Code Jam History

2012 saw a big jump in the number of competitors who tried to solve at least one problem in the Qualification Round; perhaps because they were amused by the very silly Speaking in Tongues. In any case, we had 20,613 contestants give the contest a whirl, from 149 countries and regions, using 73 programming languages.

This year's Online Round winners were a mix of the familiar and the up-and-coming. Canada's SnapDragon took Round 1A, a strong showing in his first time competing in, rather than preparing, a Code Jam since 2006; he would finish the contest in 8th. Belarussian phenomenon Gennady.Korotkevich took his first round win in 1B. He was high-enough ranked, but ineligible, for the Finals this year (at 17 years of age) and in 2010 (at 15); but he turns 18 in September, which should be making his opponents very nervous.

Belarus's mystic, who spent 2011 putting in an incredible three 2nd-place finishes–including one in the Finals–won Round 1C. Japan's hos.lyric won Round 2, showcasing his skills in the language D; he would eventually finish 5th in this year's finals. Russia's EgorKulikov, 2010's champion, took Round 3 and would finish the competition in 15th.

The finals were held in New York City this year, and provided sweet recompense for Poland's Jakub Pachocki (meret). In 2011, a single-character bug knocked him from first place into third. This year, knowing that one of his submissions was wrong, he saw himself in fourth place at the end of the contest. Jakub, however, wasn't the only contestant with a wrong answer. misof's D-large was wrong; as was eatmore's. Burunduk1, who appeared to be safely in the lead, had three incorrect submissions.

With those three competitors out of the way, Jakub rose into first place, and earned the title of Code Jam Champion—as well as a hefty $10,000. Rising up with him into second place was the United States's Neal Wu (neal.wu), and hanging on for third place was Slovakia's Michal Forišek (misof).

Perhaps it was the prospect of a trip to Tokyo that drove record numbers of contestants to compete in Google Code Jam 2011. We saw a record high of 14,397 competitors from 130 countries and regions, using 62 programming languages.

Our Online Round winners this year were all old favourites: krijgertje, rng..58 and Burunduk1 were among their number. linguo, who this year used 12 different languages to compete, won Round 3, after 2008-09 champion acrush took Round 2.

Our finals this year were held in Tokyo, Japan, in the Google office there. If you haven't been to Tokyo, we wholeheartedly recommend it; and if you can, bring 25 intense, brilliant friends. The problem set for the finals was one of our favourites. It featured two non-traditional problems, Program within a Program and Ace in the Hole, both of which stumped our contestants. Russia's eatmore was quick to realize we'd overvalued E-small, and solved it only 36 minutes in; unfortunately for him, the other contestants saw his submission and caught on, and it ended up being solved by more people than any other dataset.

At the end of the round, but before we'd revealed the results of judging, Poland's Jakub Pachocki (meret) stood alone at the top of the scoreboard. Judgement after judgement flicked by, with not a single wrong answer, until we finally got to Jakub's B-large... and it was the only submission to fail, due to a single-character error that dropped him to third place.

Japan's Makoto Soejima (rng..58) stood supreme at the top of the scoreboard, having spent more than half of the contest becoming the only person to correctly solve problem E. He added A to his tally with half an hour left in the contest to put him over the top. He takes home $10,000 and the title of Code Jam Champion!

Belarus's Ivan Miatselski (mystic) rounded out the top three, with all of problem A and a strategically-chosen set of Small solutions.

2010 saw a few new Code Jam records. More people competed (12092); more passed the Qualification Round (8308); more countries and regions were represented (125); and more programming languages were used (53) than ever before. One of our favourite Code Jam traditions, started in 2008 by polyglot contestant Linguo, kept going strong this year: a number of contestants used several different, often unsuitable, programming languages to solve the problems in the qualification round.

We saw a lot of new faces at the top of rounds this year: rng..58, Gluk, ZhukovDmitry and Burunduk1 all won rounds for the first time; but no Code Jam would be complete without a round win from South Africa's Bruce Merry (bmerry), who took Round 2.

The finals, held in Dublin, Ireland, were intense. First place changed hands several times, with defending champion ACRush grabbing the lead and holding onto it for several minutes; meanwhile the Netherlands' Erik-Jan Krijgsman (krijgertje) hid near the bottom of the scoreboard, with solutions to A, B and D ready to submit. When he submitted those solutions, Erik-Jan vaulted into a high score that would ultimately net him second place. Russian contestant Burunduk1 took a risk and went after The Paths of Yin Yang; he was ultimately the only contestant to solve the Small, a tough problem in its own right, which moved him up from fourth to his final third-place finish.

In the end, the day belonged to new Code Jam Champion Egor Kulikov (Egor), one of two contestants to fully solve four problems and one of the brave few to make progress on Ninjutsu.