Aldon Wants Your Programming Horror Stories for 'Turkey Awards'

Published: October 21, 2008

by Alex Woodie

Have a teeth-gnashing, ulcer-inducing, or soul-sapping programming tale to tell? Or perhaps an uplifting story of a miraculous turnaround to meet a development project deadline with just seconds to spare? Either way, application lifecycle management (ALM) software vendor Aldon welcomes your story, and will be doling out prizes as part of its "Turkey Awards," which was announced last week.

There are two categories for the Turkey Awards, with different requirements for entering. Aldon welcomes programming horror stories of the worst type in the Most Frightening Development Nightmare category, which is open to everybody. There is no set timeframe for when the programming nightmare needs to have taken place (although stories of RPG II hysterics during the Carter Administration will probably not yield a Turkey). However, the submission must have "an element in which an ALM solution helped or could have helped tremendously if you had it back then," Aldon says.

IT shops that have averted catastrophe are eligible to submit their yarns under the other Turkey Award category, called Most Remarkable Project Turn-Around Story category. However, this category is only open to Aldon customers, since they are more likely to have implemented good ALM practices (and Aldon doesn't want to spread its competitors' success stories).

The first place winners in each category will each receive a Nintendo Wii and a "juicy gourmet" turkey. Aldon will also make a $100 contribution on behalf of each winner to honor a local charity or food bank of their choice. The second prize for each category is an Apple iPod Touch.

Aldon CEO Matt Scholl discussed the idea behind the Turkey Awards, which the company plans to make an annual contest. "Application development is building business success around the world, but it comes with its highs and lows and plenty of lessons learned," he says. "We created the Aldon Developer Turkey Awards to honor developers who have been on both ends of that high/low spectrum, and came out all the wiser."

Aldon welcomes participants to submit their stories at www.aldon.com/customers/turkey_form.aspx. The deadline for submissions is November 12. The winners will be announced the following week.

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