Geek Olympics Code for Gold 243
Haydn Fenton writes "Wired has a recent article on the16th annual IOI (that's International Olympiad in Informatics), taking place in Athens from Sept 11th to Sept 18th. The 304 programmers from 80 countries will be competing in 7 marathon programming sessions to determine the world's fastest coder. The computers are being supplied by Altec and contestants will have a choice of using either Windows XP or RedHat 9.0. More information can be found on the IOI Website."
Great! (Score:5, Funny)
*shudder*
Re:Great! (Score:5, Funny)
shhhhh... Dont let them hear that, they might start playing ddr.
Re:Great! (Score:2, Informative)
Yey Baby! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yey Baby! (Score:5, Funny)
Most of the female geeks I've met haven't looked much better than their stereotypical male counterparts.
Re:Yey Baby! (Score:3, Informative)
Most of the female geeks I've met haven't looked much better than their stereotypical male counterparts.
Hurrah! Yet another opportunity to post a gratuitous link to the gorgeous ubergeekbabe Ceren Ercen [spilth.org]. She turns my y-fronts into y-nots!
Re:Yey Baby! (Score:2, Troll)
Re:Yey Baby! (Score:5, Funny)
Your teacher was a chipmunk? I think you meant Chippendale. lol.
Re:Yey Baby! (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that the skimpiness of the outfit has little to do with the performance of the athlete, many women have protested that this is blatant sexual objectification. I agree.
Of course the IOC is driven, like many organizations, by profit, and hence advertising dollars, and thus wants to attract as many eyeballs to the events as possible. Most of us guys like to watch women wearing skimpy outfits. Sex sells. Thus, the rules.
I do think, however, that this goes against the Olympic spirit of competition in sports, though. The IOC shouldn't be in the business of selling sex, but rather world-class sports.
Re:Yey Baby! (Score:4, Informative)
Nowadays, you get a huge flap over a handful of naked Romanian gymnasts.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=mozclient&s
How sweet would it be... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How sweet would it be... (Score:5, Funny)
nobody would get any coding done!
Re:How sweet would it be... (Score:5, Funny)
Gimmie an 'r'.
Gimmie an 'i'.
Gimmie an 'n'.
Gimmie a 't'.
Gimmie an 'f'.
What does it spell?
NERD!
Re:How sweet would it be... (Score:2)
No MacOS X? (Score:5, Insightful)
And Apple's development tools rock!
Re:No MacOS X? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No MacOS X? (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of the electrical and civil engineers I know are sticking to Win NT/2000/XP as their tools (Cadence, Xilinx Foundation, AutoCAD, etc) are not available for Mac OS X. Also most of these type of enigneers were actually happy to leave the Unix world several years ago when they traded in their Sun SPARCstations for WinNT boxes. To them the Windows world is easier and cheaper to deal with.
Re:No MacOS X? (Score:3, Interesting)
Moral: testimonials mean jack shit.
Re:No MacOS X? (Score:3, Insightful)
These types of engineers? (Score:4, Interesting)
Because default install isn't enough (Score:4, Informative)
Here's what my buddies and coworkers complain about:
pft... (Score:2)
Re:Because default install isn't enough (Score:3, Insightful)
Version number questions. Many OS X users are still hanging on to 10.2.x because it's almost as fast and almost as good looking as 10.3.x. Many are waiting for 10.4 Tiger, and some developers are already using developer seeds of 10.4.
How are these issues different than coding with any flavor of Linux? I know my
Re:Because default install isn't enough (Score:4, Insightful)
My guess is they have to use the same hardware so no one has unfair speed advantage during a development compile. i.e. for debugging or a test run. And no I didn't read the article.
Cocoa is a PEL (Score:5, Funny)
Keep it fair folks.
Re:Because default install isn't enough (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyone who has the skills to program also has the skills to select a few checkboxes in an installer.
Re:Because default install isn't enough (Score:2)
Sounds like a non-issue to me. Anyone who can participate in a geek coding challenge can download and run a Mac installer.
I guess that your claim is technically correct in that the developer tools are a separate install from the base OS, so you have to put in another CD (included with the OS) and run the installer. And if you have the latest developer CD
Re:Because default install isn't enough (Score:2)
Re:No MacOS X? (Score:2)
It usually takes me a week to get a dev box up to "where I like it". Without an easy way to install my favourite software (*cough*apt-get*cough*Debian*cough*) it'd take longer!
