Live tournament results: discussion

[Craig]

Hey there. I was emailing Noah Zucker, who ran the NYC Grand Prix web site, and wanted to share a couple of things and gather feedback.

One feature I was particularly excited to provide was
a live web play-by-play of the semi-final and
gold-medal bouts each night. This effort was inspired
by ESPN's site, which does the same (although much
better, of course) for MLB games. However, I had to
wonder: was anybody watching? It would be great to
get some feedback on my efforts.

Implementing the live results was quite an experience.
After cutting-pasting results from Engarde's html
pages a million times, I am eager to investigate an
automatic solution. Unfortunately, Engarde uses a
bizarre text-based format which I don't understand (it
doesn't help that it's in French).

On a related note, Jochen Farber mentioned to me that
the IOC web site will have real-time results (i.e.
live scores) directly from the pistes in Athens.

So, 2 questions for discussion:
1. Did you use/view the live results?

2. Anyone care to look at Engarde and see if there is an easier way to implement exporting live results out through PHP?

Thanks.
Craig

[prototoast]

I followed it touch by touch online. It was much appreciated.

[noodle]

i didn't know that the feature was available

[rtran]

I looked at it occasionally. It would be nicer if the page would automatically refresh after each update instead of requiring a manual refresh by the user.

[oiuyt]

I stopped in and saw the touch-by-touch recounting page but didn't stay to watch as bouts progressed. I more popped in and out to see how the tournament was progressing and appreciated the frequently updated bout results.

For baseball the updating is done pretty much the way one would mark a traditional paper scorecard ("for those scoring at home....") with a code for each of the several dozen possible outcomes of each pitch (swinging strike, pop fly to shallow left field, HBP, etc.). How complicated this gets (shallow left, deep left, down the line in left, towards the left-center gap, etc.) is clearly something which can be adjusted. Fencing could use something that basically is who got the touch (or off-target), and what the final action was. Perhaps also the action attempted by the opponent, but that's considerably more complicated. Of course rather than text-based coding this could also be done with button clicks or cascading menu selections (touch is for the left, on an attack (optionally: while right counterattacked off-target)). A version using something like checkboxes really should take a long time to code up. Then again, how often would such a program be useful? Just once a year at the world cup?

I thought the website was especially well done. Big kudos to Noah for his work on it.

-B :)

[wflaschka]

I really loved the Grand Prix site, and I gloried in the fast updating of results. It really set a new standard for tournament websites, though I shudder to think of all the work it caused.

[darius]

I missed the results stuff; couldn't find it on the nyc website to take a look at what they did.

Craig -- depending on how difficult it is to export engarde's HTML files at any given point, there might be an easy hack. You'd want constant 'net access from the venue, have it export to an mapped volume (does Windows do NFS?) accessible by your web server.

Then do whatever with your PHP.

darius

[jeff]

depending on how difficult it is to export engarde's HTML files at any given point, there might be an easy hack. You'd want constant 'net access from the venue, have it export to an mapped volume (does Windows do NFS?) accessible by your web server.

Windows can be made to do NFS (either 3rd party software or Microsoft's), but NFS over the Internet would introduce some performance and security issues. The fancy "pay for expensive consultants" method would be to create a web service for it, and be poster child for bleeding edge technology, and the much easier way would be to use scp/ssh to copy updated files. (intersection between personal and profession parts of brain is hurting my neurons)

[ShadowHuntr]

i was at the website a bunch of times this weekend, however i only found the live updates at the very end of the weekend for women's foil and sabre. it was a nice feature, however updating manually was a little bit of a hassle but still a great step in the right direction.

[darius]

Heh, you're right about the brain-hurting part...I've been in "clever hack constrained by poor client systems" mode for about a month.

Mmmmm...web services! I've been wanting to redo the tech behind my blog for a year now (server-parsed XML is soooo totally 2003, good thing it was written in 2002!), but haven't had time.

darius

[jeff]

Hey, darius - you could be the expensive consultant for making fencing web services! Opportunity knocks

[darius]

Hrm, any venture capitalists lurking out there?

[veeco]

The newest version of Engarde also has an "Export to XML" feature. I am sure it would be possible to create some sort of software that takes this XML in input and pushes it to some website in XML, using some sort of XSLT stylesheet. Some people from Escrime-Info are already working on this, I believe.

[darius]

XSLT IS EVIL! Trust me when I say this...

Is anybody interested in experimenting with this? I've been wanting to play with PHP5's new XML capabilities, and this might be a good reason to do so...

darius

[Dan H]

I was at the event, and therefore didn't need the live online play-by-play, but I did appreciate the speed with which results were posted online. That allowed me to see how bouts I missed turned out, and anticipate such matchups as Keeth Smart vs. Podzniakov so I could be there and get a good seat. Props to Noah for his hard work on that!

[JAySE SUiCiDE]

I was at the world cup (go volunteering! woo wooo! ) and am now realizing, by the bout comittee table there was a laptop that had a big piece of paper on it saying "DO NOT TURN THIS COMPUTER OFF. IT IS CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET REMOTELY." or something of the sort..and the DE Tables were on big LED screens and showed when the bout would be starting, if it was going on, and of course who was fencing and who won. seems to me atleast that one of the techies from Kabcom got the results of who won, typed it into their laptop, which sent the results/what to display to the LED Screen, and also sent it to the laptop that was hooked up to the internet, and then that laptop put it out on the net via some sort of program..

yeah, I figured I might aswell show how I thought it might have worked..

~Jes

ps. if anyone was there, that kid running around getting the score sheet signed in the WF/WS Semifinal/finals bouts was me!

[silver2e]

Grandprix site was awesome and I really appreciated the quick postings of results and other info. I did a live update for the women's foil semifinals, 'cause I just had to know how Iris was doing--blow by blow!--and couldn't make it down there on Sunday.

Thanks for a great job!

[peet]

Interesting news about the XML output of Engarde. FRED and Fencing Time use XML for their communications between each other. Maybe FRED could import the Engarde XML.

Does anyone have a sample Engarde XML output i could see? Especially if i could see one file exported during the event, and one after it's over? I don't have a working copy of Engarde in front of me, what with this being a mac instead of PC.

attach to:
peet@askfred.net

TIA,

[FineLame]

Hi guys,

I have already coded some stuff in php that treat the xml file generated by Engarde. You can see the work done on my website. You can also download two xml sample files (their name is indicated on the index !).

If you have any wishes, suggestions...

In my opinion, the xml export doesn't seem to be appropriated for a "real time" display.

[peet]

Thanks for the links to the xml. It looks fairly straightforward, but of course, doesn't everything before you really get into it!

-p