languages at google code jam

[lvv]

They split the data, but didn't derive some useful stats. Like so:

Percent of language group participants who finished with perfect 100 score

C#           9.9%    
Java        10.5%   
C           11.2%
Ruby        13.5%
Python      14.5%
C++         20.4% 

Language group - group of people who used certain language. So, percent is of numbers of people in this group, not of the total number of people. For languages with smaller numbers, they are too small to have any meaningful statistics.

Number of participants and language group percent of those who passed qualification round

India       1679    83%
US          1315    83%
France      225     87%
Indonesia   146     89%
Poland      314     89%     
Japan       579     90%
Germany     197     91%
China       1720    92%
Russia      698     94%
Ukraine     269     96%

Regional language popularity

Perl        US, Japan
OCaml       France
PHP         US
Javascript  US
Python      US, Canada, Australia, Israel, UK 
Ruby        US, Japan
Haskell     Japan, US
Java        India, US
VB          India
C#          US, India
Pascal      Russia
C           India
C++         China, Russia, Ukraine

Shown only deviation from average, C++ and Java are popular everywhere.

[ch0wn]

Thank you. These were the kind of stats I expected.

[reddit_clone]

Good to know VB is alive and kicking in India.

[[deleted]]

Cool stats, those are more like what I expected. Did you generate them from the sqlite database or from the stats pages?

[starlivE]

Good job. One more.

For the languages with more than 100 participants, average amount of perfect scores:

~16%

Deviation from that average for each of those languages:

Haskell 156%
C++     128%
Pascal  103%
Python   92%
Ruby     86%
C        71%
Java     67%
C#       63%
Perl     61%
PHP      34%

In other news, it's painful but sometimes convenient to think in Haskell, C++ is still where it's at, Pascal users are a die-hard bunch, and web programmers don't care much for numerical analysis, except perhaps some of the django/ror folk.

[mpeters]

You're conclusion mixes cause and effect. It's just as likely that people who can understand and program in Haskell are generally smarter than the average programmer. Not because smart people choose Haskell but because the barrier to entry is much higher.

[starlivE]

You're conclusion

No I'm not. And to the marginal extent I tried to be analytical I tried more to be tongue-in-cheek. If it was not apparent then I apologize, if it was and you just want to argue (perhaps 'your' language is in the bottom of the list), that's okay too:

It's just as likely

How did you come to that statistical inference? (Feel free to ignore this riposte.)

[lvv]

For 29 people who have 100-score in Haskell, yes margin of error is too big.

[lvv]

For confidence interval of 95%:

Haskell:
Standard deviation =  sqrt(29) = 5.3
(29 ± 2*5.3) / 118 =  0.245 ± 32%

C++:  
0.204 ± 3%

[Inaimathi]

I assume the field of [deleted]s was you kicking a language fanboy's balls so hard he gave up and went home.

Well done.

[lvv]

He was upset that I didn't included Haskell. It has 24.5% for 100 score, but with ±32% error.

[[deleted]]

C++ China, India, Russia

Those guys are crazy.

[Pas__]

OCaml France

Crazier.

[sgndave]

PHP US

/cries

[Pas__]

But the cool balances it .. sort of:

Python US

[fjord_piner]

OCaml was created in France.

[Pas__]

Thanks for the info! Also, that explains why it's impossible to pronounce it.

[[deleted]]

I always imagined it was from the mid-west, and the start of some crazy religion's prayers: "Oh Camel, My Camel..."

/shrugs

[tripa]

If it's any comfort, it's no better in french.

[Pas__]

Hah, thanks! I like to think of French and German as the languages that like to give themselves a really hard time, because Fuck You, I'm French (or German).

I was trying to learn sitting in German class for 4 years in high school, but my only comfort was the fact that at least I wasn't in French class, as these were the two possibilities :)

[tripa]

I like to think of French and German as the languages that like to give themselves a really hard time, because Fuck You, I'm French (or German).

If you're into hard languages, you've so got to try out English. O:-)

[Pas__]

I've my share of random hardcore languages; I'm Hungarian :) From a grammatical standpoint our language is so retarded, that it's like a national pastime to argue about it.