The environment doesn't make the coder, but it helps.
Of course, they don't really let you change the environment in the Real Olympics either, so I guess that's just bad luck!
iTunes Bug? (Score:2)
What/which iTunes bug? I'm using iTunes 4.6 on my PowerBook G4 (OS X 10.3.5) without any problems. I have an older version on my PC, 4.5.1 I think, that seems to work OK.
Or are you talking about the iTunes UK overcharge? (Apparently Apple charges the German and French 0.99 Euro per song, and the British 79 pence [about 1.20 Euro] while Amer
Re:No MacOS X? (Score:2, Informative)
Designing GUI apps with Xcode is another story. While it's easier than writing oldschool classic mac gui apps, Apple's Cocoa (NeXT) API isn't much fun to work with. As you pointed out, it's certainly no Qt or GTK. I would put it on par with Microsoft garbage for fun/ease-of-use.
Historically speaking, the Cocoa API, Obj-C, and Xcode itself all come from NeXT. These were nice tools ba
Re:No MacOS X? (Score:3, Informative)
Specifically, Apple's belief is that the user should always be in control, not the application or computer, so applications always run within windows that the user knows that he can control, not (except for videogames and media players, and even then only under user control) taking over the full screen. Under MacOS, maximizing a window makes it as large as it needs to be to display the window's contents without taki
Why RH9 ? (Score:5, Interesting)
With a newer distro, the contestants would get newer versions of the tools (like Eclipse, Emacs, etc.).
I'm not criticizing; I'm just wondering.
-- I like my women like I like my beer: smooth, and not too gassy.
Re:Why RH9 ? (Score:2, Informative)
"Stable" in the context of a distro (Score:2)
Time and time again I feel compelled to point this out:
In the context of a Linux distribution stable does not mean "reliable" or "vetted for bugs" or "unlikely to crash". It means a feature freeze: the packages are not going to be changed except for security updates. Red Hat and Debian are examples of groups that produce "stable" distributions (EL and Woody, respectively). Fedora and Gentoo come to mind as groups that seem to have no intention of producing "stable" distributions: implicit in their developm
Code fast or Fast Code? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Code fast or Fast Code? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Code fast or Fast Code? (Score:3, Interesting)
From the article...
It would appear that quality of code and solution are critical factors in determining the winner. I actually didn't see any reference to the time taken in the article, though I would assume there is some kind of upper limit. The actual performance characteristics of the code would probably fall under the "elegence of their solution".
Re:Code fast or Fast Code? (Score:5, Funny)
Just say 'webcam porn' industry and get it over with
Re:Code fast or Fast Code? (Score:2)
Re:Code fast or Fast Code? (Score:2)
I believe that to be a valid measure of code worthy of a gold medal in any coding competition. Then again, it may be on the website and I just missed it.
p.s. I did read that the produced code was not allowed to access the network - so I guess that nulls out remote exploitability.
Re:Code fast or Fast Code? (Score:5, Informative)
For grading solutions, the only criteria are program correctness and efficiency. To do this, a judge presents the contestant's solutions for each problem with a set of test input cases. For every test case in which the contestant's solution gives the correct output under the allowed program running time, the contestant receives a fixed number of points.
As the test cases vary in their size/difficulty, they allow the judge to evaluate both program correctness and efficiency (only the most efficient programs will be able to solve all the test input cases given by the judge for a particular problem). In some recent IOIs, contestants are given an optimization problem to solve, and a contestant's program is graded based on the optimality of their generated solutions as compared to those solutions generated by programs of other contestants.
In none of these cases is grading ever based on the length of the code or coding speed (unlike the ACM or more recent TopCoder contests). Thus, the IOI is primarily an algorithm design contest rather than a coding competition.
and in other news.. (Score:4, Informative)
in athens.
What could be better? (Score:4, Funny)
A> Not being a fucking geek I'd warrant.
Re:What could be better? (Score:5, Funny)
Having a girlfriend.
Re:What could be better? (Score:3, Funny)
"Even if you win the Gold at the Special Olympics...you're still retarded."
Re:What could be better? (Score:2)
if you win... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:if you win... (Score:2, Informative)
This was one of the events that defined my current opinion that good coders can and do code well in any language.
