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No US College In Top 10 For ACM International Programming Contest 2013
michaelmalak writes "The annual ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest finished up last week for 2013, but for the first time since its inception in the 1970s, no U.S. college placed in the top 10. Through 1989, a U.S. college won first place every year, but there hasn't been one in first place since 1997. The U.S. college that has won most frequently throughout the contest's history, Stanford, hasn't won since 1991. The 2013 top 10 consists entirely of colleges from Eastern Europe, East Asia, and India."
. . . and . . . how come I never get those programmers when my company outsources . . . ?
For the same reason you never get a knowledgeable person if you dial a helpdesk.
Those outsourcing countries have internal markets as well, including normal programming jobs.
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What manner of "real world" is it where there aren't crazy deadlines and time to design and code properly?
Which of the Indian teams are represented? I see one at 60th...
Irrelevant. What's relevant: if there's little need in the US (or any other country) economy for software people, it is likely there will be no winners from US in the ACM competition (or winning will happen only as an exception rather than the norm).
In a sociological context, one needs quantity to develop quality consistently over time (that is: it is highly likely the talents need nurturing by an existing culture in their field for them to reach their full potential; and this requires quantity).
Note that quantity alone is not sufficient for the quality to emerge - if in need for another example, you only need to look at the today's music
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Ah, in that case its even worse! It indicates the US is lacking behind other countries in producing quality mathematicians!
And our company employs a lot of our programmers from the university maths department. With good reason.
The problems are such that you don't need huge datasets to choke O(n) solutions in the execution time limit. Winners at these competitions know how to produce efficient code. They may need to learn maintainability, but I'd wager that is an easier skill than producing the kind of efficient *and* correct solutions they come up with. Try your hand at some of the problems to see how hard they are: http://uva.onlinejudge.org/
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