Hello Guys & Girls,

The JAMB website goes down every year when results are released. It's a national embarrassment, and it needs to be fixed right away. I bet the JAMB website is going to crash again after the next UTME exam if we don't show them how it's done!

I hereby announce a programming contest to create an open source JAMB result checking script just to show the JAMB Tech guys how it's done. You're to create a simple JAMB result checking website that works just like the official version and can handle millions of candidate records and heavy traffic from all of them trying to check their results on the same day.

I'm also offering a prize of 150 thousand naira to the person who writes the best JAMB result checking script, but in order to win the prize, you must satisfy certain conditions:

1) You must be unemployed or employed/self-employed and currently earning less than ₦251k per month.
2) You must develop your JAMB result checker with Python 3.2, CherryPy , MySQL 5+, & hg on Google Code.
3) You must indicate your interest immediately by posting a link to your repo here.
4) You must complete the result checker before 11pm on Sunday 8th April and link to it on this thread.

The writer of the best result checking script as assessed by me and other judges will win 150,000 naira, provided you qualify and follow all the rules. The money will be deposited into your account about 3 days after the submission deadline.

Ask me any question about this contest and I'll try to answer you promptly.

Good luck!

chai i regret not knowing hw to build site o. but that money small o compared to what jamb will offer u if u were to sell to them.

i already coded a much more complex and dynamic one www.aifpunipesa.com

if you mean business and have up to one millon naira, lets talk.

Its php.

Drop an offline message @ www.dwitch.com (also spun from scratch)
08068944517

I am so proud of Seun for this. No because he is virtually insulting JAMB, but because he is trying to improve on people's strength

but that money small o compared to what jamb will offer u if u were to sell to them.

The scripts submitted for this contest will be developed in public repositories and released as open source.

IT Experts working for JAMB can just follow this contest and download the winning script when it's over. They can take it, polish it, and install it on their server, free of charge. I don't mind. I'm just doing this to expose the hidden programming talents among us.

I'm tempted! Really tempted but I've gotta work on my java loops for class. Oh my gawd am I tempted!

Seun, you are tempting me so much with this Python Programming Language.
I don't know if I should start learning it so as to engage in these mouth-watering contests of yours or to give a blind eye. It's Ok!

Hmmm. Not bad

Too bad for me.I don't know a thing about programming.

Businesstools: Too bad for me.I don't know a thing about programming.

You're not alone, Buddy!

I stopped at 'entry level' programming over a decade ago though I'm still in IT. So I'm not speaking authoritatively, but that I think a crashing website is more than about the website itself. Aren't the hardware (Server hosting the application, networking and bandwidth of the link connecting the server) also very important? Meanwhile, I know someone who can take a shot at this.

it`s a very nice idea, i`m gonna invite my friends to compete in this contest but i`m worried if the 150K would entice them.

timpaker: it`s a very nice idea, i`m gonna invite my friends to compete in this contest but i`m worried if the 150K would entice them.

Seriously, cant say some one earning 250k per month would find this compelling - speaking as per the rules. But it is an admirable gesture nonetheless.

I suspected JAMB's annual problem is a server capacity issue and not necessarily script-related.

@niyyie Ur spot on..but will be interesting to see what these pips come up with.
@suen How do you even intend on testing the scripts ??

What can one do with N150000...Gone are the days where one sees N100000 and will be happy about it. Na Milla everyone won hear

niyyie: I suspected JAMB's annual problem is a server capacity issue and not necessarily script-related.

That's possible, but you can't separate the two issues: script quality affects server capacity. A inefficient script would require a more powerful server to handle the same amount of traffic that a more efficient script would handle effortlessly on a wimpy server.

I suspect that, with a well-optimized script, any entry level dedicated server would be able to handle the level of traffic JAMB's website has to handle when UTME results are released each year. The site is a read-only web application. People visit to check results and that's it. There's no access control or account management to worry about. No updates. It should be an extremely fast website.

OOO God! Am still learning HTML on my own! If only their was somebody who could enlighten me on this programing stuff, it would have been really motivating. But nowadays, everybody is only busy on the internet for chatting and downloading. Well I still have time, am just 17.

hmm seun do you need prove?

Nice one seun.

game on!

Good Idea! What if we all make it a joint effort? Use github as our code repo n build it for fun and make it open source. We could have UI/UX, Javascript, Python guys n they can focus on those aspect of the site. I also agree with laidbacks points abt hardware n so on.

You can develop your version of the software using PHP or ASP.net. You may not win my prize if you do that, but's not impossible that someone else will offer a prize for the best PHP/ASP.net entry. The key thing is to show the world what you can do.

We're going to benchmarks the scripts, inspect the quality of the code, etc. We're going to introduce the world to a new set of super-smart geeks who can create solid websites in record time using effective tools. People need to step up their game.

Seun, this is fantastic! Good job!

doncigalo: @niyyie Ur spot on..but will be interesting to see what these pips come up with.
@seun How do you even intend on testing the scripts ??

Good question, I think I'm more interested in the testing methodology than the script itself. How much for that one?

I think this money should be enough to spur an unemployed/underemployed computer science/engineering graduate to accept the challenge. Plus Seun happens to be looking for someone to hire with the skill set required to win this competition. What are you guys/girls waiting for?

game on

for 150k .. seriously bro

The bastard website is down again. RUBBISH!!!

Seun:
That's possible, but you can't separate the two issues: script quality affects server capacity. A inefficient script would require a more powerful server to handle the same amount of traffic that a more efficient script would handle effortlessly on a wimpy server.

I suspect that, with a well-optimized script, any entry level dedicated server would be able to handle the level of traffic JAMB's website has to handle when UTME results are released each year. The site is a read-only web application. People visit to check results and that's it. There's no access control or account management to worry about. No updates. It should be an extremely fast website.

Nope you're way of mark, even though it is a read only website, it still requires the CPU resource of the server to load and serve the request to the users web browser. So if you have let say a million people trying to read or access data from the database on the server, the server's CPU needs to have enough RAM and processing power to handle all these requests if not it will CRASH.

Any optimisation that has to done will be done on the server end, by either configuring server to see if tweeking the load balance between the memory buffer and RAM will increase performance, if this doesn't work then generally you need to physically upgrade the server itself.

If at all there is any possibility of doing it script wise, then SUEN this is where transaction & concurrency management comes into play irrespective of whether it is a read only or read/write database. DB adimns are all to familiar with this.

JAMB needs a dedicated server to host these records, most likely they are using a shared server like those used for web hosting packages.

But lets see, it will be interesting to see what pips come up with.

How are you going to test their solutions ??

The problem with jamb website first has to do with scaling of the application to handle the heavy traffic that they get each time the result is released. During registration, over 1.5 million students use the website at different intervals over a period of time (several months). But during result checking, at least 1/3 of the number will check jamb result at almost the same time causing an overload of the server. No matter how sophisticated the application is and language used to develop it, if the server is not scaled to handle the amount of traffic, it will always crash. Twitter has crashed several times and it was not because of the application or development technique or language used to develop it. So i think coming up with a way JAMB can use multiple servers to handle result checking and scale the application will be better.

Just my thoughts.

@Seun: whats your beef with PHP?

Seun, may Shiva enlarge your pocket. Lool!