Microsoft’s Scripting Guys are hosting their Third Annual Scripting Games beginning today, and while I wasn’t all that excited at first, I’ve decided that the availability of Perl as one of the three programming languages was enough incentive to get me involved.

The Games look interesting, 30 challenges; 10 beginner, 10 advanced, and 10 “sudden death”, spaced out over a three week period, participants all being entered in a raffle for some pretty decent prizes, including copies of Windows Vista Ultimate, Administration Tools, and Scripting Editors. Honestly, I’m holding out for the bobble-head. I like that none of the challenges are necessarily trivial (based solely on the short descriptions). Many are easy for experienced programmers, to be sure, but not trivial, a nice challenge for those in the beginner category. Plus, you can compete in as many categories as you want. I’ll do all the beginner’s challenges, and as many of the Advanced Challenges as I can, I’m pretty sure I’ll get them all.

Kudos to Microsoft on sponsoring this. My only complaint is that a few of the challenges are very MS-centric. The second Beginner’s challenge is about reading the Windows Registry. Sure modules exist to make this an easy task, and I know you’re focusing on Microsoft Tech, but it’s going to be a bit of a pain for me to test that one. Go go Virtual Machines and Remote Desktops.

If anyone is looking for some Programming Challenges in the next few weeks, these look like fun. I know where my weekends are apt to be going for the next couple weeks.