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Check out Country Ratings

US comes 13th out of the 16 ranked countries. Funnily enough, for all the outsourcing it gets, India is last.

Check out www.topcoder.com. They have a list of all the previous problems, and you can even see all the competitors' solutions if you want.

Not all TopCoder programming contests select speed of implementation over everything else good.

One you are a rated member, you are eligable to participate in design or development competitions. These take place over a matter of weeks and emphasize all the goodness we all desire (sound design, clear code and comments, etc). AND first through third place get cash, just like the old days ... *sigh*

They have examples here: Sample Problem Statements

Hrm...

Sounds like to win any money you have to travel, so keep that in mind when you sign up.

"The top 25 performers in Round 2 will be invited to compete for cash prizes in the Championship Round onsite at the Googleplex (Mountain View, CA) on November 14th."

They are floating the bill though, according to the terms

" Google will provide travel accommodations for each finalist to attend the Championship Round. In addition, Google will provide overnight accommodations and all travel arrangements to and from the airport, as well as to and from Google's headquarters. All other expenses are the responsibility of the contestant. "

The Google Code Jam is being conducted in conjunction with TopCoder, the coolest, best implemented regular online coding contest. You can go there and download the Arena applet to get an idea of the format of the contest and to get ready by practicing with sample problems. In fact, that's highly recommended since the applet accommodates a very specific kind of contest.

Also, it would be wise to participate in a few live TopCoder rounds, which are held weekly, if you have any hope of being competitive.

I've been participating in TC's programming contests for more than a year. There are weekly contests, each of which take only about 90 minutes of your time. There are no prizes given out for the regular contests any more, but I really enjoy being able to get a nice mental workout, and compare myself to some really elite programmers. Most of the top-ranked coders have done extremely well in other prestigious international math and programming contests. And even if you aren't at the level of the top ranked guys (mostly - I think the highest ranked woman is around 50th or so, it would be nice to see more female participation), it can still be fun to work on improving your rating and other statistics such as submission accuracy. The rating system is modelled after the FIDE system for rating chess players.

There are many other reasons to participate. You can also learn a lot by looking at the submissions by the top ranked coders. If you're looking for a job and do reasonably well, there's a good chance one of the many sponsor companies will be interested in hiring you. And perhaps most of all, TC has two big tournaments each year - the open, and the college invitational. These tournaments usually have a total prize purse of $100,000 or more, and pay out $50,000 or more to the winner.

Finally, to answer your question; the TC ratings brackets are split up into different colours. 'Red' is the highest bracket, and includes anyone with a rating higher than 2199. This corresponds to roughly the top 2% of all rated members.

Check out topcoder.com and hold a competition at your school. I think there's also a highschool.topcoder.com which would be more specific to you.

I can't help but notice the rather unusual character of JBoss team (the premiere open source Java server). Is the disconnect due to money problems forcing Asian Indians to work for money? If so, then why the absence of Asian Indians in the Top Coders where the top guys are making enough money in prizes to live in the US or Europe?

Challenging the legality of this case applies to Joesph Nievelt too. He had 1100 mp3 on his system, unlike the 650,000 that the RIAA stated. While Napster could *only* be used to search for mp3's this search and index tool is used for a lot of files other than mp3's.

He was ranked 4th in the nation in the Top Coder competition
Top Coder MTU News

Take a look at this. MS is trying to buy web programmers that understand XML/SGML/HTML so Ballmer can brainwash them. He will do the monkey dance until they fall into submission.

"can't wait to get his hands on the next generation of spamming software" ... I wonder if that too is funding this tool.

For easily installable Java applications take a look at Java Web Start. I guess installation/execution of Java apps cannot get much easier than it gets with Java Web Start. Just install the Web Start software which comes equipped with a JRE and click the link to the software you want to launch. Web Start takes care of getting the newest version, caches the latest version and then executes it using Java's extensive security mechanisms. You want to get access to otherwise restricted areas of the user's computer? Go ahead and digitally sign your application - the user can now grant the application the rights it needs. For an example application, look at the Web Start version of TopCoder or the UML modelling software Argo UML.

Java came a long way, baby - and there will be a lot of way ahead. With the next releases of Java focussing more and more on speed improvements, your speed problems should go away as well. And, BTW, there currently are Java apps which run very fast - take a look Borland JBuilder - a Java IDE written in Java. And it runs smooooth!

.bbr fear women playing with delete functions - next time it could be you.

As for the buzzword compliance, remember that TopCoder is a business and recruiters are its customers. TopCoder is only providing what they are asking for.

Many of the ACM competitors from English speaking countries compete weekly at TopCoder.

College students and professionals alike compete against each other to solve 3-problem sets within 75 minutes (choice of C++ or Java or C#).

Under 18 are allowed to compete as well, but not eligible for prizes.

I don't get it. Is it done on a limited time basis? Do they do it while being hosed down with freezing salt water? Then how come the top rated guy had 11% of his code fail system test?

Dave

I compete regularly at TopCoder and some of my friends joke that I'm "punching the monkey". Of course, if so, I've punched the little bugger over 400 times now....

Check out topcoder. They host frequent online Java programming competitions.

Someone has won $100,000 through their collegiate tournament.