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

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

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

Hello all,

We would like to thank everyone who participated in our July contest despite the problem of exposed solutions. It only goes to reinforce our belief that there are those among us who love to solve problems and love to compete, irrespective of the prize money and irrespective of who cheats. You are the guys we built CodeChef for. You rock!

Secondly, we have identified the account TeamCyclone, thanks to our diligent Sysad team. We regret to announce that it belongs to our long-term associate Varun Jalan, and Pratik Tandel. The evidence trail points at Varun Jalan, who, upon questioning, named Pratik.

We have always trusted Varun, had problem-setting contracts with him, and welcomed his counsel regarding CodeChef on occasions. At his request, we revealed the solutions of the problems LCM and HAPPY to him. We view his behavior as a serious breach of trust and contract. We had sponsored Pratik for the ACM ICPC finals. We are disappointed that in a misguided attempt, they have tried to undermine our efforts to run the last few contests.

We have spoken to both of them, and they have acknowledged their involvement. They have admitted the error of their ways. We do not want to take any action against them, in the hope that they will not repeat such a gross mistake. Since this is also a legal matter, our legal team will be investigating the issue fully and will be deciding on a course of action to safeguard Codechef’s interests in the long-term.

Meanwhile lets put these events behind us and look forward to having a great time! We are excited at the launch of our new short contest format.

Cheers,
The Codechef Team.
—-

PS - We harbor no grudges against anyone. If anything we feel disappointed. We hope both Varun and Pratik see the demerits of their actions and use their potential for the benefit of the community going forward.

—-

Blog Updated: The acceptance and apology mails sent to us after we spoke to them:

Varun says:

I strongly regret the outcomes that this actions of ours have caused. After my discussion with Anup and Bhavin, I have been convinced that my misguided actions have undone a lot of hard work put in by many people working on the Codechef team and the problem-setters. After discussions I have concluded that these means do not justify the reasons that I have stated. I apologize to the community for any inconvenience caused, and I understand that it must be a very hard time for all of you. I hope that you will forgive me over a course of time, for these wrong actions.”

Dear Codecheffers,

We created CodeChef to encourage you improve your programming skills. Competing and interacting with programmers all over the world is an exciting way to get better. After finishing a contest, it’s fascinating to compare your work with others. Doing so helps you learn how to make your code better in the future. On the other hand, copying someone else’s work teaches you next to nothing.

That’s why it’s so disheartening to find out that one of our contest participants has been publishing answers before the contests are over. In addition, this programmer has put up instructions for how to mask your answers. Actions like these undermine the integrity of our contests. Not only do they make CodeChef unfair, but they make contests less fun.

The participant who’s giving away the answers, “Stefan Kyznetsov,” apparently thinks that all code should be open source — even our contests. However, “open source” does not mean the same as “Piracy.” While touting “open source,” Stefan is actually promoting plagiarism.

Furthermore, he is attempting to discourage people from learning by participating in contests. He doesn’t think that people can or should learn by solving problems. He thinks our contest prizes are a waste of money. He feels that by “hiding” our code for 10 days before we reveal our solution, we oppose the very concept of open source. How he has come to this last conclusion is beyond us. CodeChef is a not-for-profit, educational organization designed to challenge people to get better at programming. Our platform is free and open to anyone in the world.

We know there are lots of you out there who love CodeChef. If you’re game, we strongly encourage all of you to help us solve this problem.

Here’s our first step:

Tell Everyone Who Stefan Is and How to Contact Him.

If you know who Stefan is or how to contact him, let everyone know. Tell everyone his name, email addresses, chat IDs, phone numbers, IP addresses, and any other contact info you have. If you’re uncomfortable telling everyone, then just tell us anonymously by emailing feedback@codechef.com. We promise we won’t reveal your identity.

Once we know how to contact Stefan, we would ask everyone on CodeChef to explain to him why you oppose his actions.

We have some contact info about Stefan, but we’re not sure how reliable it is.

• In his last post, he mentioned that he was a math “guy from Novgorod State University”.
• Also, here is his Facebook profile: http://www.facebook.com/people/Stefan-Kyznetsov
• Additionally, he has been using this email address: team.cyclon3@gmail.com

Again, we really don’t know if “Stefan Kyznetsov” is a real name or whether any of our information about him is reliable. If you have any other solutions, we encourage you to submit them in the comments section below.

One Last Thing:

To build real software, you need to be creative, resilient, and smart. Copiers who can’t create original solutions won’t build the next generation of software. They may snatch a few dollars here and there, leeching off other people’s hard work. But they won’t get any better and they certainly won’t build anything great.

In other words, find your own solutions. Otherwise, you’re just wasting your time.

Now put on your WHITE HAT and help us solve this problem!

~ Team CodeChef.

Hi guys,

The June 2010 Challenge was marred by quite a few incidents that has made picking the winners of this contest quite a challenge. Here are the Top 20 Indian and the top 10 Global winners that we feel are eligible for prize money. This list differs from our ranking table so please take a look at it carefully.