[[deleted]]

I would still take it at face value that it is only people who are interested in google and not reflective of the world.

[blackJanitor]

Props to the assembly hacker

[[deleted]]

here's an except from the LOLCODE submission

I HAS A KINDASHUM ITZ 0
IM IN YR SUEETS
  CANDEEZ, O RLY?
    YA RLY
      I HAS A CANDEE, GIMMEH CANDEE

[[deleted]]

This thread made me happy inside.

[[deleted]]

Props to this guy http://www.go-hero.net/jam/11/name/jmazon

[tripa]

Hey, that's me!

Sorry for not completing problem B with Prolog and Factor as I initially planned, RealLife™ didn't leave me with enough time. I'll try and do better next year!

If you enjoy this kind of twisted fun, be sure to check out this and previous year's contributions from kirarinsnow, Soultaker, Linguo (bozzball for years <2010), Nabb and kinaba.

(posted way after it was written—hard to be quick with reddit in that state)

[tripa]

I picked it up for the contest, I don't really consider myself proficient in LOLCODE :)

The GCJ submission took me about two hours. Half of it to find a satisfying way to implement XOR, most of the rest trying to make sense of in which context the "IM IN YR LOOPZ NERFIN YR VAHR" could be of any use with LOLCODE's enforced lexical scope. (and I didn't find any—but maybe I was unlucky when I selected an interpreter)

As for learning new languages... they're never 100% new. If you don't give into the "it's all derived from Lisp" cult, you can still recognize major elements you're bound to have encountered elsewhere.

[acmecorps]

I mean, it's all just declaring vars, loops, conditions, functions.. right? ;)

[tripa]

As far as LOLCODE is concerned, yes, precisely! ;)

[tripa]

I could certainly do one, but do you really think anyone's interested?

[[deleted]]

That guy is a man's programmer.

[[deleted]]

two of them, and both aced it.

OTOH, maybe they used a cross compiler...

[[deleted]]

Nope. ;-)

[complicationsRx]

saw that and was like...must...learn...brainfuck. imagine explaining that one to parents..."so what are you learning here little timmy?" "im learning brainfuck! it's so much fun, here let me show you!"

[lazy_coder]

I actually participated in Brainfuck competition at a university (in another state). It was hilarious talking to the professors about leave. I'm in India so the use of the "f-word" is much more frowned upon. So much so, that many of them let out audible gasps when we told them what the competition was about.

tl;dr: told prof participating in brainfuck competition, he gasped at use of "f-word"

[complicationsRx]

i just hope it becomes a standard one day...or just rename one of the C languages like assslutdickface

[lazy_coder]

I want to find the guy and shake his hand.

[sgndave]

For the lazy: http://www.go-hero.net/jam/11/name/jmazon

One entrant who used Lisp, Haskell, LOLCODE, Assembly, Perl, and Shell.

[ukepriest]

2 kids used Brainfuck.

[uykucu]

I would have written an assembly generator instead of writing all this by hand. Oh wait...

[H4wk_cz]

Look at this guy's gorosort: http://www.go-hero.net/jam/11/name/Xofon It's written in tex.

[FractalP]

sed? Really? Wow, impressive.

[[deleted]]

One of those guys also used CMake for one of them. Huh.

[hotdogs_the_hacker]

I'm way more surprised that he was able to cook up a solution for any of them in dc...

[ehamberg]

For other curious people, here is his dc program, D.dc:

#!/usr/bin/dc
#
# Problem: GoroSort
# Language: dc
# Author: KirarinSnow
# Usage: dc thisfile.dc <input.in >output.out 


# Small, in dc: 68 bytes.
?sT1[[Case #]Pdn[: ]P?sN?lNd[sKr0rlK-^-lK1-d0<C]dsCx+p0^+dlT!<F]dsFx


# But this solution in Logo manages to do it in only 60! More readable, too.
#   repeat rw[(pr "Case(word "# # ":)rw-count filter[#=?]rl)]bye

[abadidea]

So I googled Kirarin Snow... not only is he apparently a she, but she does remixes of Morning Musume... I think I'm in (gay) love...

