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2007 ACM Contest Winners Announced
prostoalex writes "2007 ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest is over with Warsaw University (Poland) winning it this year and solving all of the problems. The runner-up, Tsinghua University (China), finished with 7 problems solved, while St. Petersburg University of IT, Mechanics and Optics (Russia) and MIT (USA) are tied up for the third place with 6 problems solved. There were 6000 teams initially in the running, and in the final round of the competition only 88 remained."
I don't see Polish or Chinese software being pirated. It's always those lousy Americans'.
I'm surprised that no Indian universities achieved a higher ranking. They place much emphasis on competing in these sorts of programming challenges.
On one hand, it is essential to be able to quickly come up with creative solutions for a wide variety of problems. But it is also essential to focus on the other aspects of software development, including maintainability and quality. From my experience, those who come out of Indian universities have the problem solving skills, but they lack the full spectrum of skills necessary to produce software. The high degree of emphasis only on problem solving, contest-style skills may be the reason for this.
Day 3 scoresheet says that Harvard attempted 14, and got one right.
I would have smoked them all.
In Soviet Russia, Third Place Wins You!
They forgot about Poland!
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PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
Only semi-surprise was not seeing japan in the top 5.
Auckland University (where I went) came 11th! Where the hell did that come from?
I don't know what the conditions are like in China, but sometimes good talent gets wasted.
Think Bulls + Jordan & Bulls - Jordan
It only takes one to make or break
And to think my team was eliminated in the first round...
*stupid teammate hogging the computer...*
Laugh while you can.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Yes, and we'd like to keep it that way.
Thanks
- China
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
Well well well, Russia - we meet again.
The PDF of the problem sets are up, but no mention of when/where the input data and solutions will be posted. Are these currently available?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
I've never been to Warsaw, but I did spend some time at Tsinghua University last year. The people that attend Tsinghua are quite literally the best and brightest that China can produce, and that's saying something. The entrance requirements are brutally difficult, and the students I dealt with were some of the smartest people I've ever met. I'm not surprised that Tsinghua students can go toe-to-toe with the best American students and win.
These contest results become even more impressive when you consider that Tsinghua, like many developing Universities, currently has one hand tied behind its back. Tsinghua's School of Software is only a few years old, and has very limited resources. The library is small, the facilities are lacking, and the dorms are absolutely atrocious to live in (much less study). Much of the learning material that these kids are using is in English, not their native language. The fact that they're internationally competitive in any way is astounding.
A lot of us in the American educational system have a kind of bigotry when looking at foreign universities. This is particularly true in the Computer Science field. We see these kind of results and say "Well, these foreign students may be good at these programming challenges, but what can they do in the real world?" There may be a grain of truth there, but not for long. What happens in twenty years, when the great Universities of China, India, Poland, etc. have had some time to develop their C.S. and engineering programs? As an American, I want to believe that my country produces the best engineers and programmers in the world, but I think we're going to have some very stiff competition in the future.
This
I heard the ninth question was Fizzbuzz, but it was deemed too difficult for the competition.
When I did it the questions were mostly only hard because of the wording. There's usually a lot of ambiguity in what will actually be tested. For example, one question was to implement an asteroid early warning system and the 'trick' was that some input had an asteroid with it's two measured positions being the exact center of the earth (ie to test for divide by zero). Needless to say it's impossible for an asteroid to reach the center of the earth and still get a reading on it...
So what I wonder is if the questions are translated to other languages and how that affects figuring out what the 'tricks' like this are going to be. The other point is that since the questions are so much relying on obscure test cases (your answer comes back 'fail-segv' or 'fail-wrong' or 'compile-failed' and that's it) it seems like a country that obtained the test data would be able to win for sure. Especially countries that put their pride on the line, like Russia and China, and aren't really known for playing fair, I wonder what the level of cheating is.
Yeah, and who writes American software?
sic transit gloria mundi
You are asking what will happen to this chinese university that came 2nd, when it aquires the same level of "development" as the univeristy that a shared 3rd?
Mmmm, geez, that is a though one.
They would loose to the next country that spends more time learning then on needless luxuries?
Your question would only work in a positive way IF the chinese had come say third to MIT. If I, an amateur, drive in Formula 1 and end in 10th place then you might well wonder what I could do if in couple of years time I race again but with proper training and a good support team. You do NOT ask that question if I came in second and the so called top team didn't come in second but third. A shared third. First going to another cheapo team like Benneton (do they still race?)
