This post is about a programming competition I participated in recently. Mobme Codejam...!
Mobme Codejam is the name of an online programming competition that was conducted by Kerala-based IT-firm Mobme Wireless in June 2011. It was a 14 day long event in which the questions for each day were put at a website specially designed for the event. Every day a new question is out at 11pm. Contestants have 1 day for solving the questions. The contestants can program in any of five programming languages - C, Php, Python, Ruby, Clojure. A cash prize of Rs.1000 was awarded to the daily winners & a whooping 1 Lakh for the final lucky guy...!! The Grand finale winner is Karthik R from NIT-C.
Mobme Codejam is the name of an online programming competition that was conducted by Kerala-based IT-firm Mobme Wireless in June 2011. It was a 14 day long event in which the questions for each day were put at a website specially designed for the event. Every day a new question is out at 11pm. Contestants have 1 day for solving the questions. The contestants can program in any of five programming languages - C, Php, Python, Ruby, Clojure. A cash prize of Rs.1000 was awarded to the daily winners & a whooping 1 Lakh for the final lucky guy...!! The Grand finale winner is Karthik R from NIT-C.
The questions were more dynamic/real-world type than traditional algorithmic problems. The question set is here. The philosophy is also different from other coding competitions. They look for idiomatic & elegant code. They support this view - the program is not only for the 'computers to execute' but also for the 'humans to read'. That's good..!
I just thought of giving a try when I heard of this event. And to my surprise(!!) I was selected as the daily-winner on two days(codenames: 'mirror' & 'ternary'). I used Python, my favorite programming language, for solving both. The experience was fresh to me and I loved it very much - designing & solving(googling, ofcourse..!) and submitting it in time was absolutely thrilling. You can see the daily-prize winners here. The Grand finale was held at the Mobme Wireless Office at Kochi. A few words about Mobme. It is the result of a small group of young entrepreneurs from Kerala. Ruby is the major language used by them. They have bagged innovation awards from the NASSCOM twice.
The question for finale was to write a 'generic USSD application server'. I couldnt even write a working program for that. And I took it as an alert for me to learn at least the basics of web technologies. Now I'm working on it.. ;-) The winners program didnt work either. The prize was for his design. It should have been really ingenious..! I won't say 'I was not at all disappointed'. Yes, I was. But I had many other things - My first experience inside a real software company, Interaction with the 'very friendly' CEO, CTO and other persons at Mobme(they took us to 'Hotel Presidency' in their cars for lunch), the thrill of the climax of a different coding competition & most importantly I got a chance to meet and interact with other finalists, the best programmers in Kerala..!
The next version of Mobme Codejam, probably a bigger event, would be conducted next year.
The question for finale was to write a 'generic USSD application server'. I couldnt even write a working program for that. And I took it as an alert for me to learn at least the basics of web technologies. Now I'm working on it.. ;-) The winners program didnt work either. The prize was for his design. It should have been really ingenious..! I won't say 'I was not at all disappointed'. Yes, I was. But I had many other things - My first experience inside a real software company, Interaction with the 'very friendly' CEO, CTO and other persons at Mobme(they took us to 'Hotel Presidency' in their cars for lunch), the thrill of the climax of a different coding competition & most importantly I got a chance to meet and interact with other finalists, the best programmers in Kerala..!
The next version of Mobme Codejam, probably a bigger event, would be conducted next year.
I will later put my prize winning codes here...till then byeeeee...:-)
Update: Here is the post about the solutions - http://jithusunnyk.blogspot.com/2011/09/mobme-codejam-solutions.html
Update: Here is the post about the solutions - http://jithusunnyk.blogspot.com/2011/09/mobme-codejam-solutions.html
3 comments:
Hey Jithu. Karthik here. Read through your post and i thought i should comment on it. You're now in final year right? Good luck for your career, and make sure you bag the next edition of Codejam!
Regards,
Karthik
(P.S. Thanks for the boost-up calling me 'ingenious' n all :D)
:-) Yeah, I'm in final year. I'm waiting for the next version of Codejam..;-)
And regarding your ingenuity, CTO himself told that your design was just wonderful..!
And if you blog can you put the link here?
I dont usually blog, but in case i do, i'll let you know!
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