The Scripting Guys Go to TechEd 2007

The Scripting Guys TechEd Challenge

Sorry, but the great TechEd Challenge is now over; the names of the winners can be found here. You can still try your hand at the puzzle; you just won’t be able to win anything. But remember: it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s just the enjoyment of playing the game.

Actually we don’t buy that, either. But that’s the way it goes sometimes.

By the way, the answer that the Scripting Guys came up with can be found on this page.

The Scripting Guys TechEd Challenge

For those of you who didn’t make it to TechEd 2007, the Scripting Guys spent their time giving away copies of Dr. Scripto’s Fun Book, a collection of scripting-related games and puzzles. One of these puzzles involves presenting people with the following set of letters:

As you can see, there are 12 As, 5 Bs, 9 Cs, and so forth. The challenge? Using only the 140 letters shown above, create as many VBScript functions as you possibly can. (The official list of VBScript functions can be found here.)

Sure, we’ll explain how this works. Let’s look at an example. One VBScript function is StrReverse. Suppose you want to use StrReverse in your list. Okey-doke; write down StrReverse and then cross out all the letters you used:

See how that works? Now try to make another function name out of the remaining letters. For example, another VBScript function is WeekdayName. But wait: you can’t make WeekdayName using the letters provided, can you. Why not? Because there is no K in the table (and no W for that matter). You’ll have to try again.

You get the idea. Create as many function names as you can, crossing out letters as you go. When you’re all done you should have a list of functions similar to this:

Well, OK; your list will be a little bit longer. If that is your list, however, then you earned a score of 21 points: 1 point for each letter used. Is 21 a good score? No, not really. When Scripting Guy Jean Ross tried the puzzle she managed to use 116 letters, receiving a score of 116. (Although, admittedly, Jean is pretty darn good at crossword puzzles, word puzzles, Solitaire, FreeCell and anything else she can do at work instead of actually working.) So, no, 21 isn’t a particularly good score. Would 85 be a good score? Well, considering the fact that we haven’t received any official entries yet, 85 would be a great score. And remember, you don’t have to have the absolute highest score; just placing in the top 5 is good enough to win a gift pack.

Best of all, no scripting skill is required to take this challenge. We’ve given you the list of letters available for use, and we’ve pointed you towards the official list of VBScript functions. That’s all you need right there. From then on it doesn’t matter whether or not you know what the IsNumeric function does; all that matters is that you know which letters are used in the IsNumeric function. (Hint: I-S-N-U-M-E-R-I-C. Or at least that’s what Jean says. And, as we noted, she’s pretty good at this sort of thing.)

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