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Ask HN: What do you think of programming contests?
I've noticed a completely contrasting opinion on this topic. Some of the programmers know love participating in Topcoder/ACM kind of contests and then there are others who think it's a complete of waste of time/energy.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Is there any better way you think these contests can be conducted?
Disclaimer: I'm one of the founders of hackerrank and working on broadening the aspects of programming contests.
- nostrademons 13y agoCan be fun, but rarely measure the same skills necessary to work on real-world programs. People responsible for building real-world programs ought to know this, so they're of limited use in signalling your programming competence.
- rvivek 13y agoWhat if you had contests that are real-world? Example challenges: quora.com/challenges
- nostrademons 13y agoThose aren't actually real-world challenges, those are the sorts of questions I give in a job interview. Their scope is too narrow to be real-world. Almost by definition, a real-world programming challenge involves working with a software system too big to build in a weekend, because virtually all of the complexity of modern software engineering comes from managing large codebasess. We do have "contests" that are real-world, except they're not really contests. We call them open-source.
- zachlatta 13y agoIt really depends on the contest. I've found that most are algorithm-based, which is fun, but doesn't leave too much room for variety. Programming contesta also have a relatively high barrier of entry. Maybe some sort of restriction so only accounts with less than x 'experience' can participate could help make it easier for newcomers to join.
- tom_b 13y agoHi Vivek. I just got an email from Hackerrank checking in on why I haven't submitted any new code since the transition from InterviewStreet. I do not feel like it is a waste of time or energy, particularly since I use sites with problems as learning tools. For example, I used InterviewStreet for a few problems while playing with Clojure. But if I had good opportunities at the day job for hard-core hacking with Clojure, I may never have fished around looking for something like InterviewStreet. I don't care about the contest part but really like the problems from sites like yours. I do like seeing how many hackers have attempted vs successfully solved a problem. Can't remember if InterviewStreet did that. Rosalind (a bioinformatics problem/learning site) has a really nice "level" system and I'm guessing you have something similar setup for badges at Hackerrank. I very much like that you offer a variety of programming languages, but I might slightly prefer the Rosalind bioinformatics problems where you submit a solution within a time window rather than actual code to run. But it's cool since you don't force an "only python or ruby" language choice. Hackerrank's FAQ mentions building a community. I would participate much more if I thought the community of same language coders would offer feedback/code review and mentorship. I'd be willing to also give feedback on an anonymous basis. For example, say I solved challenge X in Clojure. I'd probably take time to review another successful solution for challenge X from another participant that also used Clojure - I would hope I could offer constructive feedback or learn how I could have solved the challenge better myself.
- TheCoelacanth 13y agoI usually don't find them very interesting. They tend to use somewhat contrived algorithmic questions that just aren't the kind of problems I'm interested in solving.