

Ask HN: What do you think of programming contests? - rvivek

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.<p>I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Is there any better way you think these contests can be conducted?<p>Disclaimer: I'm one of the founders of hackerrank and working on broadening the aspects of programming contests.
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tom_b
Hi 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.

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nostrademons
Can 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.

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rvivek
What if you had contests that are real-world? Example challenges:
quora.com/challenges

~~~
nostrademons
Those 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.

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zachlatta
It 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.

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TheCoelacanth
I 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.

