Apr 13, 2001 11:16 AM
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I first discovered Planet Source Code(PSC as it is called in the coding community) in 1999. That is when I was beginning my programming hobby! I remember that I found PSC from Yahoo! search and within days, I was addicted to it. At our school here in the US, I recall that we were learning how to type... well fortunately my typing speed was already superior than that of my teacher(no kidding). This meant that I did not have to do those lame lessons(although I did not mind doing them as they were little sentances like ''I had a Kit-Kat''). Getting back to PSC, during the computer period of the school, I spent my time exploring the codes on PSC. I was beginning my quest to become a guru in MS technologies(though was just a beginner at that time). I found PSC very helpful. In '99, the site I remember was composed of two frames, one for navigation and one for the content. Also, during then the site had codes on abt 3 langugaes(i think JAVA,VB and C) but now... it has over 7! Another good thing abt this site is that it rewards good coders. I won the award for programming a stock quote program in VB but unfortunately did not receive anything(although it was my fault because the prizes they had at that time were useless prizes).
So all this was during the early days. Here is my current experience:
The Current PSC
During the coming years, PSC has greatly changed. There have been some negative and some postive changes. Here they are...
Improvements
This may not neccessarily be an improvement but anyways PSC now has a MUCH larger database of code than they had in '99. During the past few months, PSC has also added some new prizes (which means that you have more choices now than you had in '99). Also, PSC now seems to select more winners in each coding category unlike before.
Cons
All things have their cons and PSC is not exception. First, their new interface is too cluttered. I dont like the light blue on black color schemem they have decided to go for. Also, their navigation system MUST improve! The current drop down meny system does not live upto the expectations. They should be submitting code easier. In 1999, the navigation was simple but now, I have had to go as far as open the HTML source and search for the link as it was hidden somewhere on the page:-) This is the major problem which I am hopeful Ian(the founder of PSC) will consider improving. The whole site layout and color scheme have to be re-thought.
The site has surely surpassed its expectations and has given the founder a hard time to keep up. It seems like the site has becomes increasingly slow as the next day progresses! I think this is a serious problem. I know that the traffic of PSC is huge but I also would like to give part of the blame to the advertising. The site has too many ads. It adds up to my first point abt the cluttered interface.
Again, I cannot stress the fact about the interface problems! Please, we have to convince Ian to bring reforms into it.
To answer Raju's question about rewards, yes I have won it once but did not recieve rewards(read my review for details).