Perhaps MIT should learn from this and cut down on the luxuries a bit.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Reason is simple, there is very little infrastructure for the kind of company creation that US have in china or Poland, both countries are just moving into capitalism after decades of communism. As more and more stuff is outsourced, there are probably already products that are American in name only (Stuff developed oversees, but is maketed exclusively thru an american company.)
The summary is incorrect. They solved 8, which was more than any other team, but left two problems unattempted. If you look at the packet you can easily see why.
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
You miss the point, it's akin to you coming in second in a go-cart race that you spent all your time working on while the third place guy also got first in a nascar race (ie: the go-cart race was for fun).
It's an utterly artificial and in real life worthless measure, essentially its the Chinese not MIT that is wasting time on worthless "luxuries" (ie: the ability to say "we got second").
If all you can do is some narrow work based on months of repetitive learning then prepare to be unemployed when you hit 40. If you learn to be adaptable and multidisciplinary then it doesn't matter if your field goes down the craper as you can just change to another one (and likely already have your feet in 5 different ones).
Wow! UT Dallas placed and UT Austin (honorable mention) did not. That is shocker. At least we got the football team. Hook 'em horns!
Social liberal, fiscal conservative, always sarcastic.
"... Especially countries that put their pride on the line, like Russia and China, and aren't really known for playing fair, I wonder what the level of cheating is."
That's bullshit on so many levels (direct, comparative, personal, motivation, logic/dialectics, you name it).
thats the worst analogy ever, your not giving the Chinese the credit they deserve, its the typical macho american response the world expects these days - dont agree with america? your just wrong then. or we didnt win? we werent taking it seriously.
i think personally Poland have done very well, when you look at the numbers of chinese and american students, the fact that Poland can put together a world beating team shouldnt be overlooked, with all the extra resources, China and the USA should be looking ay Poland and wondering how they can match this.
Consider then would US companies or govt. buy rather software from US company or let say Polish... // :)
Piotr.
Software QA specialist at US company whose entire R&D, customer support, etc. is located in Poland
jackal
Indians.
I'm not surprised that Tsinghua students can go toe-to-toe with the best American students and win.
So much for educational streaming and "teaching to the test".
What happens in twenty years, when the * have had some time to develop their C.S. and engineering programs?
We'll be able to discredit some of their teams for the one-dimensionality of going for the single test.
"Well, these foreign students may be good at these programming challenges, but what can they do in the real world?"
Nothing unless some tax-evading multinational hands it to them. That has been protocol in some form since the later part of the 20th century.
As an American, I want to believe that my country produces the best engineers and programmers in the world, but I think we're going to have some very stiff competition in the future.
How about scaling back exclusivity to access some of these fine universities for citizens of all social classes (or something that makes identifying a university an illegal question in the workplace)? Also, drop the funding games to give the illusion of accessibility(Yes, MIT, that means you!) - no real good comes out of it.
A lot of us in the American educational system have a kind of bigotry when looking at foreign universities
Odd, I see a lot more arrogance, in the admissions departments. They've even influenced state-level institutions, who should be focusing on in-state students first, to join in the "fun". Take away the game from the admissions officers and let the students go where they wish, with no worries about funding.
Educational streaming(by economics, by hiding behind the excuse of "private organization", and by any other means that is implemented) is fun and games until it ends up making the periodic mistake.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I don't know what the conditions are like in China, but sometimes good talent gets wasted.
That's what you get with educational streaming, talent that would do well without it. It happens in about any country.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
thats the worst analogy ever, your not giving the Chinese the credit they deserve, its the typical macho american response the world expects these days - dont agree with america? your just wrong then. or we didnt win? we werent taking it seriously.
Huh? Just because it doesn't agree with your worldview doesn't make it false. It's quite true that American universities do not place emphasis on this competition although as I understand the students had practiced for a different competition. I mean we do place emphasis on a lot of other worthless garbage (the Math GRE being one imho).
The Asian and Eastern European method is based on mindless study and memorization, way beyond what is done in the US. Like the GP said, it is an accomplishment but that doesn't somehow mean they're good at other more important activities. The competition is in most senses of the word worthless in the US (at best a nice line on your resume) and likely only worthwhile in other nations due to social reasons (ie: that line on the resume carries a lot of weight). Instead of studying for it students could be studying for actual subjects, doing research or starting their own companies.
i think personally Poland have done very well, when you look at the numbers of chinese and american students, the fact that Poland can put together a world beating team shouldnt be overlooked, with all the extra resources, China and the USA should be looking ay Poland and wondering how they can match this.
