Programmer Cooperation Challenge

03/16/2003

This article reminds us that the ACM is once again sponsoring their annual programmer competition. This is where a team is given several hard computer-science problems to which they must produce correct answers in a short, fixed amount of time using a single computer. Put another way, contestants compete against each other and an unrealistic schedule to produce software that’s just barely good enough under incredible time pressure with insufficient resources. ...and we’re teaching the kids what, exactly? I have some suggestions: Instead of teaching competition, how about teaching cooperation? Get teams to work together to solve a much larger problem, with at least one computer for every participant, all networked together with appropriate collaborative development software. Instead of solving several discrete, independent problems, (since that rarely happens out here in the real world) how about solving a large complex problem with many interrelated facets? Oh, and the right answer isn’t enough. The code must be clean and extensible—and you have you prove that in round two. And forget about the the 5-hour deadline, you’ve got two weeks for your first iteration. Now that, baby, is a challenge.