Hi Guys,

A few weeks ago, the Chef came to a realization: he needs to go on a diet.  If you’ve seen him lately, you’ll know he’s practically bursting out of his clothes.  So, in an effort to stop overloading on the code he loves to devour, he’s decided to start consuming only the highest quality code.

Only the top two finishers in India and internationally will be eligible for prizes.

We have a few reasons for making this change.  For a while, our community has been telling us that CodeChef’s prize structure could do more to encourage people to do their best.  We agree.  With this new prize structure, we think there’s more incentive for people to put forth their best effort.

*Edit* Additionally, we will be re-allocating the saved resources to other project in the pipeline in the CodeChef Community. *Edit*

Prizes on CodeChef will now be as follows:
First Place Indian: 12000 INR- Second Place Indian: 8000 INR- First Place International Contestant: $400- Second Place International Contestant: $300

As always, please let us know what you think about this new structure.  Your feedback is extremely valuable to us and helps us make CodeChef better.

Now get to cuttin the flab off your code!

Cheers,
Team CodeChef

Hey Guy’s, it’s time to disclose the Programmer of the Month for September, Anton Lunyov. He’s a 23 year old student from the Institute of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics of National Academy of Science of Ukraine. Anton has been participating on CodeChef since its inception in March 2009. He’s been extremely active in the past few month’s and been amongst the  winners in many of our challenges. He also did exceedingly well in both the July Cook-Off and the August Cook-Off. Lets find out what our Programmer has to say.

Name: Anton Lunyov
Age: 23
Institute: Institute of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics of National Academy of Science of Ukraine
Userid: anton_lunyov

How/When did you start programming?
I started programming relatively late in 10-th grade after I enter the lyceum “Erudit”. I met many talented students there and wanted to be like them.

What do you do when you’re not programming?
I am a postgraduate student of my institute so I prepare my PhD thesis on spectral theory of differential operators, study scientific publications on different topics. Programming is just a hobby. I also like to play table tennis.

What do you like most about CodeChef?
I like to solve hard and challenging problems and compete with the world’s best programmers who participate here.

How many hours a day do you program?
Approximately 4-5 hours. But it depends on many things.

What is the secret to being a good programmer?
You should work hard and solve many problems per day from various online judges. But I guess without a deep knowledge in math you don’t have any chance of being a good programmer.

What are your plans for the future?
After I complete my PhD course I will continue the work of theoretical scientist in the field of operator theory but I guess I will still participate in many programming contests because I enjoy it very much.

Hi guys,

The August 2010 CookOff, our second short contest format has come to a very exciting end. We’ve seen some superb competition in this contest with our first accepted solution coming in less than 5 minutes! Our five course meal has now been fully devoured and we hope you all enjoyed it!

First and foremost we would like to extend our appreciation and gratitude to our cooks for the night, Zac Friggstad and David Stolp, our extremely talented problem setter, tester and moderators. You guys did an awesome job!

For all those wondering what a cupcake baking tin is, here’s a picture.
And here’s a quote by Pieguy himself:
“A cupcake baking tin is a large piece of metal with a number of round indentations that can hold batter.  When filled with batter and placed in an appropriately hot oven for an appropriate amount of time, a delicious treat emerges, which is cooled and often covered with frosting before serving (and makes a far better treat than muffins).
Of course, no picture could describe some of the non-planar monstrosities in the test cases.”

Here are the top 20 best performers of the August Cook-Off:

1. Tomek Czajka
2. ChenGaoyuan
3. Oleg
4. Ivan Mistreanu
5. Egor Kulikov
6. Tanaeem
7. Venkatesh
8. Mark Greve
9. Iqram Mahmud
10. Kungfu Panda
11. Stepan Palamarchuk
12. Seyed Hamed Valizadeh Toosi
13. Niyaz Nigmatullin
14. Tomaz Hocevar
15. Anton Lunyov
16. Tasnim Imran Sunny
17. Arijit Banerjee
18. Nikolay Kurtov
19. Anil Kishore
20. Carlos Joa

Take a look at the contest rankings here: http://www.codechef.com/rankings/COOK02

At the end of the contest the total submissions are as follows:

1) Arranging the Appetizers:  140 successful submissions

2) Backup Functions: 6 successful submissions

3) Baking Cupcakes: 6 successful submissions

4) Cleaning Up: 172 successful submissions

5) Fetching Cooking Tools: 36 successful submissions

Contest Statistics:

Congratulations guys! We look forward to seeing all of you participating in the September 2010 Challenge that starts in only 10 days.

Check out the contest problem editorials here.

