when does the voting for POTY start?

Probably around December.

how bout it is based on the programs rating
so you rate each program accordingly, if you havent rated them previously, and the highest rating wins

hmm... how about the POTY finalists are announced as a news item and on the program page for each finalist there's a special lightgreen box with another set of radio buttons, like right below the normal ones, but separate. Then we go to each page and vote, and whoever tallies up the highet wins.

That's a very good idea. That would help the rating system, too, which doesn't seem to be working too well because not enough files are getting rated.

That would be a great idea if all the programs had a lot of ratings, but unfortunately hardly any do...especially non-games for the less popular calcs, like the 86 and 82.

I think that there should be seperate polls for BASIC and ASM. You probably don't need Flash, though, because it's so rare.

They should have a flash category(even though its rare) cuz some flash apps really do deserve this, or they could group the flash with the asm.

- Nick_S
"Mmm...byte-sized programs..."

Flash Apps are, in my mind, the most deserving to be featured and have a chance to be Flash App of the Year BECAUSE there are fewer of them, and most of the ones that exist are really high quality.

Well, Flash Apps could be grouped with ASM progs, cuz like Bubble Bobble (83+), there's usually both an app and an ASM program for it.

Why not take the top rated programs, and limit voting to those? You could either do this within categories, or you could just have all of them head to head. Better yet, you could have the top rated in each category, then have the finalists in each category compete against one another, kind of like a tournament. I'm not too sure how it worked before, since I'm kinda new, though.

That's a good idea.
I hear that it worked by polls.

You can see them for yourself.

http://www.ticalc.org/ community/surveys/

(without spaces)

Scroll down to the last couple of surveys in 2003.

MWM

Good idea, but as I've said before, nowhere near enough programs even get rated at all, so it probably wouldn't work too well. :-/

Another possible option for rating programs for the POTY is to have a radio button next to ever program in the archive. This way, any file could be rated, but the most popular would get the most votes. Also, you could only vote for one program per catagory (example: Ti-83+ Basic Math programs).

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
In addition to this, the voting would be only for a certain amount of time (example: 2 months, 3 weeks, etc.). This way, the programs wouldn't sit out there all year, collecting dust.

EDIT: The _Radio Buttons_ wouldn't sit out all year.

Good idea, but it we let every program get rated, people have only tried out the ones for their calculators. This spreads out the votes, so lots of programs will have one vote. I know in 89 assembly games I would probably vote for one that isn't featured that I like a lot. Other people may like other un-featured programs, and they may vote for these, relying on other people to vote for the featured ones. This brings us to the point where everything has just a few votes, and it isn't as effective.

I want to give two votes;
One for the best asm and one for the best basic program.

I think it's clear that the asm programmers have a lot of experience and can't be compared with the basic programmers.

It's just what I like about the Ti system; every body can program on it. Ti-basic is an eye opener to a lot of people, that's why it should have it's own poty.

Adeptness in programming isn't measured by what language one programs in but by what techniques they use and by how well their program works.

I completely agree. I'm just used to Java, but when I learned about calculator programming, I only knew about basic. I learned that and got good at it while learning to write my program "Bugs" (and later Flashcards). Then I learned about ASM programming, and downloaded TIGCC. Since I was used to Java and took garbage collecting for granted, I now HATE VARIABLE MANAGEMENT!!!!! It's really boring and confusing and I HATE IT!!!!! So then I gave up on C, but I still program in basic. When it comes down to it, basic and a higher-end language really aren't that different. I know a lot of people are going to respond to that with sarcastic remarks and proof against it, but you have to understand what your program is supposed to do, you have to declare your variables and REMEMBER WHAT THEY DO, and you have to make the program run. The list just goes on and on. The code looks very different, but it still requires the same skills.

I'll give you your comment about BASIC and ASM/C being almost the same *to a skilled programmer*, but you have to admit that ASM and C are much harder to learn and master, that they run SO MUCH faster than BASIC, and that you can make greyscale as well. BTW, a little off topic, what kind of Java stuff have you written? Anything interesting? I program java a little as well, so I might like to see what you've made if you have anything useful...

I'm in the middle of writing three games, but I don't have the dedication to finish anything so they're all half-way done. I made tic-tac-toe with an AI that learns, though, but the code is confusing. You can email me if you want the code.

Ooh- for Tic Tac Toe, there's actually not too many different ways you can play out a game, so it's pretty easy (IMO) to make an AI that never loses. But I don't see where the "learning" part would come in.

It can lose. It is really just to see if I could do it more than making it really challenging for the user. It's not really meant to be used much, though it could be. It's also my first attempt at swing though, because for class we used this stupid thing called BreezySwing. If you use java, look it up, realize it exists, and then hope you never hear about it again.

We learned a bit about something called "Swing," but I don't think it's the same thing, because this "swing" is really useful at making programs look professional with textboxes, scrollbars, textfields etc. that are more powerful than the java.util.* ones...

same thing, but BreezySwing extends swing and is really easy to use, but you don't have as much control with it. I wish we had learned swing instead of BreezySwing.

I learned JOptionPane. Swing with no variables. No "Frame window = new Frame("myTitle");", &c. Just String input = JOptionPane.showInputDialog("Input a string:");

Wow... I forgot how nice Java is. I've been using Objective-C.

Good old java.