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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."
What manner of "real world" is it where there aren't crazy deadlines and time to design and code properly?
I would guess that you've never entered one of these competitions. To do well, it is not sufficient to come up with quick and dirty solutions; these will generally fail. You have to be able to find a good algorithm, quickly, and implement it, catching all the edge cases. These are certainly valuable real-world skills.
Disclaimer -- I was on the Rice team that took 3rd in 1986 (before there were any international teams at all).
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.