Topcoder: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:17, 29 November 2006

Revision as of 04:00, 10 December 2006

Line 41:

TopCoder has been hosting algorithm competitions since [[2001]]. Each contest consists of four phases:

* '''Coding phase''' (75 minutes): Coders write programs to solve three short problems using [[C++]], [[Java_programming_languageJava (programming language)|Java]], [[C_Sharp|C#]], or [[Visual Basic]]. Each problem set consists of an easy, medium, and hard question, the difficulty of which is reflected in each problem's point value. The problems' point values vary from match to match; a common point value distribution is 250-500-1000. Also, the quicker a coder writes a given problem, the more points that coder gets.

* '''Intermission''' (5 minutes): After the coding phase ends, there is a short break before the challenge phase begins. This time can be used to think of challenge cases.

Line 55:

TopCoder hosts design and development competitions in which coders can compete to create [[software componentry|component]]s and [[application software|applications]] that are either generally useful, or that third parties have contracted for.

TopCoder design and development competitions are week-long competitions. New components are posted every Wednesday, and coders can choose a component from a list of [[Java (programming language )|Java]] and [[Microsoft .NET|.NET]] components, and they have a week to design or develop their chosen component. Each week new components are posted. Development components are generally components that have been designed in a previous component design contest.

==Marathon Matches==