Amazon has announced a new global competition called “AWS BugBust,” which will give developers the opportunity to compete to find and fix one million bugs. The tech giant said the global competition will also help “reduce engineering costs by over $100 million.”
Martin Beeby, an AWS attorney, said in a blog post that AWS BugBust took the concept of bug bashing “to a new level,” allowing developers to create and manage private events that “turn the process of finding and fixing bugs in your software into a game.”
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Beeby added: “Many of the software companies I’ve worked for (including Amazon) run these kinds of contests in the weeks before they launch a new product or service. AWS BugBust includes automated code analysis, built-in leaderboards, custom challenges, and prizes. It fosters team building while also helping to improve code quality and application performance. Plus, developers can take part in the world’s largest code challenge, win fantastic prizes, and receive kudos from their peers.”
Those interested in participating in the competition can create an AWS BugBust event through CodeGuru , a machine learning developer tool that helps identify bugs. AWS BugBust will have a leaderboard for developers and the company will issue achievement badges, while also giving away a trip to AWS re:Invent 2021 in Las Vegas.
Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of Amazon Machine Learning at AWS, pointed out that hundreds of thousands of AWS customers are creating and deploying new features in applications every day at high speed and managing complex code at high volumes.
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He further noted: “It’s difficult to get time from skilled developers to quickly conduct effective code reviews, as they are busy building, innovating, and promoting applications. Today, we’re excited to announce a completely new approach to help developers improve code quality, eliminate bugs, and increase application performance, while saving millions of dollars in application resource costs.”
AWS BugBust is currently available on the US East Coast and will soon be available in any region where Amazon CodeGuru is offered.
Beeby also mentioned that there will be a global leaderboard that will be updated every time a developer fixes a bug and earns points. Any developer who reaches 100 points will earn an AWS BugBust t-shirt, and those who reach 2,000 points will earn an AWS BugBust Varsity jacket.
The top ten will receive tickets to AWS re:Invent. To participate in the global challenge, projects must be written in Python or Java, as these are the only languages supported by Amazon CodeGuru.
Beeby also added that all costs incurred from the underlying use of Amazon CodeGuru Reviewer and Amazon CodeGuru Profiler are free for 30 days with an AWS account.
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“This 30-day free trial period applies even if you have already used the free tiers for Amazon CodeGuru Reviewer and Amazon CodeGuru Profiler. You can create multiple AWS BugBust events within the 30-day free trial period. After this period expires, you will be charged for Amazon CodeGuru Reviewer and Amazon CodeGuru Profiler based on your usage in the challenge,” Beepy emphasized.
Several Amazon partners, who plan to send their employees to participate in the program, commented on the competition, including Belle Fleur and Miami Dade College.
“The AWS BugBust Challenge will be a fun and educational addition to our curriculum to help our students gain more confidence in their ability to use the Python programming language and advance their careers to the next level. We plan to use AWS BugBust each semester as a platform for our students to showcase and improve their coding skills while being part of an exciting bug event,” said Antonio Delgado, Dean of Engineering, Technology, and Design at Miami Dade College.
Information source: zdnet.com
