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Google Code Jam 2004
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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There was an interesting comment and rebuttal in the 2003 winners article on Slashdot that basically stated Google was above the other big corporations out to make a buck, because Google makes you feel good for donating time to their cause. Okay that was 2003. My question is that now Google has gone public, has the mood change very much? I still have a good feeling about them, and I use their services every day, including the search engine (GIS, web search) and Gmail. I'm just wondering if coders feel that $10k is enough money now that the profits have grown so much. I could see them offering $100k to the winner without batting an eye. Are they awarding enough to first place?
FTA: During the Challenge Phase, competitors view each other's code and try to "break'" that code by passing test cases through the submitted code, with the hope that the results are not satisfied by the software written. Breaking another developer's code is the most direct form of competition for a programmer. In this phase, points are awarded for successful challenges and deducted for unsuccessful challenges.
To me, it's more important to measure the potential of a programmer, more than the experience of the programmer. Creating new ideas and systems does not require experience alone -- it requires a great deal of potential. Simply breaking and fixing code in a realtime setting is good for the day to day stuff (and that is valuable for Google), but when a customer or boss asks to you build something new and difficult, many experienced programmers answer with, "that can't be done" when less experienced programmers will try to do it, with limited success.
Does anyone know if Jimmy Mardell was hired by Google?
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
The 500 participants in Round 1 will receive a "Google Code Jam 2004, Powered by TopCoder" t-shirt. The top five scorers in the Championship Round will receive the following cash prizes
Why don't they offer something like a job interview for those old enough to take it? Or even a job for the winner (with restrictions, of course)? Imagine how many people would rather work for Google than have the cash prize.
Why would I want to `grab some caffeine`? Surely a good nights sleep is more conducive to concentration?
No Perl?
No Python?
No ("cool" hacker language of the day)?
How many real geeks are they going to attract?
I thought the kind of exercises used in these competitions were rather contrived and "hard" computer science problems... I am not sure the concepts developed could be easily applied to, say, developing a better desktop or interoperating better with proprietary applications/file formats.
However some of the FOSS community best hackers could register and donate any prizes they net to their projects ;)
The revolution will not be televised.
If you aren't going to allow any of the major dynamically typed langauges like Python or Perl or even Jython (if you're really stuck on those libs), then isn't it an admission that Paul Graham is right and that Google's programming contest is simply an example of subgreatness?
Seastead this.