Get Herald RSSConsidering that they will be competing against the best college-student computer programmers in the world this April, the three Brown students heading to the International Collegiate Programming Contest Finals were surprisingly calm.
"We might meet as a team, go through problems," said Greg Pascale '09, referring to how they are preparing, because the students do not regularly meet and because one is studying in New Zealand this semester. "I'm pretty happy just to have made it this far."
Last fall, the team placed first in the pre-regional contest and then placed second, behind a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the regional contest, according to the Web site of the Association for Computer Machinery, which ran the contest. This qualified them for the world finals in Alberta, Canada, where they will be competing against students from 83 countries.
The contest, held annually since 1977 by the ACM, tests students' ability to design programs capable of solving a packet of six to eight problems within a five-hour time limit, according to the association's Web site.
Each team of three students is assigned one computer. One student typically writes code for an individual problem, while the other two students think about how they will solve the next problems before switching off. Once the easy problems are completed by an individual student, the task becomes more of a collaborative effort, with the three bouncing ideas off each other and working together to debug code.
The contest is "equal parts pure problem solving and ... programming ability," said Pascale.
Dimitar Bounov '09 will fly in from New Zealand for the competition. But the team does not expect his absence until then to hurt their performance.
"You can't really prepare for these types of contests in a short amount of time," said the team's adviser, John Jannotti, associate professor of computer science.
The two team members at Brown this semester, Pascale and Adrian Vladu '11, said they might prepare by doing some mock problems on an online site, but that their time is limited. Having a strong background in problem solving, programming and the computer language C++, which they will use at the competition, is far more important than training specifically for the event, Vladu said.
Although only in his first year at Brown, Vladu, who attended a computer science high school in Romania, has been competing in ACM contests since he was in ninth grade. Though the there are more problems - and more difficult ones - at the college level, the nature of the contests is similar. The most significant change is that he receives less attention here compared to Romania, where the high school contest is closely followed and highly publicized.
"In high school, it was pretty fun," Vladu said. "Being a high achiever gave you a certain social status."
Since 1997, the contest has been sponsored by IBM. In addition to providing computer infrastructure, volunteers and funding, top company programmers write problems for the contest. IBM recruits heavily from the contest, which mimics a real-world job by forcing students to work under time pressure in cooperation with other programmers, said Margaret Ashida, director of IBM's University Talent Programs.
Participating in the competition distinguishes students by showing that they have the "social skills to complement the technical skills" necessary for programming jobs, Ashida said.
Vladu hopes the contest grows in popularity and that "people will start appreciating programming contests like they do American football."
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