NOTE: Since Vimalkumar does not live in India, he has been shifted from the Indian Winners list to the Global Winners list. This has resulted in some modifications to our list of winners.

India:

1.  Keshav Dhandhania - Rs.10000
2.  Surendra Kumar Meena - Rs.7000
3.  Yash - Rs.5000
4.  Arunabh Trivedi - Rs.4000
5.  Ravi Kiran - Rs.3500
6.  Rajiv Kumar Aggarwal - Rs.2500
7.  Namit D. Shetty - Rs.2500
8.  rhizwanhudda - Rs.2500
9.  Saransh Bansal - Rs.2500
10. Abhijith Reddy D - Rs.2500
11. Imran Khan - Rs.1500
12. Pankaj Kumar - Rs.1500
13. Arijit Banerjee - Rs.1500
14. Rishikesh Dwivedi - Rs.1500
15. vikas - Rs.1500
16. Shrey Banga - Rs.1000
17. Deepak  - Rs.1000
18. Harish Narware - Rs.1000
19. Ritesh Srivastava - Rs.1000
20. Pratham Khandelwal - Rs.1000

Global:

1.  Mark Greve - $300
2.  Tomaz Hocevar - $225
3.  Anton Lunyov - $150
4.  Dmytro Dzhulgakov - $100
5.  Michael Dorfling - $75
6.  Chaemon - $50
7.  Trinh Tuan Phuong - $50
8.  Vimalkumar - $50
9.  Wenyu Cao - $50
10. Kyungmin Min - $50

Contest Statistics:

Congratulations to all of you that won this month and all the best to everybody for the next competition!

(Edited by Admin)

We do not encourage cheating and despise this act in every way, however, we do not like the negativity associated with branding someone a cheater either.

This blog post has been edited to remove the names of those whose code were similar to the leaked code. We are sorry if anyone may have been falsely accused. We would like to move on from this unfortunate episode and on to many more quality contests in the future.

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!

We’re very excited to announce 2 CodeChef contests this July!

In addition to our normal monthly contest, we’re hosting a 2.5 hour “Cook-Off” contest. The Cook-Off will include 3 problems:

• An appetizer
• A main course, and
• A dessert.

We’ll release the problems at 9:30 pm (Indian Standard Time) on July 24th and accept answers until 12:00 am (IST) on July 25th. Once we tabulate the results, we’ll award brand new CodeChef t-shirts to the top 20 contestants globally.

Why are we offering a new contest? Because you asked for it! Over the past few months, we’ve received lots of requests for shorter contests from coders, problem setters, and problem testers. In response, we brought your feedback into the kitchen and got the Chef to concoct this new contest format.

We see the Cook-Off as a new type of challenge. While our monthly contests require relentless effort and creativity, the Cook-Off demands quick thinking and sharp focus. If you think you can cook up algorithms faster and better than anyone else, we respectfully invite you to PROVE IT!

As with all first iterations, our first Cook-Off is an experiment (beta-mode). As such, we encourage you to comment and ask us questions about it. If the results are encouraging, we will consider hosting more short contests on a more frequent basis.

Now get into the kitchen and start practicing!

CodeChef  Cook-Off

• Saturday, 24th July
• 9:30 pm to 12:00 am (Indian Standard).
• 3 problems

1. One Appetizer
2. One Main Course
3. One Dessert

Cheers,
Team CodeChef

Hi CodeCheffers,

Today, Directi is pleased to announce the Go for Gold Project, an extensive plan designed to make Indian programmers the best in the world.

We want an Indian team to win the ACM-ICPC contest, the most competitive programming challenge in the world.  We know achieving this won’t be easy (to date, the highest any Indian team has finished is 29th). To encourage our young programmers we are providing the following incentives to students and colleges.

• We will award The Go for Gold Cup to the Indian team that finishes at a higher rank than any other Indian team has reached, in the history of ACM-ICPC.
• The winning team will also take home a significant cash prize, which starts at 5 lakhs and increases every year that it is unclaimed.
• Directi is partnering with IIT-Kanpur and Amrita University – the two institutes that host the ACM ICPC regionals in India. In the future, we plan to
• sponsor other college programming contests across the country as well.
• Coaching and support will be arranged by us for our budding programmers, including intensive training sessions for top teams eventually.
• We will sponsor the teams that qualify for the ACM ICPC world finals, including airfare, accommodation, team uniforms, and more.

Learn more at http://www.codechef.com/goforgold

Directi’s Educational Initiatives: http://wiki.directi.com/display/corp/Educational+Initiatives

Cheers,
Team CodeChef

Hi guys,

Due to the inappropriate activities that so evidently took place in this months contest, we will take a few days to declare the real winners of this competition.

The solutions of the contestants will be manually checked to see if there has been any copying/modification of code. People caught cheating in this contest will not be eligible for prizes and will be banned from the upcoming contests as well.

This process will take a few days and in the mean time we would request participants to be honest about their actions in the contest so that we can reconsider the repercussions.

Regards,
Team CodeChef

P.S. Make sure you check out the editorials to this month’s contest problems here.