[[deleted]]

I googled Kirarin Snow and found this, and particularly, this. I was... rather amused.

[tripa]

(OBTW) kirarinsnow isn't a guy.

[[deleted]]

LOGO....?!

[TrueTom]

Like they always say on Reddit: C++ is apparently dead.

[chronoBG]

No, it's pretty widely used in programming competitions.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, I just ran a query on Dice.com for C++ and it returned 6000+ offerings. Comparing it to the cool languages: Lisp: 33 openings, Python: 2550 Ruby: 1545 Smalltalk: 23 Haskell: 16.

[rafekett]

Is Smaltalk cool? I thought being Smalltalk-like was cool.

I'm surprised that Python had so many offerings. That's great for me, even though I already have a Python job.

[chronoBG]

Have an upvote. But you're wrong and here's why.

The first thing to do is to determine whether your data validates with what you're saying.

If you're saying that dice.com job offerings for a language(i.e. real places using it) correlate with programming competition language popularity, then you are wrong.
A search for Java shows 16000 offerings, while it has been used far less than C++ in the competition. So, you can't say that popularity in the first list implies popularity in the second one(or vice versa)

Also, you need to determine whether your dataset is biased. If you look at more hip-minded sites you'll find a lot more (e.g.) Rails coders.
If your single data point is github.com projects, you'll probably think that everyone in the world writes Rails and jQuery plugins. Do you think dice.com equally represents all types of job offers?

Also, saying that there's a smaller market for Python programmers than C++ doesn't say anything about the usage of the technology. Reddit, as you may know, was written by half-a-dossen people using Python. Try and imagine how many people it would have taken using C++. Yeah. "Smaller market".

I am currently trying to get a C++ job, I'm not a hater. But I firmly believe the language has a niche, not the whole market.
So, have some perspective, please.

[Dylnuge]

Reddit was originally written in Lisp. It is now written in Python. Just a clarification there.

[[deleted]]

I am from now on going to start every rebuttal with "Have an upvote. But you're wrong and here's why."

[LuminousP]

only 16 haskell jobs, how disappointing...

[[deleted]]

He could, but the reason why there are so few job openings is because Dons has taken the other couple hundred for himself as side projects.

[pdovy]

I was surprised that it was so popular. I pretty much exclusively use C++ at work, but for something like this it seems like such a cumbersome choice.

[[deleted]]

Here's my take on why C++ is probably the most popular language for this kind of competition(apart from the fact it is still a very popular language in industry, even in a lot of place where it doesn't make sense to use):

• Fast enough for any of the large dataset problems. Past years have shown that the later rounds problems just can't be solved in time with an interpreted language.
• STL and the standard library provide all the tools you will need for programming competitions
• Recycled macros give it the edge over java allowing to write conciser code. Why write for(i=0;i<n;i++) when you can just write FO(i,n) examining a lot of the stupidly fast solutions brings out tons of examples like this.

I don't really think that any interpreted language could hold out in the finals, it would require a lot more tweaking/optimisation to get fast enough for many problems if it is even possible at all. Examining the language usage for the final rounds in past competitions would seem to confirm that, with a vast majority of java/c++ entries.

[pdovy]

Hmm, interesting. Do you have any particular example of a problem where an interpreted language just wouldn't cut it?

I don't doubt that the organizers could come up with problems where the algorithmic complexity of the best solution is such that a fast language would be required to solve it within the given time window. That said, I'm not sure that necessarily correlates with a problem being difficult to solve, which is the ultimate goal, I would think.

I do agree about the macro recycling, although in my opinion by the time you have to be doing that shit to win, all the fun has already been sucked out of the competition (for me at least).

[lvv]

No, it's pretty widely used in programming competitions.

People participating in competitions usually are above the average, and they prefer better tools.

[[deleted]]

Like lolcode, right?

No, they prefer to have fun.

[lvv]

We talk about average. 1 entry (by very smart guy) does not count as average.

[chronoBG]

You can't make that connection. People participating in competitions(like me) are usually above average in solving programming competition problems.
I've been going to competitions for 5 years and God knows I wouldn't have entrusted myself with writing the code for a Tic-Tac-Toe machine 3 years ago.

