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Americans Are Scarce in Top Programming Contest
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed May 10, 2006 07:27 AM
from the many-have-stopped-caring dept.
from the many-have-stopped-caring dept.
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Only four of the 48 best computer programmers in the world are Americans, at least according to a computer-programming competition run by TopCoder. Poland had 11 of the final 48, and Russia had 8. Wall Street Journal columnist Lee Gomes asks whether this is more evidence of a sad decline in American education and competitiveness: 'Surprisingly, the Eastern Europeans don't seem to think so. Poland's Krzysztof Duleba, 22, explained that in countries like his own, there are so few economic opportunities for students that competitions like these are their one chance to participate in the global economy. Some of the Eastern Europeans even seemed slightly embarrassed by their over-representation, saying it isn't evidence of any superior schooling or talent so much as an indicator of how much they have to prove.'"
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Polish politeness. (Score:5, Informative)
The focus on mathematics in education in Poland (along with Russia and China) is far higher then in the US. The difference in what a typical high school graduate can do between these countries is huge. (I also note that at least 1/2 of the four Americans amongst the top coders began their education in Singapore)
Re:Polish politeness. (Score:2, Funny)
I bow to your math skills!
Re:Polish politeness. (Score:3, Insightful)
I can assure you however, that the term Singaporean-American. [google.com] is used in American.
Re:Polish politeness. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Polish politeness. (Score:3, Interesting)
"Much of Poland's abundant interest in coding contests can be traced to Tomasz Czajka, who as a multiple TopCoder champion has won more than $100,000 in prize money since the competition began. That has made him something of a national hero back home, and other students have been eager to follow suit."
Having the chance to win $100,000 would be a fairly good incentive for anyone to want enter a programming competition.
Re:Polish politeness. (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess most of the Polish contenders in Top Coder were students. Which means they are under 25, which in turn means they were in high school in late 90s and hardware wasn't a big issue here back then. OK, I was programming Atari 800 when I was 7 years old, but I guess it doesn't change much ;-)
My experience in such
Re:Polish politeness. (Score:5, Informative)
but where do you see where they began their education?
Po-Shen Loh, 23, a graduate student in math at Princeton University, and his 21-year-old sibling, Po-Ru, now an undergraduate at CalTech. Both were born in the Midwest of parents who had emigrated to the U.S. from Singapore; their father is a professor of statistics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Born in the US. Going to school in the US. Did you get additional information from another article?
According to this article [weac.org],
the family has lived in Wisconsin since 1982.
Parent
Re:Polish politeness. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Polish politeness. (Score:5, Interesting)
While it is true that Eastern Europeans are masters of understatement and self-deprecation, I don't think that's the whole story. There is a much stronger culture of high-profile competition in the East than in the West, probably because of a long tradition amongst old communist regimes to foster scientific competition. Kind of like the national spelling bee competition in the US, over there much more emphasis was placed on math competitions. Mind you, pretty much the same kinds of people sneered at them as do over here.
OTOH I really don't think there is that much difference between the science curriculums of the East and the West, with the singular exception of the US. I experienced three high school systems (Eastern Europe, Germany, Australia), and the only significant difference I could see was in the timing--Eastern Europe tends to drop a lot of the heavy science sh!t on unsuspecting students way too early, such as grades 5 and 6 and in general adopts a dog-eat-dog attitude towards the students, while in the West they tend to stage that later on during the senior years and also seem more concerned with not letting students fall off this speeding bus. Australia was the most pronounced in that respect, with the bulk of the advanced science and math being left for the last two years of high school. But at the end of high school I think most Western school systems have imparted about the same amoung of science and math as in the East.
Parent
Re:Polish politeness. (Score:5, Interesting)
The first thing he said was that school was a lot easier here. But he immediately followed with the fact that he didn't think that his old school taught him anything more, or more advanced. Just that they took a much more adversarial approach with the students.
