Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Google Code Jam 2005 Winners Announced

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the will-code-for-food dept.

Ember writes "The results of Google Code Jam are in. The winner is Marek Cygan from Warsaw University. Second prize goes to Erik-Jan Krijgsman from University of twente (Holland) and third to Pyotr Mitritchew from Moscow State University." Registration for the event took place back in July and Google reported a total of 14,500 registrants which is almost twice as many as last year, making for some stiff competition.

4 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. Obligatory USA question by vluther · · Score: 5, Insightful

    First of all,
      Congratulations to the winners.

    Now the "scandalous" question, where the entries from US programmers ranked. Last year, the winner was from Argentina, this year from Poland. So, all the talk about US losing the science front could be true.
    I don't want to take away from the people who won, or the countries and institutions that are educating them, but I live in USA, and I'm curious, how the contestants from here did.

  2. Re:Are others going to hold similar contests? by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    *sigh* This contest is put on by a company known as "TopCoder". TopCoder is an online Java Applet that allows contestants to compete against each other on a time to solution. Results are automatically checked through a set of Unit tests. As long as your program can produce the correct output for a given type of input, it will be considered correct.

    Sun, IBM, and many others have sponsored TopCoder competitions in the past. They have since backed off of them. I'm not certain as to the reasons, but TopCoder has received a LOT of criticism. The problem with their approach is that it only proves that the coder can think and type fast. It does nothing to address teamwork, cleanliness of code, design capabilities, engineering ability, or many other areas that are critical to a real world programming job. These contests can be a fun way to compete with your peers, but my guess is that a lot of companies have found that placing too much empahsis on the results is a good way to get burned.

    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  3. Like rubiks cube or quake by Psionicist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I compete in online programming contests. This does not mean I am a great programmer, or that the winner in these contents are. It does mean however, that the winner is familiar with lots of algorithms and when, where and how to use them. This is really what it's all about - applying algorithms you have learned, under pressure.

    Almost all of the more famous names in programming contents are the guys who, over the years, have practiced and solved thousands of programming problems such as the ones you can find at ACM and TopCoder. You don't have to be a super genius (if you are, you probably have better things to do) just stick with it. After a few hundred problems, you know how to do it. It's like rubiks cube and playing Quake.

    Whether it's geeky, useful, boring, fun or manual labour is what you make of it. :)

  4. Re:what info from this article? by andy_shepard · · Score: 5, Insightful

    C++ is backwards compatible w/ C

    int class;