Open source programming language

Mark Shuttleworth encourages young programmers to use the Python open-source computer programming language. At the annual Computer Olympiad Awards function nine learners walked away with a total of R147 000 in prize money.The Olympiad is a project of the Computer Society of South Africa, sponsored by Standard Bank and supported by the Shuttleworth Foundation and the University of Cape Town. The Olympiad identifies, encourages and rewards computer programming aptitude. This year there were 32 000 entries in the first round and more than 3 500 in the second round. The Shuttleworth Foundation gave R100 000 as prize money for students using Python. Most of the winners this year took up the challenge. As with all open source software the source code is available to the IT community, which contributes to the development and improvement of the language. Python can be downloaded free from www.python.org and is on CD for schools.
Contact Peter Waker, SA Computer Olympiad, Tel (021) 448-7864,
info@olympiad.org.za