CodeChef’s 8, mate!

“CodeChef’s turned 8 and we think that’s great! So join us and celebrate!!” – Team CodeChef

Alright, that was our attempt at writing a poem and creating a catchy party invitation for our 8th anniversary.

How did we do?

“Not good?”

Yeah, we were of the same opinion, but that’s how far our creativity with the words went. But that’s Ok, as long as you are joining us for the celebrations. You will, right? So, let’s blow the celebratory bugle, put on the party hats, and sing “Happy Birthday CodeChef” on top of our voice.

Happy Birthday, CodeChef!

With every anniversary, our love and belief for what we do grow from strength to strength. And we have no one but you to thank it for. It’s your constant affection and support that empower our beliefs and drives us forward. Hence, the cake is as much yours as it is ours. So, put on your funky outfits, party hats, and join us for the cake and the party.

Now as we sit down moving aside the balloons on the floor, with our plates overloaded with cakes and chocolates, let us take a walk down the memory lane and introspect the year gone by. But before we do that, we have to express our gratitude towards so many heroes without whom none of it would have been possible. Some familiar and famous, some working behind the scenes, all of these individuals have made the 8 fruitful years of CodeChef possible.

• First and foremost, it’s all you wonderful people. Every single one of you. We thank you for your feedback, suggestions, participation, and even for the eventual banter, for it all keeps us going. So, thank you.

• Our ministry of magicians featuring our problem setters, testers, editorialists, and the translators. It’s your spell that makes programmers of all ages and from all walks of life fall in love with us.

• The ever reliable and meticulous team at SPOJ. Your engine powers our jet. 😛

• The avid users of our discussion forum, who’s there for everyone. Be it a newbie finding her steps in the world of programming or a pro finding it hard to locate that “;” the members of the programming community, have lent their hand to all.

• The team of engineers and staff at Directi, for keeping CodeChef up and running 365×24×7.

• And finally, the CodeChef team members, former and current, new and old, our interns, for their efforts towards taking CodeChef to greater heights.

All of the aforementioned individuals can be accounted for all the amazing feats we achieved last year and will achieve in the year to come in one way or the other.  And what better way to celebrate their contribution than sharing the fruit of their hard work with you all. So, here are some figures from last year, which we think are the perfect reflection of the year we had here in CodeChef’s kitchen.

* All the data mentioned above is from March 2012 – February 2017

We love our numbers. No matter how many times we look at them, they just make us smile.

Now, to keep that smile going, let’s have a quick look at what all we at CodeChef did in the last one year, other than playing a prank on team members and fighting over pizza toppings.

• SnackDown 2016 – In our attempt to make SnackDown a truly global competition, for its 2016 edition, we flew down the global participants for the onsite competition. We were privileged to watch some of the most decorated and celebrated names from the programming community live in action, under one roof, and for the first time in India. We were like a kid in a candy store. Let’s relive some of those moments again.

• Post SnackDown 2016, in association with Indian Programming Community we conducted a three-day Indian Programming camp for the ACM ICPC aspirants in India. It was a one of its kind advanced camp featuring sessions will be delivered by some of the most eminent names from the programming fraternity including the likes of Sergey Kulik, Kevin Charles Atienza, and the senior members/mentors of the Indian Programming Community.

• With SnackDown, we also revamped our homepage and gave our kitchen a tad makeover. It was long pending, and we finally did it. There were few other changes to go with it and if you have not discovered them yet, you can read all about them now.

• https://goodies.codechef.com/ – The year 2016 got sweeter for us with the launch of our very own sweet shop. Ok, not sweet shop per se, but our goodies store. We had a lot of fun creating it and tried to have a bit more with the launch, and we think you enjoyed it too. Remember “the duck, the cube, and the ball”?

• In the latter half of the year, we hosted the ACM-ICPC India Regionals, Online Preliminary Round 2016 for all four ACM ICPC India regionals, making it one of the biggest online contest hoster by us with over 6K users joining in at once. Following the success of online round we also went ahead and hosted the onsite round for 4 of the 5 ACM ICPC India regionals.

• We also hosted the Indian National Olympiad in Informatics, 2017 (INOI-2017). The contest saw participation from over 300 school users from schools all over India.

• Furthermore, the last year was particularly good for our shorter contest formats as we strengthened our stability and were able to successfully host two of the biggest online contests in SnackDown 2016 and ACM-ICPC India Regionals, Online Preliminary Round 2016.

These are just some of the many features and things that kept us occupied all through the year. There are plenty more in the pipeline.You can expect some new developments and some new announcements all through the month of March, as we continue our anniversary celebration. So, keep watching this space and our social media stream for some really exciting announcements and launches coming your way soon.

That will be all from us for this 8th-anniversary blog, send in your birthday greetings and messages for us on our social stream with #HappyBirthdayCodeChef and we will feature the best ones on our social stream and you will stand a chance to bag some “laddus” from the chef. So, be quirky, be creative, and be funny with your messages, and send in your love for the chef.

Now, without further ado, let’s get the party started. We’ll ask the DJ to drop the beat; you put on your dancing shoes and make some noise.

– Regards

Team CodeChef