Not really, like I said before it is a worthless competition as most competitions are. Please if you think otherwise then tell me why spending months studying for this competition is in any way a good use of time?
You don't need to compete if you don't need a boost in prestige which the US doesn't need much. Poland has a long history of placing emphasis on such competitions, back from the soviet days. It's an artificial measure; the equivalent of intellectual sport (being good at baseball isn't a practical skill baring being a baseball player for life) but "winning" is worth a lot to some people. Now Poland does have a decent system of education but as I hear it is going downhill. That they can get a bunch of intelligent people to waste that much time to do that well on this competition might say something about how skewed their priorities are. And for the record I'm Polish and visited a couple months back.
...who wouldn't be writing it as well if not for the intervention of a few large multinationals looking for a tax loophole country.
Start taxing foreign assets in this manner, and something that penalizes all attempts to restructure. Corporations are not to be treated as entities with a perpetual carte blanche. The role they are seeking has already been filled.
Stuff developed overseas, but is marketed exclusively through an American company
You mean like what Honda and Toyota do for manufacturing and what is done otherwise just to look the part? Time to update the Buy America law to cover these problems.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Filip Wolski in the winning team, won the gold medal at the World Computer Science Contest in Mexico last year.
:)
p osts/
Seems like a pretty smart guy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1687592/
In fact, almost everything is counterfeit from Chinese goods, since the original "high western quality" goods are also made in Chinese factories.
c++;
Could that be because Polish and Chinese software is worth paying for?
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
Indians boast a lot but are actually miserable performers in practically everything, from sports (zero olympic golds) to software. The hindu code coolie or phone answerer is essentially an indentured servant for western corporations, doing grunt work that requires no originality or creative talent.
The indian educational system churns out tons of rote-learning "engineers", 95% of whom are unemployable. Its a pretty pathetic situation.
The dream of every educated indian is to escape from India!
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/industry /2007-03-13-google-poland_N.htm
Why Google put a research lab in Poland
KRAKOW, POLAND -- When Artur Hibner graduates from college this year, he won't have to worry about getting well-paid work in his field right here in Krakow, Poland's thriving former royal seat.
For years, Western technology firms have come to Eastern Europe to lure away talented computer-science graduates like Mr. Hibner, who attends AGH University of Science and Technology. But now, the region's universities are producing so many top programmers that many firms are changing tack - and setting up shop at the source.
IBM, Motorola, and Google have all opened research labs here in Krakow in recent years, while Deutsche Telecom, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, and other giants have come to Budapest, Prague, Bratislava, and other cities where universities churn out skilled coders.
"They are looking for all kinds of people, from hardware developers to programmers," says Marek Zaionc, head of the computer-science department at Krakow's Jagiellonian University. "We have a lot of good young people in these fields, and we're still a lot less expensive than other parts of Europe."
Eastern Europeans have dominated international programming competitions in recent years, attracting the attention of tech firms. Last year's TopCoder Collegiate Challenge drew 21,000 registrants from around the world, but half of the 48 finalists were from former Soviet bloc nations, including the winner, Petr Mitrichev of Russia, who also won last year's Global Code Jam, a Google-sponsored competition.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Google | Poland | Slovakia | Eastern Europe | Krakow | Bratislava | Jagiellonian University | Kosice
Tomasz Czajka, a 2004 graduate of Warsaw University, became a national celebrity in Poland after winning three TopCoder competitions in 2004-2005, racking up winnings of more than $100,000.
"When we saw these trends, of people from Eastern Europe winning these contests, we decided to take a closer look," says Kannan Pashupathy, Google's head of international engineering operations. "People have a huge interest in software, and there's a much deeper grounding in mathematics in the curriculum in these countries."
The region's universities have long been strong in hard and technical sciences, especially under Soviet rule, which emphasized industrial and military production. Tech firms began taking notice after 2000, when it became clear that Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia would be joining the European Union in 2004.
Cultural, geographic, and economic proximity to Western Europe has given the region an advantage over global competitors like India. Salaries in the region are much higher than in India, but still one-third to half of those in Western Europe. Bratislava, Slovakia's capital, is a few minutes' drive from Austria, while Kosice, Krakow, and other cities are a short flight from London, Paris, or Berlin. EU membership makes investing all that much easier for western firms.
Mr. Czajka's celebrated TopCoder victories have made programming particularly attractive to young Poles. "Everyone knows Tomasz Czajka and everyone wants to be like him," says Hibner, who recently won an international math competition. "Last time I was in Warsaw, there was a huge poster of him in the center of the city."
