Americans Are Scarce in Top Programming Contest

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Only four of the 48 best computer programmers in the world are Americans, at least according to a computer-programming competition run by TopCoder. Poland had 11 of the final 48, and Russia had 8. Wall Street Journal columnist Lee Gomes asks whether this is more evidence of a sad decline in American education and competitiveness: 'Surprisingly, the Eastern Europeans don't seem to think so. Poland's Krzysztof Duleba, 22, explained that in countries like his own, there are so few economic opportunities for students that competitions like these are their one chance to participate in the global economy. Some of the Eastern Europeans even seemed slightly embarrassed by their over-representation, saying it isn't evidence of any superior schooling or talent so much as an indicator of how much they have to prove.'"

Comments

Re:Polish politeness.

[therealking]

I can promise you that no american ever uses the term Singaporian-American.

Re:My Profession

[rhendershot]

mod parent funny!
(but then again, it's possible that you're actually serious...)

I know it's obnoxious to be a spelling Nazi, but when being constantly pounded with spelling that would have embarrassed a fourth grader just a couple generations ago, sometimes I have to be obnoxious.

grammar is atrocious.

It's rediculous enough to make me loose my temper alot of the time... if you know what I mean.

spell it with me...R.I.D.I.C.U.L.O.U.S
spell it with me...A..L.O.T two words

Something about glass houses comes to mind.

Other than that, I dig your point dude... ;)

Re:US Education Standards

[rhsanborn]

Sorry to do the grammar police thing but 'expecially' drives me nuts. It's especially.

Re:US Education Standards

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

If you has thought about this for five seconds, you would have realised that your grammar police alarm is malfunctioning. 'x' is directly below 's' on qwerty keyboards. The GP is a "typo", a category distinct from either a grammar error or a spelling mistake.

If you want to be anal, you've got to make an effort to be anal about it.