Russian Programmers Dominate At Google Code Jam

New submitter Migala77 writes "Now that the third round for Google Code Jam is finished and only 25 contestants are left, we can look at which nationalities performed well and which didn't. Code Jam contestant foxlit has the stats, and some interesting things can be seen. Although there were over 3000 contestants from India in the qualification round (17% of the total) , only 3 of those managed to reach the third round (0.7% of the round 3 contestants) . This in contrast to Russia with 77 out of 747, and Belarus with 13 out of 114 reaching the third round. The U.S. performed somewhat below average too, with only 25 out of 2166 contestants making it to the third round."

Comments

Re:none of that seems surprising

[vlm]

Having (probably) visited your country, I can verify that your gasoline costs more per liter than ours does per gallon (a gallon is "around" four liters)

Also I've seen your (speaking generally) newspapers and you guys have/had crazy import duties and VAT taxes on cars, so ownership and maintenance is very expensive compared to here. Finally your equivalent of the DMV has teeth... you won't allow cars on the road that here would be considered in worn but usable shape.

The feds (well, the GSA) lets us claim 55.5 cents per mile of expense on our cars when used for govt (and presumably business purposes).. This is hyperinflated such that even land barge SUV drivers with horrible insurance rates and expensive maintenance still make a microscopic profit, so needless to say my domestic subcompact with cheap (married dude) insurance makes me a profit of something like a quarter per mile.

I'm estimating it costs me about 30 cents per mile to drive here, and in your country it approaches or exceeds one euro per mile, so it's going to be difficult financially to justify spending 6 euro to deliver a 99 cent hamburger three miles away.

Also our cuisine sucks but its almost designed for a delay in delivery, whereas a lot of the stuff I've eaten in Europe would not benefit by sitting around for 15 minutes and being bounced around in a car before eating.

Eastern Europe education + self-confidence impact?

[Moskit]

Take a look - it's not just Russia with high scores, but also Belarus, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine.

Western nations fare much worse, especially as a percentage of guys who make throught. It seems as if more people in USA were convinced of their skills and participated, while EE attracted only those who actually have the skill. This corresponds with real life and self-confidence. EE people seem to judge themselfes harder than others and don't participate in such events even if they have skills.

In any case it's sad to notice that excellent programming skills do not translate to excellent commercial success - many of those talented work for Western companies, do not create good domestic ones.

Feel free to point out if I'm wrong here.