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Google Code Jam Registration Opens Today
Bamfarooni writes "Registration for Google Code Jam 2006 opens today.
The event consists of 3 online rounds (September 5-6, September 14
and September 19,) in which participants compete to solve three
coding problems faster and more accurately than their competitors.
If you've got what it takes, and more of it than anyone else,
then you can take home up to $10k for your code-fu."
This is Google's way of recruiting the debuggers to sort out the problems with their programs.
Hmm, the difference between cost and value again. Beads for the natives mate...
Deleted
Does Google claim ownership over the code you submit?
Ellidi
That does the programming? In a few years, a bot will clean up this type of thing much like a forklift cleans up at a weightlifting competition.
perhaps you should ask google first? Terms and conditions here
They did it that way to make it fair for the other languages. Otherwise, us Perl guys would dominate the contest.
-1 Troll
They picked object-oriented languages.
Or at least poorly written. Want a chance at $165,000? Here's how: Google Code Jam 2006. This competition is a chance for you to use your skills and compete against top programmers from all over the world. Thats on the registration page. On the main page it's slightly different, first prize 10k, 2-10 5k and so on until it all adds up to the suggested 165k. True, it all adds up, but if you wanted to enter and were given a link only to the registration page it can be quite misleading.
The worst part of this is you have to use their IDE. Which means no auto-completion, no color coding, no help, etc. As someone who relies on that kind of lookup stuff daily for their work, I can't see how any normal professional will do well in that environment. However, I can see how a college student who has to memorize all of the code/functions because they are tested on it and required to write code in class will have an easier time with the contest.
I wonder if they consider it cheating to write your code in another window and paste it into their window to test.
... if they included some previous questions with their previous results. That way, you could know what these people had done in order to win the prizes they won. Would be much more interesting than a table with apparently meaningless numbers in it.
to delete the record of every google search ever submitted. evar. especially the ones about "how to heal bacne".
the mods may say you posted flamebait, but to me it's a flame that warms my heart. rock on, brother! --chebucto
If I come up with a kick-ass idea for my employer, I'll stand to benefit much more than simply $10,000.
:D
I guess if you are job-less, this is a cool way to get some credentials of a sort.
Otherwise, it is pretty lame. BOFH never felt the need to prove his skills
Blar.
Hey, if you include Ruby with it's blocks, you need to include Smalltalk to. Yes. Fraud! We still need: Javascript, Ruby, PHP, AWK, Fortran, Perl, Lisp, Prolog, Bash and Smalltalk. (I'm still busy learning the last)
the thing is, the topcoder infrastructure supports certain languages and it costs them $$$ to implement additional ones. When there is a payoff to adding Ruby, I'm certain they will add it.
Using Python is problematic anyway as they state that due to slow runtime of python, some problems won't be solvable. They will time out. I expect this would apply to Ruby also. And I would hate to invest the time to solve something in Python/Ruby only to find out that it won't run, then have to port it.
On the other hand, if the productivity claims of Python/Ruby are true, then a more fair contest might weight time to complete the problem vs. runtime. E.g. if you implement a correct solution quickly, then you get more runtime to test. Something like that.
Malbolge would clean up at a competition like this. But if they required it they would have to call it the "Google Brain Jam".
I don't get the addition of VB.NET, except if it was a matter of "Well, TopCoder had it available". Even Microsoft doesn't want to believe it exists.
:)
Maybe I'm just irritated that Perl isn't an option. Then again, we'd know what language made it.
- oZ
// i am here.
This will be the first year that Python will be allowed along side the traditional TopCoder languages (Java, C++, C#, and VB). I think it will be very interesting to see how Python, which more often than not get can get more done with less code and less time, will compare to the heavier languages like C#, C++, and Java. I wonder if Guido working at Google had anything to do with it?
The qualification round coincides with my first week of classes :(
The bits on the bus go on and off... on and off... on and off...
No C? WTF?
The bits on the bus go on and off... on and off... on and off...
Because they want it to take three hours, not half an hour, and they want a result that their Java/C++ monkeys can understand.
Maybe they want to be able to read the code you've written, or perhaps they don't want their entire search engine rewritten on one line.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
Why not assembly code? Binary?
