Google Code Jam 2008 Humbles Me
2008-07-28 14:57 - Programming
I posted earlier about my success in the Qualification Round. That earned me two separate chances to attack Round 1. I miserably failed both of them.
I almost, sorta, came close to making my first attempt. If I knew the scoring well at first, I would have made it through almost for sure. But I didn't. I wasted time at first on the difficult problems, which I never solved. I came back to the easy question and submitted it with a long penalty. I went back afterwords, solving it took me only 2.5 minutes, which would have left me about 10 minutes to read and figure out the problem and still place, solving only that much.
The second shot (you were assigned two of three rounds, and allowed to participate in the second, if you did not place in the first) was even worse. I didn't solve any of the problems, not even the least difficult. I came close to some correct programs, which just didn't run in time. Alas.
Once the round is over, all of the submissions are visible. I was surprised to find that the vast majority of the leaders did all their work in C (or some flavor of it). There's certainly some math stuff involved that I just plain didn't know. Perhaps next year.