At AGH, the computer-science department now gets seven to eight applicants per spot. "We could easily take many times more students if we had the professors and facilities to handle them," says department chief Krzysztof Zielinski. "We're happy to provide computer engineers for the companies - it is our job - but we need some help from them. Right now, we are alone."
Indeed, computer-science professors from across the region say they fear their departments will be sucked dry by Western firms. The private c
Many teams lost untold time on J because the judge data did not meet the input specification.
ICPC has had this problem before. Four times in my direct experience, most notably ICPC World Finals 2000 at which they refused to acknowledge their error until weeks later.
This year the data for problem J was wrong, so teams got "run time error" instead of "wrong answer;" many spent vast amounts of time trying to find the source of their crash when in fact it was the judges' fault. All submissions were rejudged at the eleventh hour, when it was too late to fix the problem or to move on to another question.
There is really no excuse for this sort of error. Published guidelines make it clear that input checkers should be written for all problems, yet the finals judges don't bother, and the finals organization imposes no standard on them to do so. Furthermore, the organizers refuse to release any information about the test sets, so we have no idea how many screwups have been covered up.
Here is a list of data errors for which I have first-hand knowledge. I'm sure there are many more.
Finals '97 -- Problem C has ambigous output but the
judges rejected some correct solutions
(all but their expected one?) Complaints
were responded to with "no response."
Finals '98 -- Problem D had empty lines in the input,
contrary to the specification.
Finals '00 -- The infamous graph that was not connected,
contrary to the problem spec (Problem F)
Finals '07 -- Problem J was supposed to have maximum size
64, but was 100. Rejudged in the last hour
of contest. Many submissions changed from
run-time or time limit to wrong answer.
I am at a loss to understand why the organizers fail to implement better quality control, and why they refuse to release the data and solutions. Bad calls will happen, but the lack of quality control and the lack of transparency exacerbates the problem considerably. These failures, in my opinion, detracts substantially from the contest.
Gordon Cormack
Coach, Waterloo ACM Team
I participated back when I was in school. It was a lot of fun. We did well (4th one year, 2nd the next), so that helped!
My old school was tied for last this year, but hey at least they were there.
St. Petersburg University of IT, Mechanics and Optics (Russia) and MIT (USA) are NOT tied for the 3rd place. According to the contest rules top 12 teams are ranked by the number of problems solved first, and time it took them to solve those problems second. As final results show, St. Petersburg University of IT, Mechanics and Optics (Russia) took 3rd place, while MIT (USA) is 4th.
I know of official test cases aren't made public, so that the officials can cover up their mistakes. But does anyone else provide test cases they made up after the contest? In my experience, dealing with corner cases you didn't think of is one of the hardest things to get right.
Success of Chinese teams is hardly surprising- Chinese high school students have been dominating the IOI (Informatics Olympiad, very similar to ICPC) for ages.
Its only a matter of time and resources before they equal or surpass top US unis
The last time I was in London, there was a huge poster of RIcky Gervais in the center of the city. Now, I love Ricky's work, I think he's smart and funny, but substantial things like science, research, even teaching sadly seem to get no comparable "star" status in the west.
Look in Time Square or Picadilly circus. Apparently what we value right now is Coca Cola, Jay Leno, Ricky Gervais and other entertainment products with no acknowledgment as to what really makes our society work and function. Idiocracy anyone ? Go Poland...
Come on guy! Argument whether Indian IITs are always at bottom when compared with the top nations is so meaningless. Just about everyone except Indians knows the ugly truth that thousands years of inbreed by the stupid caste discrimination produced the largest number of low IQ people. The only castes that are competitive compared to the west are the upper caste s. Those upper castes Indians normally emigrate here via H1. They usually have the self-granted and undeserved arrogance like some of the posters here. They are the only Indians of high IQ. Fortunately, they always abandon India for better bucks here. As a result, India is full of low IQs, essentially hopeless to get out of 3rd world country status forever! Just for the sake of topics, for during last 10 consecutive years, India has never won a single gold medal in IOI (high school computer) and IMO (high school math); Indian's universities have not ranked in top 30s in ACM ICPC and @ www.topcoder.com. Indian's coders have been ranked as the lowest average among all www.topcoder.com participating countries in spite of the 2nd largest number of participants (http://news.com.com/Coding+for+fame%2C+and+dollar s/2100-1007_3-6067549.html). Looks like the IQ Indians do not have any excuse of low participation for their dismal performance in everything that requires high IQ.