We say this time and again, and we’re saying this once again. We really value your feedback so if there is anything you would like to let us know regarding this contest then do let us know by either commenting below this blog post or by sending in an email to feedback@codechef.com.

Cheers,
Basil

P.S. Winners of the contest will be contacted on Tuesday (24th August).

Hi CodeCheffers,

Please Note 1: Your username must match the following regex:

/^[a-z]{1}[a-z0-9_]{3,13}$/

Users with existing usernames that do not match the above mentioned regex need not worry. Your username will still be functional.

However, new users registering on CodeChef please make sure the username corresponds to the regex mentioned above.  Usernames of any other kind would prompt an error while registering.

Please Note 2: The language C# will not be functional on CodeChef for sometime.
Our judge is facing some issues with C# submissions, so please make sure your submissions are not made in this language.

The submissions to C# are working now.

Regards,
Team CodeChef

The ‘blog comments’ had stopped appearing without us even knowing. ‘Viewing solutions’ showed up a blank page and even ‘problem submission’ started crying foul. Yes, the Chef’s system was throwing tantrums! He loves dancing in the rain and eating Mumbai’s street food which left him shivering and with an upset stomach.

But we’ve given him a dose of our strongest concocted medication and the Chef is now back to delivering the most lip-smacking recipes. Make sure to look out for them in the forthcoming week. A five course buffet is on the cards. We look forward to all your participation and feedback. We missed it so much in the last couple of weeks. Do keep writing and letting us know what you liked and more importantly where we can improve.

- The Codechef Team

Hi guys,

The August 2010 Challenge has come to an end and we’ve had a lot of ties this time!

Here are the Top 20 Indian and the top 10 Global winners that we feel are eligible for prize money.

India:

01. Rajiv Kumar Aggarwal - Rs.10000
02. Nadeem Moidu - Rs.7000
03. Subrahmanyam Velaga - Rs.5000
04. vikas - Rs.4000
05. Purav - Rs.3500
06. Imran Khan - Rs.2500
07. Akhil Ravidas - Rs.2500
08. Pradeep George Mathias - Rs.2500
09. Abhijith Reddy D - Rs.2500
10. Anil Kishore - Rs.2500
11. Pulkit - Rs.1500
12. Chetan Suresh Bademi - Rs.1400
12. ikal - Rs. 1400
12. Keshav Dhandhania - Rs. 1400
12. Vaibhav Shankar - Rs. 1400
12. ishani parekh - Rs.1400
17. Srijan Bhatnagar - Rs.1000
18. Akangsha - Rs.1000
19. Saransh Bansal - Rs.1000
20. Gunjan Sharma - Rs.1000

Global:

01. Anton Lunyov - $100
01. Balakrishnan Varadarajan - $100
01. Burdakov Daniel - $100
01. Dmytro Dzhulgakov - $100
01. forest - $100
01. Gennady Korotkevich - $100
01. Mark Greve - $100
01. Oleg - $100
01. Tomek Czajka - $100
01. Stephen Merriman - $100
01. zhuxian - $100

Contest Statistics:

Congratulations to all of you that won this month’s competition and all the best to everybody for the August Cook – Off which takes place at 21:30 IST on the 21st August.

Check out the editorials to this month’s contest here.

If there is anything that you would like to let us know then do comment on this blog post or send in an email to feedback@codechef.com

Cheers,
Basil

P.S. Winners will be contacted shortly.

Hey CodeCheffers!

Hope you guys liked our inaugural CodeChef Cook-Off. As we had mentioned, we’re experimenting with the short contest format. Based on the encouraging results of last month’s contest, we’re back with a second Cook-Off this month. What’s more is that our contest will have a brand new format this time.

Unlike last month, we will be having 5 problems in the Cook-Off.

• Appetizer
• Soup
• Salad
• Main Course
• Dessert

We’ll release the problems at 9:30 pm (Indian Standard Time) on August 21st and accept answers until 12:00 am (IST) on August 22nd.

Once again, we’ll be giving away CodeChef t-shirts to the top 20 contestants globally.

We appreciate your contribution towards the growth and quality of our contests and encourage you to participate, comment and send us your feedback. Based on the feedback we will decide on the direction of future contests going forward.

Once again, it’s time to get into the kitchen and start cooking!

The August Cook-Off:

• Saturday, 21st August
• 9:30 pm to 12:00 am (Indian Standard)
• 5 Problems

Good Luck!

Cheers,
Team CodeChef

Hey guys, it’s a new month and its time to put the spotlight on a brand new programmer on CodeChef. Our programmer of the month is Gennady Korotkevich, who at a mere 15 years of age managed to  come second in the July 2010 Challenge and win even the CodeChef Cook-Off! We’re very excited to see how well he performs in our upcoming contests. Lets find out what  our programmer from Belarus has to say.

