So the qualifiers of the 2013 Google codejam is over. And I managed to qualify! It's both a humbling and nostalgic experience for me.
I started to learn how to program as I was greatly drawn by computer games and thought I wanted to create one or two of my own, but soon realized that its much more than knowing how to code. I couldn't create nice art, and hardest of all, a novel idea for a game.. Not to mention my then only basic skills at programming in QBASIC.
What actually got me seriously coding was joining the National Olympiad in Informatics(NOI) when I was in secondary school, where I first learnt of numerous algorithms. Honed my skills in C/C++ and manage to get myself a bronze medal on my 2nd year of joining. It was great fun, but I didn't find any opportunity to join more after that.. Until I learnt of Google codejam :)
After more than 10 years of not doing competitive programming, I guess my skills had became rather rusty, despite the need to code as my daily job. I really do think competitive programming is a far more demanding tasks as compared to typical software/algorithm development in a day job.
I qualified, but not with great results. Time to prepare and sharpen my skills. Round 1A in 12 days!
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