

Results from 2008 ACM Programming World Finals: As always, Russia leads the way. - osipov
http://icpc.baylor.edu/icpc/Finals/v2/default.asp?page=results
1  	St. Petersburg University of IT
2 	Massachusetts Institute of Technology 	3 	Izhevsk State Technical University 	4 	Lviv National University 	
5 	Moscow State University 	 	6 	Tsinghua University 
7 	Stanford University 
8 	University of Zagreb
9 	University of Waterloo 
10 	Petrozavodsk State University
======
marvin
Hasn't China and Russia/Eastern Europe been winning competitions like these,
in all fields (maths, physics, computer science) for ages? How come the
winners stop performing when they grow up? Or is it just that it takes 30
years to evolve from "excellent at solving small tasks" to "excellent at
solving real tasks"?

It seems to me like these countries (and China in particular) have a culture
of overworking and overperforming, while most of the time managing to avoid
making a significant impact on society as a whole. A young, ambitious Chinese
student studies as hard as most start-up employees, while aiming for much
smaller gains.

~~~
eugenejen
It is not overworking or overperforming in my 0.02. An ambitious
American/Western European/Japanese student would rather to spend their energy
to deal with real world problems because in reality, he/she may be able to get
much large rewards, in comparison to ACM's award and honor.

While an ambitious Eastern European/Chinese student, the reward from local
economy is worthy far less than making a big name in ACM. The same monetary
reward from ACM has much higher value in those countries. Besides, after
winning the award. It becomes a good add-on on resumes for applications to
graduate schools in U.S. or a job at Google/Microsoft/IBM.

I am always amazed that people forget how cheap it is when you are living
outside U.S and Western Europe. And the same dollar can buy much more there.

When I think about my uncle in Taiwan who have been spending 20 years to build
a company that acquires 20% market share of silicone in East Asia, and its
market capital is only $200 million. Any ambitious American/European hacker
can make 3 to 10 millions if he/she works on the right stuffs in 5 years. Then
you will know how unworthy it is to spend time on ACM competition in US but in
China and Russia.

~~~
osipov
That's a compelling narrative and I think there is some truth to that.
However, I think there is a more simple explanation to the dominance of
Russian schools. Check out this graph on percentage of population with at
least a college degree:
<http://blogs.ft.com/crookblog/files/2008/03/kierkegaard.jpg> (warning:
squinting may be required :)

More educated people means more candidates to participate in ACM contents
means higher chances of getting to the top spots.

~~~
eugenejen
I agree with what you said. And I also know from my school mates before in NYU
that mathematical inclined Russians like to play all those interesting math
quiz. Also in old Soviet times, engineers and scientists are treated better
for their contributions to build socialist heaven :-)

But I know the tradition in family maybe more important to inspire offspring.
Thinking about Robert Morris father was the author of crypt function in Unix,
I guess he may learn from his father when he was a still kid to play those
games :-)

------
DocSavage
Doing well in the the ACM Programming competition requires training time IMHO.
The best competitors will have strong programming skills and a deep knowledge
base of problem patterns and the best way to solve them. I was on the Stanford
B team back in the day ('80s), and I know that if I were a student now, I'd
use my free time to build a product/company rather than spending much effort
preparing for the ACM competition. While some student programmers aren't
swayed by the tremendous capitalist forces, I'd be surprised if it didn't have
an impact on which programmers made it through campus preliminaries. There's
just so many opportunities competing for your time if you're a good young
programmer nowadays.

As well as MIT and Stanford performed, I'd have to wonder about student
programmers who skipped the competition because they have their sight set on
bigger prizes. The same might be said, though, for the other universities even
if they aren't entrepreneurial hotbeds.

------
simplegeek
If they've good hackers in abundance then why there are no emerging startups?
Don't they look at the business side of technology ;) Just curious? Can anyone
share some insights about startup scene in Russia?

~~~
osipov
Many of them leave and create startups else where, for example Google or
Parallels.

Then there are startups you probably know about, like Art Lebedev:
<http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus> Most of their startups target
the Russian market, for example, Google is in 2nd place among Russian search
engines, trailing yandex.ru.

~~~
DmitriLebedev
Art Lebedev isn't a startup and has nothing to do with skilled programming.
He's good at courtshiping rich companies instead.

------
ptn
This Sunday is the contest at my university, I'm participating with two other
friends. I aim at solving at least three problems, though winning with any
number is welcome too :-)

------
DaniFong
Pfft, Russia doesn't always lead. :-p

Thanks for the results.