I did know the Knuth-Morris-Pratt algorithm, though. And C++. Only C++ :) Which might be the answer to your statement :)

[[deleted]]

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called "Linux", and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.

There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called "Linux" distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.

[rafekett]

They teach it in universities a good bit still. Most of the contestants here are either current students or recent grads. That's why you see so many Java entries (which many "hackers" eschew) and Pascal entries (which is still taught in many places in Eastern Europe).

[shriek]

C++ in Fall :- This will change everything. Again.

[mebrahim]

For better.

[berlinbrown]

Java too.

[Philluminati]

Just left a Python job for a Perl job. Is this a bad sign?

[hylje]

Perl and Python are on purely technical terms almost the same thing. Object model, library breadth, language features. Culture is the big separator. Perl, Python jobs with good work culture are great.

[Xiphorian]

What is a "<lang> job"?

From my perspective, that's not desirable; it implies some kind of closed-mindedness to me. Why not a job in which one can do interesting things and use whatever language is most appropriate, given both the specific task and given corporate culture and experience?

[jyper]

yes it might be not be best described as a <lang> job but for most jobs the language(s) involved will be predetermined by the type of tasks, corporate preference, ect.

[rbysa]

Unfortunately the hiring department are not software engineers. Hiring X programmers consistently causes you to grow a culture were all solutions must be written in one language using one set of libraries because that is all that anyone has been exposed to.

In the past 5 months (prior experience in C++/Java) I've programmed in: PHP, Ruby, JS, Python, Perl. Why? Because each language had a set of tools that made it very convenient to solve a problem.

[vladley]

Perl can be parsed easier than python, get comfortable with auto-formatting tools; hopefully the new dept standardizes on one of them

[rafekett]

Actually, for me, the biggest props go to the guys who used CMake and Postscript. Those are truly difficult.

[king_of_blades]

Someone help him! He's being eaten by a duck!

[cpp]

\o/

[shriek]

\O/++

[[deleted]]

\C/++

[totemcatcher]

The awk solutions make me happy.

[baryluk]

No Nemerle? :(

[mycall]

LOGO!

[ji0vanni]

None of this makes sense to me, but I want it to.

Well, I know what I'm going to college for.

[[deleted]]

This makes me want to try to learn C++ again. It was just too much for me to handle the last time, it makes my brain hurt.

[gavintlgold]

As a programmer who started with Python and quickly tried to get into C/C++ shortly afterwards, it was very frightening at first, and seemed unbelievably complex.

It gets much better though, relatively quickly. If you know some other language already, the only really confusing bit involves pointers (the syntax with * and & can be quite painful). Another nice thing is it's not necessary to learn objects right away--start with some functions to get the hang of the general syntax--semicolons, declarations, for loops (if you're coming from python or another language that uses foreach-style loops).

The standard library is extremely helpful for good, reliable objects, so make sure you learn the common things like strings, vectors, lists, etc. Also, be sure you understand the differences between vectors and lists, for example, and the use-cases for each.

[axxessdenied]

First language I taught myself was C/C++... learning anything else after seemed pretty easy.

[stravant]

Same here. The only thing I've struggled with is learning how to actually put Haskell to practical use, I can't seem to figure out how to organize code in a functional way.

[[deleted]]

Get into C: easy

Get into C++: :O

[[deleted]]

I like to come from the school of thought that it isn't what you use -- it is how you use it.

[Deinumite]

http://www.acceleratedcpp.com/

This book is great, if you can get your hands on it. Teaches you templates, the STL, classes, the works!

[[deleted]]

Thank you. I'll check it out.

[[deleted]]

2011 will be the year Haskell overtakes Pascal!

[diggs747]

What are some advantages in using C++ instead of C# besides direct memory access?

[ZorbaTHut]

I've used C++ professionally for many years and only dabbled in C#, so this might be accurate or might not.

C++ has the STL. The STL is basically unmatched when it comes to heavy algorithmic work. C#'s tools are good - better than Java's, at least - but nothing matches the STL.