He said that getting a C was expected, and that you could at any time be expected to stand up in front of the class and explain any part of the subject matter, and be admonished if you could not. Pop tests were a common occurance. He said that you studied like mad just to avoid looking like an idiot.
Whereas, in his American school, you had to slack off to get bad grades, and you never had a test without a week's notice. But although easier, the same material was covered in the same detail.
Just thought it was interesting. In the US, you really aren't forced to learn any discipline, it's up to you to decide to care about it, whereas that doesn't seem to be a real option in eastern countries.
Parent
Re:Polish politeness. (Score:3, Informative)
However, coding has (almost) nothing to do with what is normally seen as maths, it's not like algebra, it's not calculus, and is not linear algebra either (most of the time). In that sense you're totally right. The current em
Land of the Free Market (Score:5, Funny)
Note for the humor impaired - it's a joke, OK?
Re:Land of the Free Market (Score:2)
Bob
Re:Land of the Free Market (Score:3, Funny)
But according to this article, if you pay Czechs, you will get 10x the return on your investment!
Re:Land of the Free Market (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
No time to post right now... (Score:5, Funny)
I win (Score:5, Funny)
20 PRINT "SWEET"
30 GOTO 10
RUN
Re:I win (Score:2)
40 REM FUTILE
Re:I win (Score:4, Funny)
20 PRINT "SWEET"
30 GOTO 10
RUN
Parent
US Education Standards (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, I had a friend who was on the student exchange program at the same University at the same time. She was a pretty average C grade student (I'm sure she won't mind me describing her like that), but in her year in the US she got straight As.
I don't know if the standard of education is going down in the US, but it apparantly was nowhere near the standard that my professor and friend expected.
Bob
Re:US Education Standards (Score:5, Insightful)
Secondly, I have had the opposite experience with supposedly "brilliant" Indians and Chinese who graduated from these wonderfully elite universities who couldn't tell their ass from a whole in the ground when it came to real computer science. What does this say? Nothing really. Just personal experiences, not statistically significant.
Parent
Re:US Education Standards (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:US Education Standards (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:US Education Standards (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:US Education Standards (Score:3, Insightful)
Riiiiight. Passing algorithms here at DIKU (Denmark) you have to know just about all the proofs in the book - the exam is oral, and the prof. is one mean bastard (sorry pawell
In real life you don't need to know the proofs, but you sure
Re:US Education Standards (Score:4, Insightful)
Bob
Parent
Re:US Education Standards (Score:3)
I went to Stanford for graduate school (was there grade inflation there -- maybe -- for grad school the guideline to the faculty was 40% A, 50% B, 10% C -- but then again, the people WERE very qualified and they really DID know their stuff so when I was going for my masters in EE the competition was very stiff, given it wasn't my undergrad). Stanford has a fairly good reputation as an academic university -- more or less equivalent to the Ivy league colleges. Oh and there is TONS of researc
Same Data, Different Conclusion (Score:2, Insightful)
And, if you are unemployed, then you have lots of time to enter programming contests and try to make a name for yourself so that you can get an H1B and job in USA.
I could also draw the conclusion that a country that exports by value the most software in the world probably doesn't need contests to prove anything.
I shall now be modded down as "Needs more Slashdot 'education'"...
But... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ofcourse it's also a matter of signing up for contests. I don't really like contests\races\etc. I hate being competitive, it doesn't bring up the best in me. Besidies, I believe we can get a better solution if we work together instead of competing. So I wouldn't sign up for a contest like that. How many others have similar reasons for not competing in contests like these?
So, from the X that signed up for that contest only 4 to place within the 48 were American. Being 3rd with only 3 competitors still makes you last.
Not sure about most American Programmers... (Score:2, Insightful)
Additionally I think its hard to decide just what makes the "better" programmer. I don't consider myself a good coder when it comes to strictly algorithms and other not such fun stuff. But let me create a program that someone else can actually use with a
More like a macro contest (Score:3, Insightful)
Maintainability and good engineering are rarely tested. It is just who can create quick and dirty implementations for a given task. There is a lot of skill involved, but not the sort of skill that most enterprises would want.
