THE JOLT QUIZ

The Jolt Awards nominations process is now open, and there's still time to submit your favorite tools or books before the November 12, 2008 deadline. For those who have already applied or are about to do so, here's a test of your Jolt trivia knowledge:

1. Which Jolt Award winner fell off the back of the stage (but was unharmed) just before accepting his gleaming trophy in the April 2002 ceremony at the SD West conference in San Jose?

a. Lee Garrison, vice president of marketing for Sitraka in Toronto.
b. John Montgomery, group product manager for the Microsoft .NET Developer Program in Redmond, Wash.
c. Eugene Belyaev, president and CTO of JetBrains in Prague, Czech Republic.
d. Michael Schmitt, software engineer for Google in Mountain View, Calif.

2. Why did Software Development (then known as Computer Language) choose Jolt Cola as the cosponsor of the award program?

a. Because in 1989 a Software Development reviewer rated it as the "hands down winner in pure performance" among caffeinated soft drinks used to power developers through "all night hack attacks."
b. Because Jolt is "associated, in our minds, with all that's best about programming: intense, concentrated effort illuminated by flashes of insight."
c. Because the lightning-bolt logo looked cool.

3. Who made this statement: "One area in the software industry that has witnessed more than its share of radical shifts is the tools market. An illuminating record of these changes has been The Jolt Product Excellence and Productivity Awards. A survey of these awards, which have identified best-of-breed tools in commercial software development since 1990, offers a lens through which we can trace some of the decade's most interesting trends."

a. John Charles in an article in the July/Aug. 1999 issue of IEEE Software.
b. Bill Joy in an article in the April 2000 issue of Wired.
c. President George W. Bush in his 2002 State of the Union address to Congress.

4. Which early-1990s Jolt Award-winning author later became a Y2K-bug alarmist, advising people to stockpile cans of tuna?

a. Grady Booch
b. Steve McConnell
c. Ed Yourdon

5. In the Languages and Development Environments category alone, which company has won 13 Jolt and Productivity awards over the past 12 years?

a. Microsoft
b. Borland International
c. Sun Microsystems
d. Rational Software

Find the answers below.

Answers: 1. C; 2. A, B and C; 3. A; 4. C; 5. B.