Google Contest May Jam Up Coders

WebProNews Staff — Tue, 02 May 2006 17:57:32 +0000

Google’s Code Jam Europe wants to find the best and brightest among European Java and C programmers, but its scheduling leaves something to be desired.

The Google Code Jam Europe being conducted in Dublin opened registration to prospective C++, C#, and Java programmers.

Programming competition site TopCoder will conduct the contest for Google. A Java applet will be used to bring the coders into virtual rooms to solve problems against the clock.

The fastest coders progress through the contest, as they then try to break each other’s code and satisfy the TopCoder system that their code was better than that crafted by other programmers.

High scorers progress from the first round to the second round, and are then winnowed into a smaller championship field.

The championship takes place in Dublin, and the first place Code Jam Europe winner gets 2,500.

Registrations end the morning of May 23rd and qualifying begins later that morning.

That poses a problem for some of the best and brightest in the UK though, as one poster to the Code Jam newsgroup noted:

Almost all students in the UK (including me at Bristol University) have their exams in that period – my first one in fact starts on the 23rd (and last one is on the 9th of June)

As a huge number of potential applicants would be students I would guess it might be a slight missed opportunity.

I will still be a student next year and hopefully, if the event is repeated among the summer months, will look forward to competing.

With the first and second rounds taking place on May 30 and June 3, competing could interfere with studying for some students.

For others, the chance to be noticed by Google may be worth the time spent in the Code Jam.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

WebProNews » Code Jam Europe

Google Contest May Jam Up Coders