If there was a coding competition that involved developing robust, scalable architectures for enterprise applications, and designing software to best meet the needs of a client, then we would see who had the best software engineers.
Not so much about education or ability (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm gainfully employed building financial systems and whatever other contracts I'm working on. As Mr. Duleba was saying, I think it reflects more the economic state of some of the Eastern European countries. There is a lot of talent, but not a lot of opportunity. A little publicity from a contest like this can make you more viable to employers and give you an edge on the competition.
Why bother? (Score:3, Insightful)
No.
Great programmers CREATE (Score:4, Insightful)
"New Europe" inferiority complex? (Score:3, Interesting)
Better yet, they can take part in Euroland while remaining far more attractive for business investment (and, thus, jobs).
Wouldn't the ironing be delicious if "East Germany" were to secede again, but this time in order to go 21st-century capitalist (flat tax, low corporate tax) and join the Eastern European economy?
Luckily they can still remember the true face of socialism, and what havoc it can wreak, though perhaps in a couple of generations they too will transform into ignorant ingrates...
programmers in Poland (Score:5, Informative)
But after my studies I had choice:
- stay in my home city and work for awerage wage
- move to western Poland to big city and work for foreign company
- emigrate to another country
I have chosen second option, I moved far away from my home city, but many people just emigrate as fast as they can.
And now there is one more reason to emigrate: terrible political state (PIS, Lepper and Giertych).
the best American students don't go into science (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmmm. (Score:3, Insightful)
The American Ego (Score:5, Insightful)
USA counts for about 4.6 percent of the world population. (300 million out of 6.5 billion). 4 out of 48 is actually almost double of what could be expected based on numbers alone.
America isn't known for its outstanding education system. So again I pose my question: why SHOULD there be more American programmers, and why are the results a surprise?
The only thing that surprises me about it is that there weren't fewer than 4 of the 48 who were American.
I'd like to stress that I'm not trying to be anti-American or anything... just realistic. If you want to change the numbers, you've gotta look at the truth of the matter, and make decisions from there.
Look at what the Russia and the European countries are doing right instead. It's curious to note their humble attitude toward their over-representation.
Polish education and contests (Score:3, Interesting)
I would also be cautious to make a general statements because programmers are considered 'elite' in Poland. There is huge competition to enter the computer science departments and the good majority of them can earn a decent salary after graduating (a decent in Poland, it would not be that great in the USA). The studies at good universities are hard with a lot of mathematics. The state of the general education is probably less rosy. I was teaching quantum chemistry at the university and the math skills of the students were not that great. However, some of the students were indeed excellent. I think it can be explained by large differences between schools in Poland. Some high schools teach very good maths and some are abysmal. I learned integration, differential equations and complex numbers in high school but some of my students had problems with functions, differentiation and some were even bad in fractions.
On the other hand, I took part in International Chemistry Olympiad [wikipedia.org] while I was in high school and I remember the USA students were rarely at the top (and the results of the recent competitions linked in the Wikipedia article show similar results) but I'm still not sure it is because of worse education in the USA or that the science contests are less popular.
P.S Poland is in Central Europe. I forgive you your math skills but could Americans at least learn geography? :)
It's about interest and coaching as much as brains (Score:3, Interesting)
I think that America does poorly on TopCoder not because we have poor students (although America's educational system could be better), but rather because Americans aren't as interested in it. I don't know who the other two Americans are, but I expect that several of my friends and I would have a good shot at Las Vegas if we studied a few hours a week as an extracurricular, particularly if we had a coach as good as the Polish guy.
I'm not just spouting this, either. TopCoder is very similar to the math olympiads and the Putnam (which I have first-hand experience with), so much so that the same people often do well at both (Reid Barton, Po-Ru and Po-Shen Loh won multiple gold, gold and silver respectively at the IMO).
