News Google is hunting down Europe's best coders

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/05/03/google_code_jam_europe/

 

Damn it, I would love to enter that! Why does it have to be smack bang in the middle of exams!! Google are alienating the young computer scientists, arguably the ones with the most future potential!

 

Ditto. Some of the dates even fall on the day of my exams be interesting to see what sort of challenges they'd throw at you though...

 

Yeah I had a quick look and it appears to be coding algorithms to find things like te quickest way through a maze and similar things.

One of the problems was to create a program that given a list of childrens weights would work out how to balance them on a see-saw... nothing to difficult really, my java solution just now only took 10 mins!

 

Yeah, I'll probably have a bash. Remember though that to get the high points you not only need to code quickly but well enough that you program can't be 'broken' by other coders when they enter some bizarre values into it.

The 22nd is the day after my second exam (and the start of the two weeks until my last three exams) but then there's the double bill finale of 24 that falls on that day too. Google have not chosen well with respect to their student base of coders.

 

Just wanted to point out that registration for Code Jam 2006 is now open here!!