
Hope it will be fixed and I'll spread it among Chinese twitter users :)
Posted by: Aw Guo at February 23, 2009 08:00 AMURL: http://twitter.com/awflasher
Aw Guo,
Have you tried switching TweetDeck to use the international font?
Posted by: Grant Skinner at February 23, 2009 08:46 AMSettings > Colors/Fonts > International Font
URL: http://gskinner.com/blog/
Have you seen the 25 lines of ActionScript competition? 25 lines open up for a whole lot of interesting stuff.
http://www.25lines.com
Posted by: Björn Ritzl at February 25, 2009 01:16 AMURL: http://www.jadestone.se
I'd like to suggest a useful piece as an appended gimme code:
sw = stage.stageWidth;
sh = stage.stageHeight;
I think this would come in really handy for the competition!
Posted by: Josh Camire at February 26, 2009 05:45 PMURL: http://joshcamire.com
Great competition.. made my first entry.
Posted by: Si Forster at February 27, 2009 09:57 AMURL: http://www.twitter.com/siforster
I also really enjoyed my attempts at #tweetcoding and seeing the amazing stuff people came up with. I did find the gimme code a bit frustrating.
Can I suggest
a=addEventListener;
Posted by: Joshua Mostafa at March 3, 2009 03:31 AMURL: http://joshua.almirun.com/