And while the -top- guys probably could do your data strucutres homework, most participants (like myself) had no formal algorithms and data structures training. Looking back on my solutions, there's things I rec
Automated Scoring (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Automated Scoring (Score:4, Insightful)
Simple... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Automated Scoring (Score:2)
Re:Automated Scoring (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure adding a timer was and is still standard practice (or at least I did it) for contestants who didn't expect their solution to be fast enough, though...
Re:Automated Scoring (Score:2)
Usually, a complicated, non-elegant solution won't be fast enough to solve all the test cases within the time limit. Of course, beyond this it's pretty much impossible to determine "elegance" without having a human judge look at the actual code. Most likely whoever wrote this up thought "elegance" was a nice-sounding word and so decided to throw it in there.
On a
Coffee is not allowed! (Score:5, Funny)
Hold up... (Score:5, Funny)
No, thanks. I'll take the quality olympics.
It's like... "Who can build the next skyscraper the fastest? Now, who wants to occupy it?"
Re:Hold up... (Score:2, Insightful)
And which one would that be? The one with all the doping scandals and judging fiascos? The one that gave the corporations huge concessions such as making blogging illegal [cnn.com] for athletes?
The Olympics are full of crap.
Re:Hold up... (Score:2)
Re:Hold up... (Score:2)
Re:Hold up... (Score:2)
From the article...
This new breed of olympic games are not just about computers, but they cover many different intellectual fields. While there may be some corporate sponsorship, the goal here seems to be rather benign. It is simply an attempt to create an international competition that tests the intellect rather than the physical shape of the body. Does this make it any less
Re:Hold up... (Score:2)
Oops... I see now that I missed your point entirely. However, once again, I have to disagree. See my other post [slashdot.org] regarding the quality vs speed. I don't believe that speed is the central issue here.
Re:Hold up... (Score:2, Interesting)
Likew
Scandal (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Scandal (Score:2, Funny)
Remember the Last Marathon? (Score:5, Funny)
"I use FreeBSD you insensitive clods!"
written on his back ran onto the floor and shoved the leader's chair into the crowd. Scooting the chair back into place cost the leader precious seconds and momentum which dropped him eventually to third place.
well.. (Score:4, Informative)
Wait a sec (Score:5, Funny)
I thought they only used Windows in the International Special Olympiad in Informatics. :)
Live Boardcasting? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Live Boardcasting? (Score:3, Funny)
Condoms. (Score:5, Funny)
Just personal lubricants...
Network (Score:3, Funny)
Not Olympics (Score:3, Informative)
Suggestions for Coding: (Score:3, Funny)
1) Fastest "Hello World"
2) 1337 0w|\|a63 Code (XP vs. RH9)
3) First one to hack HURD out from Emacs
4) First one to find (or paste) SCOde into Linux (anonymously sponsored but the prize check was stamped from Utah)
5) First to hack AI for dancing Osimo-like Ballmer.
6) First to uninstall their OS and install/compile Gentoo
7) Program a game...'cause we could use another one of them fsckin' Space Invaders clones.
Why no G5s? (Score:2, Insightful)
Excellent contest for employers... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Excellent contest for employers... (Score:4, Informative)
The competition itself feels very non-competitive. Most participants are trying to win by performing their best, not by beating everyone else (if you catch my meaning). Outside of the actual coding sessions, everyone socializes (really!), swaps ideas and knowledge, and discusses the solutions that were used in the previous sessions. I saw people get together the next day, pool their knowledge, and come up with a better solution -- this is outside the competition, for the sheer joy of solving the problem.
The IOI does not test teamwork and communication, either positively or negatively. Anyone who has attended an IOI (regardless of whether they won a medal) deserves your attention as an employer, because it's a safe bet that they are a -very- good programmer. You still have to apply all your normal filters (is this guy a jackass, is he a slacker, or is he good for the company), but from my experience at the competition I'd say there's more contestants that would be an asset than a liability.
Re:Excellent contest for employers... (Score:2)
I guess you don't hire people who compete at sports either? Because athletes are also trying to be nr. 1 all the time, thus making them unsuited for working in a team.
Here's a hint: could it be that those people are competing in a tournament for fun, while having different priorities at work? I guess the people you are looking for are really inflexible, incapable of changing the pace of their work based on the demands of the situation (do you work for the go
Who proofreads these things? (Score:2, Funny)
fastest coder??? (Score:3, Informative)
I suck at coding fast, type with few fingers, and pause all the time to mentally execute the code. Got gold in 1991
I wonder how good OCaml is going to score (Score:2)
However, I wonder how functional languages will do. They try to approximate math as much as possible. OCaml [ocaml.org] Won top 3 spots from '98 till '02 in a contest called ICFP. Although OCaml is both functional and has object-oriented features.