Re:My Profession (Score:5, Insightful)
And then forgetting all about how you did it, so you can solve the same problem in the same short-sighted way infinitely in the years to come. Way to go, cowboy!
Parent
Re:My Profession (Score:5, Insightful)
Why limit yourself to only consulting your own past solutions when there are decades of well-documented research into innovative, ingenius, and non-intuitive solutions that smarter people (Kernigan, Ritchie, Knuth, Torvalds, Tanenbaum, etc.) have already figured out and written out for you to learn? I think that was the parent poster's point.
It's stupid to ignore the wealth of knowledge and experience already learned the hard way because you discard it as merely "memorizing." It's not. If you study the problem and learn why the solution works, you've just made yourself into a better coder. I didn't "memorize" how Huffman Encoding works. I learned why it works, and I probably wouldn't have figured it out on my own. But it's one of the tools I can use now, because I understand it. I learned it.
It's arrogant, ignorant, and shortsighted to believe you can just "teach yourself" and "figure out" perfect solutions to all the potential programming problems you'll encounter, while ignoring all the work done (and published) by the computer science and mathematical luminaries that preceded you.
Parent
Re:My Profession (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm a programmer. I'm lazy by definition.
Re:My Profession (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
no kidding (Score:5, Insightful)
Why can't Americans just realize that, taking away first-world advantages and throwing them into situations dependent upon meritocracy, that they really are just average?
Instead, first post that says, "Oh, we didn't do that well because we don't want to come across as ubergeeks etc. etc." gets modded up. Meanwhile, you can bet some radically different rationalization would be at work if Americans had placed a much higher number. American Exceptionalism sure is ridiculous.
Parent
Re:My Profession (Score:5, Insightful)
Nor an English exam, apparently.
It was my theory that if I couldn't deduce the problem on the fly, then I shouldn't be coding at all.
Deducing problems is easy. Deducing the solutions, however, is much harder. And believing you can do it without the benefit of the pioneers that came before you is arrogant and closed-minded. It's not about "memorizing" the work of Knuth, Tanenbaum, Stroustrup, etc., but rather learning why their solutions work. I didn't "memorize" that 2^5=32. It just does. I understand it.
Coding isn't about regurgitation or memorization, it's about how you instinctively attack a problem.
And university is about learning the best practices and tactics that have been discovered and published by those who came before you, and learning how to apply those techniques to problem-solve. Its not about "instinctively" attacking a problem, but rather using the research and study that came before you to improve those instincts. Widening your horizon. Expanding your toolbox.
Certain courses can't make you memorize stuff to be a better coder but they can give you a bag of tricks or arsenol with which to attack problems.
Yes, and those are the things you should be studying. But you claimed you never studied for a computer science exam. Now you're contradicting yourself, but you still sound arrogant.
Parent
Re:My Profession (Score:5, Informative)
Just to touch upon a few of your points.
Studying doesn't really help with TopCoder - it's a timed, algorithms contest. You have to be able to implement solutions to three problems (easy, medium, and hard), that are then peer-reviewed, before being tested, in a relatively small time window (90 minutes I think?). Think the ACM contest, but shorter time, and no teams . . .
The hard problem from this year's final was:
Solution and discussion for this and the other two problems are here [topcoder.com].
To get to the finals, you have to qualify through a series of online matches. Only 48 advanced to the onsite competition, so holding it the same weekend as DefCon wouldn't help . . .
As for the bit about prizes, there's a significant purse ($20k was the top prize.) And you wouldn't spend money to get to the finals - if you qualify, they pay up to $1,500 per participant in travel costs, provide accomodations, etc. A few years ago, they even paid for a guest to accompany you. I'm not sure if they've figured something out, but in past years, the foreigners had to play for charity as TopCoder couldn't legal give them the purse.
Parent
Re:My Profession (Score:3, Informative)