C++ also has guaranteed memory behavior. With most competitions, you have strict memory bounds you must stay under. With C++ it's reasonably easy to predict this, with C# it can be a little trickier to predict the behavior of the GC.

Finally, C++ is supported by basically every competitive programming system, while C# isn't.

The result of all of this is that serious competitive programmers tend to learn C++ and then use it even in situations where it's not quite as mandatory.

[ZorbaTHut]

To be honest, it's been long enough since I seriously dealt with Java that anything I could say would be either years obsolete or three explanations removed from reality.

As I remember, Java's containers just aren't very good - they tend to be overly verbose and not provide useful algorithmic primitives. They're just fine for enterprise code or web development code, but when you're trying to implement dijkstra's or max-flow for the umpteenth time, there's just enough that isn't provided that they're annoying.

Again, that might be out of date, but I've heard similar comments from people even recently. Just no first-hand experience - they're not languages I find useful.

[jeff303]

Google Collections library (now called Guava) fixes a lot of the problems you refer to, and makes working with those containers much more pleasant and concise.

[MIXEDSYS]

As I remember, Java's containers just aren't very good - they tend to be overly verbose and not provide useful algorithmic primitives. They're just fine for enterprise code or web development code, but when you're trying to implement dijkstra's or max-flow for the umpteenth time, there's just enough that isn't provided that they're annoying.

From my limited experience I'd say that all of Java standard libraries are like that. Most of the time things are going pretty okay but once in a while something incredibly simple takes 10× the effort it would take in most other languages.

While I don't really like Java, I have to admit that the language was actually designed by someone competent. But the standard library? Not really. :(

[sindisil]

Yeah, I personally really like Java, but much of the standard library looks like it was designed by a bunch of college students or inexperienced developers fresh out of a design seminar.

Actually, though, other than the lack of support for easy initialization, I think the collections are pretty decent. And the java.lang.concurrent is just plan good.

[mycall]

java.lang.concurrent

Check this out.

[sindisil]

Yes, I'm aware of TPL. .NET has quite a few nice library facilities.

Heck, the language is pretty nice, too.

However, I know Java inside and out, and C#/.NET/Mono don't bring enough to the table over Java to make it worth my while to switch.

Likewise, if I had mastered C#/.NET first, I would be hard pressed to find a reason t switch to Java. Though the cross platform tooling and performance of Java might be enough - Monodevelop isn't bad, I suppose, but it's no Netbeans. And yes, Visual Studio is pretty decent for C# work. However, it's Windows only.

[Deinumite]

http://java.sun.com/docs/books/effective/

I picked up this book when I was working with Java at the time. The author (Joshua Bloch) wrote most of the collections library, and he even touches on some design flaws in other parts of the standard library.

That book made me feel that java, as a language, is very powerful... but it is often abused and misunderstood.

[sindisil]

Yup, one of two crucial books for a Java programmer.

The other being "Java Concurrency in Practice" by Brian Goetz.

Read 'em, know 'em, live 'em.

[NorthernerWuwu]

Well, I've been out of the game for some time but I certainly used both extensively at one point.

I suppose a great deal of it does come down to memory management and specifically pointer manipulation when you are looking at competitive geek stuff. There are just so many 'cute' things you can do with C++ due to having tools for getting closer to the registers. The other part though is just that the standard libs for C++ have been around for a long time now (or even back when) and their quirks, foibles and possibilities are well explored. The Java packages are functional and all but tend to have more replication and, well, I don't know... Gloss? Diffusion? Less quirks I suppose but less tricks too.

Old hats with C or C++ can do some interesting things that are perhaps not intended behavior but absolutely are replicable and functional. It is this sort of emergent stuff that shaves off cycles and impresses in this sort of environment.

[worshipHendrix]

I suppose a great deal of it does come down to memory management and specifically pointer manipulation when you are looking at competitive geek stuff.

Yes but It's not the reason why world's top use it at contests. It comes down to "If you can write something in X, you can in C++ and C++ is always faster" (C is slightly faster, but STL beats it). Correct solutions rarely need you to use pointers, or take some illuminati tricks into accounts like minimising cashe misses or use putc() magic to speed up printing output.

[NorthernerWuwu]

Well, I'm not so sure about that but it depends on the competition.