Are functional languages the wa
Re:I wonder how good OCaml is going to score (Score:2)
I was in the final for the UK version of this. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
All the cool people were using C or Pascal. I used QuickBASIC! And yet I got the right results for enough of the questions (the C guy got his output board the wrong way up), and so I was invited to Cambridge. The best part about the first round was that I hadn't even done the last round right - I just said "yes, that's right" to the sample case and "No, impossible" to everything else.
Anyhoo, I got to Cambridge (for you USAians, one of our old "Ivy League" colleges) where I learnt to my relief that they had installed QuickBASIC especially for the two of us who had actually got in with it (15 finalists total) - they were shocked at having to, I can tell you! Of course, I was pretty sure at that stage that I wasn't actually going to win, and so I had a great time and zero stress. The tests itself were a) more of the same, but b) there was also an easay paper. Having not read much about the subject formally, I imagine I did dismally on the latter - I think I got about one and a half on the programming at best. Didn't know how to do efficient sorting! Still, it was great fun, and really set my mind on becoming a programmer.
The best part was, we got room, board and tours around Cambridge absolutely free (I guess they were looking to recruit a few of us to Cambridge). I even saw Stephen Hawking whizzing around on his motorised wheelchair! We got given two books at the end of it - Programming Pearls [amazon.com] and Introduction to Computer Algorithms [amazon.com]. Both darn good books, although I admit to reading the first more closely than the second.
Re:I was in the final for the UK version of this. (Score:3, Interesting)
There was -one- problem that I recall QB being a liability in. If you solved it the "wrong" way, processing speed and memory managem
Re:I was in the final for the UK version of this. (Score:2)
That's cool. It would have been seriously funny if you'd been all laid back and then won the damn thing.
Programming Pearls is a nice little book. It's very useful to a beginner but is probably a waste of money if you're already an established programmer. A lot of the tricks that are demonstrated in the book are common sense (for an experienced programmer).
Don't forget ICFP (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Don't forget ICFP (Score:2)
Re:Don't forget ICFP (Broken Link) (Score:2)
LOL (Score:2, Funny)
All well and good, but... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:All well and good, but... (Score:2, Informative)
Some Insider Thoughts (Score:5, Informative)
In fact I've found that the best strategy is to just turn off the monitor altogether and think about the problems for a while. Your most useful tools in the IOI are the pencil and pad of paper they give you.
The ACM programming contest is sort of similar to the IOI in that you have similar time limits and similar amounts of problems per person (8-10 problems for a 3-person team, with 5 hours). However, it's a lot more frantic since you're fighting for terminal time, whereas in the IOI you can take things slowly or run detailed tests. TopCoder (the other big programming contest) is also more speed- and debugging-intensive, although problem solving skills can help a lot if you're able to start with the Hard problem every time for instance.
prediction (Score:3, Interesting)
ACM ICPC? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:ACM ICPC? (Score:2)
Also, IOI is an individual event (although each country sends a "team" of up to 4 students, they do not work together).
As far as I know, the problem types are pretty similar. The big difference, however, is that ACM ICPC rewards fast coding (score is kept based on problems solved as well as time taken), whereas IOI is scored solely on correctness. The scoring is typically done based on the numb
Waterloo programming competition (Score:4, Informative)
USACO (Score:5, Informative)
If you're not an American student, USACO is probably still worth checking out, as it permits all pre-university students to compete (although only Americans can be considered for the team), and anybody in the world can enter as an observer. In fact, the vast majority of USACO participants are not American.
USACO is also working on making contest divisions that are more friendly to beginners, if you're worried about difficulty.
Not just fastest coder & no Java (Score:2)
But they do not support Java, I asked them why and the answer was
Although the use of Java was discussed during the GA and the ISC
meetings of the IOI-2003 contest, the suggestions to use it for this
year's contest were turned down. Java is thus not included in the
permitted languages for the IOI-2004 contest, which are limited to
Pascal, C and C++. A Jav
Slowest coder (Score:4, Funny)
Re:why rh and winxp (Score:2, Informative)