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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."
Take a look at where the best compression algorithms come. Almost all come from former Soviet bloc countries. India isn't surprising either, as many American companies have found out from outsourcing.
Or these results don't reflect anything about the quality of the programmers from a country, and rather the bias of who found out about the Code Jam (lots of everyday Joe programmers, vs those in-the-loop).
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Then computers in the prisons should be a good rehab route?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Why are you looking at nationality? What are you trying to prove? Is this the 1936 Summer Olympics?
...the strong emphasis on mathematics and science during the Soviet era. Just throw in a bit of Lysenkoism to carry its fruits into the current generation, and presto, world dominance!
At least the US is still number one in financial scams and reality TV. Snooki can't program.
Sergey Brin and tell him to keep these Russians away from dominating this American company... oh yeah.... nevermind
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Someone once told me this, and it makes sense to me...
It takes a lot of money to fund a lab in medicine, biology, chemistry, experimental physics, but computer science, theoretical physics, and mathematics basically require just a computer or pencil/paper.
Because Russia is relatively poorer and has fewer labs relative to its population compared to, say, the USA, Russia's brightest minds naturally gravitate towards the "cheap" sciences, and that largely explains why they punch substantially above their weight in those fields.
I've also heard it's due to Russia's love of chess, which score one for them, I *really* wish would catch on here.
Either way, they're definitely doing something right.
It seems to me that part of the dynamic here is that highly skilled programmers in the US have less of a need to prove themselves in a competition like this - they probably already have good salaries and good jobs. Programmers in poorer countries are probably not as fortunate, though, and taking part in an international programming competition could provide a ticket to a more lucrative future working for a Western company.
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but yes, people should have access to computers in prison. Unlike in USA, many other countries do actually try to get prisoners back to being normal, productive people instead of just punishing them.
Now, internet access and such is another point because that could be used to communicate with other criminals outside.. but having a library of programming books and personal computers for prisoners would be a good way to change those people. Programming books being just example, there could be other things too. The main point being; yes, it is much better to try to get those prisoners life back on track instead of just punishing them.
The Mighty GOOG entrance numbers are within an order of magnitude of the project euler membership numbers. I think you need an account on PE to see the stats:
http://projecteuler.net/countries
For those who don't want to "compete" in PE but want to know the numbers anyway, I copy some from the article and from PE's registration data:
over 3000 GOOG contestants from India vs exactly 4300 on PE
747 Russian GOOG contestants vs 2269 on PE
114 Belarus GOOG vs 254 on PE
2166 USA GOOG vs 21563 on PE
I don't know much about the GOOG contest but I would guess the Venn Diagram of the GOOG and PE is almost entirely overlapping.
A good question is why less than a tenth of USA PE people competed in the GOOG, yet almost all the India PE people competed in the GOOG.
As far as the elite levels go, this is very superficial, but the names of "first 50 to solve a PE problem" and the names in the forums on PE seem to trend very asian, so Japan might only have 1900 or so contestant, but they're all Ruby Ninjas with leet skills, or whatever. I wish I had real numbers other then vague observations.
Another interesting observation is that the Mighty GOOG short term contest is vaguely roughly around half the size of the permanent/ultra long term PE project.
As a PE guy or player or contestant (or nerd?) I can personally verify that PE is higher mathematics and hard core computer science with virtually no IT component. I don't know anything about the innards of the GOOG competition, can anyone involved describe the ratio of CS::IT or logic::memory in the Mighty GOOGs competition? Also PE merely requires any Turing complete language (although some problems can be solved by non-Turing complete languages anyway, and some can be done on pen and paper if you're hard core or its a REALLY easy problem), does the Mighty GOOG require something specific like Java only or maybe even more specific like "must be an android app" or something like that?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
In America, a student who is good at math, science and CS is called a nerd. In Russia, such a kid is called smart. Seriously, Russia has always kicked ass in science and math education. We should copy their schools.
The Russians have been doing this sort of thing for years in math.
I would think that these sorts of contests are something that new CS students would notice and prepare for. Now, this presents the opportunity of getting noticed by the West, the chance for getting a schlorship at a school like Berkley, and potentially employment at a rich American company being paid in dollars is icing on the cake.
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.
Most people in the US are not in prison for "violating someone else's rights". Most are in there for non-violent drug offenses that have violated nobody's rights.
Your lack of sympathy is absolutely shocking. You seriously think that people should be locked up for decades (mostly for drug charges), with no access to exercise or entertainment? That people should be forced to sit in concrete rooms for 20 years at a time? Of course, it's all about YOU, of course, but still. This level of crass disregard for human life is shocking.
I don't respond to AC's.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-05-29/news/8702090594_1_customs-agents-computer-equipment
FWIW: They took out the computer, filled the crate with cement, and let them pay shipping on it as part of the sting. See also this phrase on the CVAX die:
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/pages/russians.html
-- Terry
The best stats I could find quickly are here, and show drug offenses at (a somewhat surprising to me) 48%. Lump in immigration at 12% and you've covered most of the non-rights-violators at 60%.
Then add up Weapons, Explosives, Arson, Robbery, Burglary, Larceny, Property Offenses, Extortion, Fraud, Bribery, Homicide, Aggravated Assault, and Kidnapping Offenses and get about 30% of the population. So it's not the majority, but it's certainly not small.
But now that the dry statistics are actually quantified, lets look at "rights violation". How many of those drug offenses are for users, and how many are for dealers and trafficers? It doesn't say in that chart, unfortunately. I would classify dealers and trafficers as rights violators, though you may not. They're certainly AREN'T in the "not hurting anyone but themselves" camp. Your turn to go dig up some statistics.
(and this is ignoring the reality that a lot of druggies fund their habit using predatory behavior, and have a lot of collateral damage on their friends and family - saying "they're not hurting anyone but themselves" doesn't cut it when their kids haven't eaten a square meal in months because mommy has to have her crack)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.