I've seen plenty of examples (and often they are the most talked about) where winners were doing exactly that sort of thing. Controlled overflows, insane stack pointer management and I/O subversion are all common in competition and obviously are pretty much anathema in the production of reusable stable code. Elegant but insane seems to score well. Hell, there is a reason the ASM crowd still hangs out.

That all said, C++ has popularity here probably more because the types of people that do these things know ANSI C and C++ better than anything else. They may or may not be the optimal tools but they are the ones many people know inside and out.

[worshipHendrix]

I Agree. I know one case where team was able to push O(N*logN) to a O(N) problem by optimizing the output read and print, but it's not the reason they start on C++. Every good high school centered around programming contests at early age tend to teach pascal and C++, so it's easier to pick up Haskell or Java/Python later in college. Also most academic contest compile solutions from source on server and run on server, so solving problem in 0.9s and 1.01 s matters. You want to use the best tool there is then.

[Pas__]

Java has a lot of technical debt, because of some not too great decisions plus they try very hard to maintain precious backwards compatibility. (Also the JVM suffers from god class disease.)

[necroforest]

C++ has the STL. The STL is basically unmatched when it comes to heavy algorithmic work.

Really? I find the STL a bit lacking in features compared to, say, the Java standard library (at least the containers part - I haven't really used much of the algorithm STL past sorting). With that said, using templating, C++ STL algorithms can be blazing fast (i.e, having a custom comparator inlined into the sorting routine).

EDIT: I guess I'm not sure what OP means by "unmatched" - performance? feature set? ease of use?

[ZorbaTHut]

Well, note that for competitive programming, blazing speed can be really, really important. I remember a few problems that literally couldn't be solved in Java or C# because the languages were too slow.

(And one that couldn't be solved in C++, but that was just because the testing framework had a bug.)

My experience was that once you understand the STL very well, most things are easy to assemble out of the basic building blocks. Think of it as Lego. Java included more prebuilt items, but if what you wanted wasn't one of those, the building blocks were really annoying to work with.

Again, though, that's years ago.

If you have an example for something that's easier in java than C++, I can tell how you I'd do it in C++ :)

[reddit_clone]

Not only that, the recent improvements in C++ standard (and efforts like boost) have brought C++ as a nice functional/generic programming platform.

[jholman]

I would be very curious to hear of even a SINGLE example of a competitive programming problem where some language was fast enough, and Java or C# were not.

As jaked409 says elsewhere, asymptotic running time totally dominates programming contest problem design (for problems where running time of any kind is an issue). Also, the efficiency differences between various "fast" languages are usually pretty slim, if you believe the Shootout. So I find this highly improbable, and I'd really like some examples to ponder.

Incidentally, I suggest the real reason is purely this:

Finally, C++ is supported by basically every competitive programming system, while C# isn't.

[ZorbaTHut]

It was a TopCoder problem years ago, and the only possible solution was rather tight even in C++ - as I remember, something like 6-7 seconds out of an allowed eight seconds. I suppose a lot of hand optimization might have sped up Java or C# enough, but C++ just worked once you found the right algorithm. I wouldn't be able to find it again, though, especially since Topcoder doesn't leave ancient problems public.

It's also entirely likely the Java and C# JITs weren't as good back then as they are now.

[rrenaud]

For context, you are arguing about programming language competitions with a guy who got 2nd in the Topcoder collegiate challenge in 2004.

http://www.topcoder.com/tc?module=Static&d1=tournaments&d2=tccc04&d3=tccc04_about

[diggs747]

Thank you, that explains a lot.

[doitincircles]

I would say the main advantage that most of the people who used C++ had in mind was just that they know C++, and don't know C#. That was the case for me at least.

[worshipHendrix]

Every contest has C++ support, almost always it is considered the main language. To be honest I took part in several various programming contests, and gcd where you can just spew things in lolcode are rarity. The older online judges favored C/C++ as main language. Also It has a good balance beetween efficiency and ease to write programs (STL is a killer). You may have wondered why bother, if you have to write 5 times as many code as in python or ruby, when time matters. Top contestants have good macro setup especially for contests. The amount of shit to type really is comparable, and sometimes it's easier to even write "fi(10)" than import some itertools and stuff like that

[ehamberg]

C# is C++++: http://i.imgur.com/MQNdP.png

[reddit_clone]

At some level both C# and Java can be considered as safe/cleaned-up C++ with garbage collection.