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
seems to be some discrepancies in the timeline?!? http://code.google.com/soc/studentfaq.html#timelin e
Beware of the Leopard.
Erm. . . C++ is a superset of C. Thus C programs are also valid C++ programs.
Indeed.
Yup, this C (header) works great when compiled by a C++ compiler :)
:)
typedef int protected;
protected private(int public, char *protected);
void class(void);
and so on
My other car is first.
If you read your own link beyond the list of countries, you'd see
I believe the listed countries are being actively boycotted by the US right now (but i can't find a link to verify it).
The obvious reason that people in these countries can't compete is because Google would be unable to legally give any prize to winners in those countries.
"Cash and prizes, including t-shirts, will not be provided to residents of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan or Syria."
It does not say that said residents are not eligible to participate.
And... just speculating, but Google might not want to send stuff to those countries in fear that it might be said to be an American company funding terrorists... Not that it would be true, but they might be trying to prevent some possible bad press. Meh...
Crap. Saw the terms on another link which stated it a bit differently... And missed the other post.
Nothing to see here...
Your link is to Google's Summer of Code. The Code Jam terms do not say Iranians are ineligible, just unable to recieve t-shirts, money, etc. Here's the terms for the Code Jam.
Where is LOGO?! That turtle is a mean problem solver.
TURTLE GOTO ANSWER
And that's it!
You're a fool. C++ can can compile C code!
Then why the hell are you using those reserved C++ keywords in your headers in the first place?
C++, unlike Objective-C, is not a true superset of C.
The bits on the bus go on and off... on and off... on and off...
Hey its a challenge isnt it?
It's a real pity you have to be at least 18 to enter the Championship round. I have a friend who finished in the top 10 in Qualifying last year, but he was only 16 so he wasn't allowed to take part in the Championship round.
Nah. It's more for publicity than recruiting. Look at the venue. Those in the US that want to go to NYC are already there. Those overseas will have trouble with customs, given that they are 1) foreign, and 2) good at hacking code. It would have been smarter to choose Toronto or Vancouver, where it would be safer and easier for the contestants to travel.
I can see several reasons why it's to Google's, the contest's, and the contestants' advantage to have the final elimination round take place at the same phsycial location, but NYC is so 20th century.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I think a more glaring omission is that there is not a single language that could be considered being of the functional language family - or even if you'd count Python as one (I definitely wouldn't), no statically typed functional languages. But I guess the "you need to be able to read other people's code" explains that partially.
Part of being a good programmer means picking the right tool for the job. I looked at some of the questions last year, and found I could answer them in about half as much Smalltalk as Java. The Smalltalk was also more readable, and more flexible. Programming in any of the languages they list is like typing with one hand; you might want to try it for a bit, but it's not something you would pick when you needed to be productive.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
You say that like it is a bad thing. I'd rather keep my well-paid job than get a measly $10,000 and 'recognition'.
I get money for rising to challenges, money for patents filed, money for new ideas. Of course it helps keep me away from the killing floor when job-cuts come arround, but I've survived 11 years...I'm doing pretty well.
This is the Republican America, where 9-5 is a dream. Just accept that you need to work a little harder than most countries...in order to benefit from a richer life-style than most countries, and you will understand.
Blar.
Good thinking !== Fast thinking
Yes, Perl code would have a better chance, because there's a part of the competition where you can challenge other people's solutions - and everyone's gonna challenge the other languages before they try to read Perl.
Perl is job security through obscurity.
Really? So where's OCaml? And Smalltalk? And Scala? And Lisp + CLOS? And many, many more?
The problem us that they only want to offer up some small subset of languages instead of opening it up to any language you wish to bring to the party, which is how most every programming contest should be run. THe ICFP contest allows all languages, you'd think mighty Google could figure out how to open up the door.
-30-
I would imagine google is looking for ways that are faster than their current methods (hence the runtime limits) and not necessarily interested in how long it took to code it. This way they get to see many different insights into how the problem can be looked at.
Tonights forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely-scattered light towards morning
Thanks for linking to the problem, which turned out to be very fun to solve. If you want to see my solution, which I wrote in Haskell, I posted it here: Solving the Google Code Jam "countPaths" problem in Haskell. Thanks again for the link.
Cheers,
Tom
Easy, automatic testing for Perl.