
Which Country Would Win in the Programming Olympics? - lilcarlyung
http://blog.hackerrank.com/which-country-would-win-in-the-programming-olympics/
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danielvf
This article claims to rank nation's Olympic programming ability, but uses the
average score from online tests.

The olympics are scored by the best a nation can do, not by its average.

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reedlaw
The conclusion I would draw is China, Russia, and Poland perform the best in
programming challenges. The article even shows this in a quote about the
greatness of Chinese programmers:

> In universities and colleges, education resources are relatively fewer in
> comparison with many other countries, so students have less choices in their
> paths to programming. Many great students end up obsessed with competitive
> programming since it's one of the few paths.

The headline is somewhat click-baity.

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fangfufu
Well, Hackerrank is a recruiting company. If you are from China or Russia, and
you want to leave the country and find a job elsewhere, having a high score on
Hackerrank is going to improve your chances. If you are from the UK or US, you
probably wouldn't bother.

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sickbeard
I never heard of hackerrank until now. Maybe the site has a location bias?
Interesting bit, when I used to have ad-sense for my tumblr app certain
regions just visited more of that site than others

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PedroBatista
That's the purpose of the whole article.

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Vitaly
Or may be good programmers in US don't feel the need to prove themselves on
such sites, instead they can just go and work for good company like Facebook,
Apple, Google, etc.

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pmontra
Are those tests representative of what we have to do at work? I did a couple
of tests on another site and they were almost artificial, something you do
only at university exams but never at work.

If I were an interviewer I'd use them only to see how somebody starts thinking
about solutions but we can use real world problems for that.

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shabda
Is the raw data for this calculation available anywhere? I am guessing the
sample size for some countries in top 10 is too low to be meaningful.

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roylez
The ranking is a joke. Look at taobao, the most famous website in China. Its
front page is a mess. As an Chinese I can tell you those Chinese copycat
software or websites are often patched up Frankensteins.

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danielam
What does UI/UX have to do with HackerRank? I don't think HackerRank even
measures more "pragmatic" qualities of software (e.g., code organization,
clarity, etc). In any case, the "busy UI" or cluttered look that is almost
universal across Chinese and east Asian websites and apps is often intentional
because the chaotic UX is preferred by consumers. It reflects the experience
of shopping in a Chinese market. It packs lots of assuring information into
the page. It has historical and technical precedent, and breaking the trend
would mean "sticking out". Sleek, simple designs may even be viewed with
suspicion. Another factor is that Chinese text will generally appear more
chaotic to Westerners who cannot read Chinese and are accustomed to simpler
Latin characters and Western typographic conventions.

