Google Code Jam 2004

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Posted by michael on Thursday September 2, 2004 @12:06AM from the raspberry-jam dept.

cymen writes "Google's Code Jam 2004 is open for registration at TopCoder.com. Slashdot reported on the 2003 winner and Google has a Code Jam 2003 summary. Grab some caffeine and get hacking!"

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Re:Jimmy! by Quixote · 2004-09-02 00:33 · Score: 5, Informative

Google Codejam is a programming contest, and not a contest to develop a neat application for Google. The problems in the CodeJam are more like puzzles. You are confusing this with the other contest that Google had (the URL for which escapes me) where they gave 10K for the best use of Google.
Re:Google - what a great company by strictfoo · 2004-09-02 00:43 · Score: 3, Informative

How does a competition which mandates the use of proprietary languages

From Google: Use Java, C++, C# or VB.NET

C++ is proprietary?

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Re:No Perl? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-02 00:48 · Score: 5, Informative

It is because those are the languages supported by TopCoder, which runs the coding challenges for many different corporate sponsors. Google's tournament just happens to be one of the higher-profile ones out there.
Re:Quebecians by Zardoz44 · 2004-09-02 01:07 · Score: 4, Informative

I can't give you the details why, off the top of my head, but this is a standard rule for most contests in Canada or North America. There are special lottery rules in Quebec. It's been this way for as long as I care to remember.
What those rules are, I don't know. I could look, but I don't really care.
Re:Quebecians by mrtroy · 2004-09-02 01:26 · Score: 3, Informative

I believe in Quebec contests have to have equal chances of everyone winning, with no purchase required. So, you cannot give a prize to whoever actually wins the contest.

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Challenge #1: Re-write the interface by Tarwn · 2004-09-02 01:42 · Score: 4, Informative

yep, thefirst challenge will be to rewrite the TopCoder interface to convince it that it does not need 100% of the CPU...that 5-10 second pauses while your typing code should NOT occur...that in a timed competition it is not reasonable to make someone go back and retype something 5 lines earlier simplybecause the interface froze up...

I mean crashes are on thing, you would expect the connection to get lost occasionally (try every time I have tried to do a practice problem), but c'mon, who hosts a coding competition with an interface that idles at 100% CPU usage?

-T

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Re:Why not... by buttahead · 2004-09-02 02:26 · Score: 2, Informative

There is an office in Dublin and Zurich. Google has offices all over the world... you might be somewhat close to one.
The link to Paul Graham's Python Paradox on /. by Baldrson · 2004-09-02 02:30 · Score: 2, Informative

See the /. article on Paul Graham's Python Paradox"

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Re:No Perl? by Peter+Cooper · 2004-09-02 02:56 · Score: 2, Informative

I've been a Perl coder for eight years, C for thirteen, and can get by in VB.. but there's no way I'd want to do high level data parsing in C or VB!

For a start, Perl is designed for the job. C is amazing for developing kernels, and doing low level stuff, but for parsing text? I think not. You can bash out a single line in Perl that would take 100+ lines to do in C or VB (unless you got some sort of regular expression control for VB, which might be against this contest anyway).

Use the tool for the job. Being language agnostic is not a bad idea when you begin a project, but it's pure idiocy to stick with a single language throughout and claim its cool because 'oh well, languages don't matter, ideas do'.. some languages are far better at certain things than others!