Cook-Offs – traditionally have been dominated by the big guns from programming world. The appearance of names like gennady.korotkevich, uwi, ACRush, djdolls, anudeep2011, adurysk atop the rank table has almost become a norm. The programming fraternity knows them pretty well to know their potential and what they are capable of doing when they partake in any contest. That is not to say that they are unbeatable. Like all great champions all those gentlemen and so many others have had off days at work, giving us some crunchy post contest tidbits to munch on. But the January Cook-Off 2016 was not about them. In fact it was not about many of the familiar names you might have seen on the rank tables.
So, who was it about? You ask.
Well, it’s a tale of three young programmers. But, before we move ahead, let us tell you that none of these three programmers have won the contest. And while we have immense respect for everyone claiming the top spots in our contests, we are sure that even the biggies from programming world will admire what these young lads have achieved. So, without further adieu let’s meet the programmers in question here: meteora of Chashak Gurukul (Homeschooling), animesh_f of La Martiniere for Boys, Calcutta, and rajat1603 of Delhi Public School, Dwarka.
In any field you are associated with, the desire to do better than what you did yesterday or the year passed by, is a good indicator of excellence. With just about 10 or 12 Cook-Offs under their belts, these three young programmers have grown in leaps and bounds in the past year or so to emerge as the forces to reckon with. It’s easier to get better when you are starting. However, as you master the craft, the mistakes become fewer, thus making it hard for everyone to focus on those fewer mistakes and improve on them. We’d like to believe that it’s not the case with these three youngsters. As they have a long way to go.
meteora – started the contest by cracking DESTROY inside the first five minutes and then went on to crack FRUITS and CFTREE inside the first 10 minutes. If that’s not impressive, we don’t know what is. animesh_f, started a bit late in the 15th minute of the contest, but he was quick too, to bag those three problems as well. The same was the case with rajat1603. Now, cracking the three problems inside an hour or so after joining the contest is impressive. No questions there. But what impressed us more was the fact that, all of them didn’t gave up on the contest till the very last minute. They tried their hands on the harder problem MXSM as well. And even though they could not get pass it, the sheer attempt was commendable. And we are sure very soon we will see them bagging all five from our Cook-Off.
The perseverance and dedication of these three young programmers placed them among the top 10 Indian participants from our January Cook-Off 2016. On a rank table dominated by students from some of the finest institutions and organizations in and around the world, to have three school kids is absolutely a big feat. It is also sending a good message for anyone getting started on the journey to the programming land. If you are among those getting contented by a problem or two to your name in a contest, it should serve as a fuel for you to try and bag few more. And we would love to see you doing that.
Now, we take a walk through the rank table, featuring some big names and some new names, giving a perspective to, why the performance of these young lads was so praiseworthy.
We start with ROW top 10:
Now, the Indian top 5:
Congratulations all.
And before we go forward, let us give you the final statistics for the contest.
- Total Users: 1974
- Total Submissions: 8227
- Number of distinct users with correct submissions: 1756
- Total users from India: 1094
- Total users not from India: 880
That will be all from the numbers and statistics part of the contest. Now, if you encountered any problem or doubt during the contest, that still remains unsolved, here are the editorials for the contest to help you out. Go munch on them:
We hope you enjoyed the tale of these three bright lads placing themselves in the top 10 Indian participants of the contest. We are sure that the end of the January Cook-Off 2016, will mark the beginning of greater things for them and it will motivate many new and coming programmers in the future.
That will be all from us here at CodeChef. We will come again with yet another exciting story, from yet another exciting contest.
Till next time, Sayonara.
Regards,
Rudreshwar
Team CodeChef