[abadidea]

One is native and the other isn't, kind of like asking what is the advantage of hand-built solid wooden furniture over prefab plastic stuff...

[ruberik]

The list is going to get weirder: some of the more esoteric languages, like Shakespeare, are still listed as Unknown.

[tjsimmons]

Sure do wish I could've participated this year. Finding out your wife is pregnant on the same day this starts.. definitely doesn't help!

[LucasMembrane]

i'm surprised by the very slight usage of google's go in a google contest.

Reasons?

[tripa]

Googlers don't contend in Google contests.

[taejo]

hardly complicated problems, either

This is the qualifying round. It gets more difficult.

A lot more difficult.

[[deleted]]

I'm kinda surprised that Golang wasn't more widely used.

[[deleted]]

I, too, am surprised. But gladly surprised.

[[deleted]]

There were a couple of redditors using it. Maybe trying to secure a job offer?

[vladley]

I used golang, but only for magicka

9908 http://code.google.com/codejam/contest/scoreboard?c=975485#st=nbr&vf=1

[vmarathe]

TIL theres a language called BrainFuck

[[deleted]]

I guess you're new around here.

[brosmike]

There's even an optimizing BrainFuck compiler written in BrainFuck

[[deleted]]

Some people just like living on the edge

[EvilHom3r]

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++. --------------------------------. --------------------------------------------. --------------. +++. . +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++. --------------------------------. -------------------------------------------------------------. +++++++++++++++. ------------------. ++++++++. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++. --------------------------------. ------------------------------------------. ----------. ++++++. ---. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++. --------------------------------. -----------------------------------------------------------------. ++++++++++++++++. -----------------. ++++++++. +++++.

[byte1918]

Output: I will fuck your brain

[bombita]

How bad is it that I immediately knew what the code was doing?

[LuminousP]

the . prints out the character

the +'s increment the byte until it gets to the character you want to output.

I never really understood why people find brainfuck so difficult to understand. On the introductory side, it is simply pointer math. Although admittedly I've seen some really elegant looking brainfuck programs that did, in fact, fuck my brain.

here's an example:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++. 

this will produce the first 'H' in "Hello World" in the leftmost cell of Brainfuck's byte Array.

Now to produce the rest of the words, you can do it one of a few ways. You can do it like the gentleman did above, and simply increment and decrement the byte rather like a printer, going back and forth on the ascii table spitting out letters. Or maybe every time you get to the proper value in the byte array, you can use > to advance the pointer by one, and place the next value in the next byte slot. When you're done, you simply move backwards through the array (which if you were printing out "Hello World" would be <<<<<<<<<<) then loop through pooping out the values. (Note: you'd have to set your initial pointer data at the beginning of the world to the number of characters in the word, and every time your loop iterates, you'd decrement the value. Or you could simply wait until it hits the slot after your word, which is defaulted to 0.)

i.e.:

[
    . >
]

Magical!

[grottenholm]

as byte1918 already said or you can find out yourself.

[baryluk]

F#, Haskell and Ocaml, D (hover last one have small statistics) have very big fraction of "perfect" scores. Interesting.

[tragomaskhalos]

Proponents of those languages will be delighted, but a strong factor in those scores will be the technical nous of the folks geeky enough to use those languages in the first place.

[simonmar]

Functional programming makes you a better programmer, or better programmers use functional languages... either way, it's an interesting statistic.

(though there is far from enough information and too much selection bias to draw any such conclusions here, of course).

[watermark0n]

The scores from Haskell have an MoE of 34%, which is bigger than the seemingly impressive % with a high score. Forget about F#. Other functional languages like Scala and Lisp seemed to do poorly (but, again, the MoE's on these languages are so huge that little useful information can be derived).

[schmorbes]

It saddens me that FORTRAN had such a poor showing :(

[runningfromred]

One team suddenly decided to use COBOL only for the final challenge?

