programming contest 2010 - results

http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~hilfingr/programming-contest/ :

 1  ilikerps (Aaron Davidson): 4 problems in 61068 sec. with 13 submissions
 2  Jamie_ (James Li): 3 problems in 31523 sec. with 8 submissions
 3  ctest-ae (Andrew Fisher): 3 problems in 35282 sec. with 7 submissions
 4  dnspies (David Spies): 2 problems in 13697 sec. with 3 submissions
 5  xliu156 (Xingyan Liu): 2 problems in 16307 sec. with 3 submissions
 6  cs61a-ux (Igor Proskurin): 2 problems in 17680 sec. with 2 submissions
 7  cs61c-dp (Thomas Marshall): 2 problems in 20917 sec. with 4 submissions
 8  ctest-ai (Tobin Fricke): 2 problems in 21002 sec. with 2 submissions
 9  cs61a-jl (Chenyu Zhao): 2 problems in 23497 sec. with 2 submissions
10  ide (James Ide): 2 problems in 24949 sec. with 3 submissions
11  ricshin (Eui Chul Shin): 2 problems in 26327 sec. with 4 submissions
12  toriath (Ken Cheng): 2 problems in 29635 sec. with 3 submissions
13  ctest-ad (Do Nguyen): 2 problems in 33626 sec. with 7 submissions
14  cs162-ad (Brandon Liu): 1 problems in 12942 sec. with 1 submissions
15  alanchoi (Alan Choi): 1 problems in 13932 sec. with 4 submissions
16  cs162-bu (Andrew Lee): 1 problems in 17998 sec. with 2 submissions
17  meastham (Michael Eastham): 1 problems in 18200 sec. with 2 submissions

Every time this rolls around I am reminded just how rusty my programming abilities are. The two problems I solved had a physics flavor to them: estimating the maximum distance between any pair of points given a large number of points; and solving for the voltages at every node of a rectangular grid of resistors. Meanwhile, I had to think a long time to solve the problem that everyone else solved, with a simple recursive solution.

On one hand I really like the contest-style problems (short and sweet), but on the other--well, there is a certain fatigue to solving problems that essentially hinge on it being a lot of work to do anything interesting in straight C without a lot of time or libraries. I expect Hilfinger will allow Python in the future, which I imagine could really change things up.

lunch in İstanbul, Turkey

A highlight of my trip to Turkey was the $1 ferry ride across the Bosphorous (from Europe to Asia!) and finding this great restaurant, Çiya Sofrası at Güneşlibahçe Sk. 43 in Kadıköy. Pictured here: meat balls with sour cherry, dolmas in yogurt, and a chick pea soup.