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:USA

[amightywind]

Your references are absolutely atrocious. GDP is not the be all end all metric for societal fullfillment. But it is an indicator of increasing wealth. In the US that anyone who obeys the law and is willing to work and compete can improve their standing. Does that mean that their will be no poverty? Ofcourse not. But high GDP also insures that there is class mobility. That is why immigrants (legal and illegal) are tripping over each other to get into the country. That is a profound strength.