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Top Coder

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  • 22-06-2008 11:41pm
    #1
    BRENSH
    Closed Accounts Posts: 67 ✭✭


    I was introduced to top coder in university there last year. Top coder is a software recruitment company that holds biweekly competitions in the fields of algorithm design, software assembly, software design and testing. The prizes are sponsered by large companies like IBM , AOL etc...

    The prizes are quiet good also. Like $1000. I havent really tried it. If you are good enough you can make a good living off it. Just wondering if anyone tried it.


    Here is the link.
    http://www.topcoder.com

    The best thing about it is that there are really good practice rooms where you can try out all the algorithm problems from past competitions. Great for learners. It would reallly tune up your algorithm experience.


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    #2
    pwd
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,284 ✭✭✭pwd


    That's an interesting site. Thanks for the link. I was having a look around it.
    170 of the 243 people who entered a development competition in the last 180 days are in china. 9 of the top 10 are Chinese (the 9th placed guy is Brazilian). The proportions are not so great for the design and algorithm competitions though.


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    #3
    gerryk
    Registered Users Posts: 1,726 ✭✭✭gerryk


    pwd wrote: »
    9 of the top 10 are Chinese

    Well just under 1/4 of the worlds population is chinese...


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    #4
    fergalr
    Registered Users Posts: 1,922 ✭✭✭fergalr


    Used topcoder to do training questions for some other programming competitions a few years ago.
    The prizes are quiet good also. Like $1000. I havent really tried it. If you are good enough you can make a good living off it. Just wondering if anyone tried it.

    One thing worth noticing is that programming competition coding, as you see in topcoder, is quite specialized.
    To do well, you'd need to practice quite a bit with the format, and you'd need to really get good at programming competitions, as opposed to just being good at programming in general.
    Not a problem if you just want to compete for fun, but it wouldn't be easy to win the big prize money, even if you are a great software developer, as you're going to be up against hardcore, specialist, competition coders.
    It's a bit like how chess masters get beaten by speed chess specialists in speed games.
    Originally Posted by pwd
    9 of the top 10 are Chinese
    Well just under 1/4 of the worlds population is chinese...

    The prize money is bigger, in relative terms, if you are in a country with 1$ goes farther, like China. This means it's worth more to a person from a 'cheaper' country to specialize in topcoder competitions. I'm pretty sure it's these simple economics that are leading to 9 of 10 figures you are seeing.

    I think that's more relevant than
    Well just under 1/4 of the worlds population is chinese...
    as population numbers wouldn't imply programmer numbers, other things like how developed the country is would be more significant. (I'd be surprised if china had 1/4 of the world's programmers?)


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    #5
    TheTubes
    Registered Users Posts: 721 ✭✭✭TheTubes


    For the last couple of years google have been using the Top Coder platform to run their "Google Code Jam" comps.
    This year they have created their own platform.
    http://code.google.com/codejam/


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