Name: Gennady Korotkevich
Age: 15
Institute: gymnasium 56, Gomel
Userid: gennady.korotkevich

How/When did you start programming?
It happened several years ago. My parents are programmers, and I was interested in what they were doing. Soon they suggested me to try myself at programming. I tried and liked it

What do you do when you’re not programming?
The main things are doing sports and sometimes reading. I like many kinds of sports, and the favourite ones are table tennis and soccer.

What do you like most about CodeChef?
I’m not so long with CodeChef, but I like solving very hard and challenging problems even for a long period of time.

How many hours a day do you program?
It depends on many things, but in average that’s 3-4 hours I guess.

What is the secret to being a good programmer?
I don’t think there’s any secret. In my opinion, if you want to be successful in doing something, you should like the thing you do

What are your plans for the future?
Graduating my gymnasium and entering the university Though I’m still not sure which one to enter.

Hi guys,

Yes its been a long time coming and its finally here.

The July 2010 Challenge was once again marred by some unfortunate incidents that has made picking the winners of this contest once again quite a challenge.

A few cases of obvious cheating have been recognized and the concerned individuals have been removed from the winners list. If you feel you have been wrongly accused then please contact us by sending in an email to feedback@codechef.com.

Here are the Top 20 Indian and the top 10 Global winners that we feel are eligible for prize money.

India:

01. Namit D. Shetty - Rs.10000
02. Ankul Garg - Rs.7000
03. Rishikesh Dwivedi - Rs.5000
04. Yash - Rs.4000
05. Surendra Kumar Meena - Rs.3500
06. Vikas - Rs.2500
07. Divyanshu - Rs.2500
08. Sumeet - Rs.2500
09. Ikal - Rs.2500
10. Mahesh Chandra Sharma - Rs.2500
11. Balajiganapathi - Rs.1500
12. Amit Karmakar - Rs.1500
13. Saransh Bansal - Rs.1500
14. Kunal Jain - Rs.1500
15. Anil Kishore - Rs.1500
16. Ravi Villuri - Rs.1000
17. Ravi Kiran - Rs.1000
17. Tasnim khan - Rs.1000
19. Vimal poonia - Rs.1000
20. Abhijith Reddy D - Rs.1000

Global:

01. Tomasz Czajka - $300
02. Gennady Korotkevich - $225
03. ChenGaoyuan - $150
04. Dmytro Dzhulgakov - $100
05. Oleg - $75
06. Anton Lunyov - $50
07. Adrian Kuegel - $50
08. Tao Zhao - $50
09. Tanaeem - $50
10. Mark Greve - $50

Congratulations to all of you that won this month and all the best to everybody for the next competition which begins in only 3 days!

If there is anything that you would like to let us know then do comment on this blog post or send in an email to feedback@codechef.com

Cheers,
Basil

P.S. Winners will be contacted shortly.

Hi guys,

The July 2010 Cook-Off, our first ever attempt at a short contest format has now successfully come to an end. This was quite an exciting moment for us and we hope you all had as much fun with it as we did. Successful submissions to the contest started to pour in, in under 30 minutes, proving that we have some highly skilled coders participating on CodeChef.

BLOG POST UPDATE:

Here are the top 20 best performers of the Cook-Off:

1. Gennady Korotkevich
2. Anton Lunyov
3. Balrog
4. Alex
5. Yaroslav Tverdokhlib
6. Wu Yin
7. Takuya Akiba
8. Mayorov Mikhail
9. Mike Mirzayanov
10. Ruslan Gatin
11. Tanaeem
12. Ivan Mistreanu
13. Yash
14. Balakrishnan Varadarajan
15. Burdakov Daniel
16. Rahul Gulati
17. Jaindson Valentim Santana
18. Evgeni
19. Namit D. Shetty
20. Efime

Take a look at the contest rankings here: http://www.codechef.com/rankings/COOK01

At the end of the contest the total submissions are as follows:

1) Head Office Building:  10 successful submissions

2) Ripple-Carry Adder: 18 successful submissions

3) The Black and White Knights: 40 successful submissions

Contest Statistics:

Congratulations to all of you and thank you all for participating. This short contest format is an experiment that we are running so we would really appreciate all the feedback you can get. if you would like us to have more contests in this format in the future then please let us know.

We would also like to show our appreciation for our contest moderators, problem setters and tester. David Stolp, AnhDQ, Zac Friggstad and Varun Jalan, thank you for all the help in running a smooth contest.

Make sure you all check out the contest problem editorials here.

Winners of the contest will be contacted on Monday.

Cheers,
Basil