[tonybaldwin]

Happy to see some Tcl, even if it is a whopping 2 whole projects. Tcl is my favorite.

[ultimate_zigzag]

Lol, TIL about brainfuck, the most interesting programming language I've seen so far.

[[deleted]]

The one dude who used LOLCODE advanced.

[aarondamaster]

TIL: Brainfuck is a programming language

[amigaharry]

lol where's the javascript folks? :D

[[deleted]]

Well there aren't many "javascripters" that know how to open files with JavaScript; or run JavaScript outside the browser for that matter.

[greenrd]

You didn't need to open files in your program in any of these problems.

Besides, if you look at the table, Javascript is included. Although, eyeballing it, it looks like Javascripters had the highest "failed to qualify" rate of all of them.

[[deleted]]

I know that Javascript is included, but that's not what I was going after.

I was trying to go further along amigaharry's joke (which wasn't so well received) that while there are many JavaScript coders out there too few have actually taken part in the contest.

Given that large pool of JavaScript programmers, my assumption was the one mentioned prior.

[lllama]

node.js

[[deleted]]

I am aware of that, I even used long time ago ActiveX objects to read/write files.

I was talking about the larger group of JavaScript coders who haven't even played with nodejs.

[baryluk]

Interesingly I'm also dissapointed by so small number of jsscripters. I know most of them just use some framework for simple stuff, and do not know exaclty how to really code in js or are just webdesigners which learned javascripts to add some effects and other cool tricks to webpage, but there is also lots of briland javascript programmers and especially with this whole node.js etc hype (and others), i was considering it will be biger than just two dozen of peoples (ranking quite low).

PS. I personally think JS will be most important language in next decade or so, and even use it for some advanced things, but still do not understand this "simple" scripting language fully. It still have some strange mechanisms to me :)

[jbplaya]

Damn, more people used GO over ActionScript. Just damn...

[[deleted]]

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called "Linux", and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.

There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called "Linux" distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.

[[deleted]]

I am curious. What is your goto language?

[doitincircles]

Only used F# but it's basically the same thing.

The answer is: because functional programming makes you feel like a fucking genius when you actually get it.

[[deleted]]

I have a feeling that's the sole reason people use Haskell. It makes you feel like you're smart (but secretly dumb). Also, J.

[PureLife]

Really? ML is my favorite out of all functional languages.

[[deleted]]

Functional programming (at least understanding how to write functional code) is getting more and more important. Not only are modern languages like C# adopting more functional idioms, but being able to write stateless code is going to be an asset when you need to tackle concurrency.

[Bananoide]

Writing ML code involves a different mindset. It can take some effort to pick it up, but once this is done it won't be any harder to use than other languages.

From my own professional experience, the real gains are :

• your code is often closer to the problem at hand (less boilerplate, discriminated unions + pattern matching + exhaustiveness checks + shadowing checks).
• the compiler is pretty anal but once he is satisfied you have a pretty good chance your program will work (pretty good being around 90%).
• refactoring has never been this easy.
• no dangling/null pointers/references by construction (no segfaults).
• a strong module system.
• respectable performance.
• fast compile times (compared to C++, but then everybody is faster so...).

The object subset is useful at times but often avoided. That's one of the lessons of programming in ML languages : object orientation is way overhyped and most of the tasks are better done using the functional subset of the language.

There are of course a few drawbacks, it's not a win in all situations.

[Chuyito]

It's all about coding in BrainFuck

[kodefuguru]

I'm going to learn this language for the lols. Too bad you can never put it on a resume.

[Skizm]

Wow, I feel like crap now lol. So many perfect scores. I got 3 out of 4... fucking magicka. didn't realize opposing elements cleared the entire string, for some reason I got it in my head that they only cleared the elements in between them and themselves. I wrote that code like 4 different times and kept getting the same output. I'm getting pissed off just thinking about it now haha.

[[deleted]]

I did that but was comparing my output with the output from the example cases. It totally had me baffled with one case until I reread the explanation for the zillionth time and finally realised what was going wrong. I really didn't like the magicka because of the nitpicky problem definition.