Industry teams will dominate the BCS Programming
Competition final for the first time in the event's 21-year history
after the most closely fought and highest quality regional heats
for years.
A good mix of industry and university teams have got through to the
final but this year there are more teams of working IT
professionals than of students.
Four of the 40-plus teams completed five problems - an unusually
high number - and three more completed four tasks. A good number
completed two or three problems.
The competition is for teams of up to five people, including a team
manager, who solve problems against the clock. This year most teams
used Java, with C++ as the next most popular language.
Eleven teams got through to the final on 16 April.
Industry is represented in the final by IBM's Hursley Laboratory,
software and services company Boss Computing, systems and services
company Capula, computer games specialist Creative Assembly, and
software consultancy Edgespace.
In addition, there is a team of people working in IT who studied
together at London's Imperial College, and a two-man team of
Manchester University graduates, one working for a PhD and the
other now in industry.
Both these teams completed five problems in the heats. The other
team to do so was one of two from the University of East Anglia,
which also achieved the highest score in the heats. Teams are
ranked by the number of problems completed and then by the shortest
elapsed time.
Past participants have praised the competition as a chance for
students to compete against IT professionals and as a teamwork and
management training exercise for working IT specialists -
especially as teams have only one PC to work with.
Ryan Sherlock of Edgespace said, "Edgespace values technical
excellence, and we decided that participating in such competitions
would be a great way to keep our fundamental computer science
skills sharp. We learned a lot in the heats this year and hope to
perform well in the final."
Sherlock competed for two years as a member of the team from
Trinity College Dublin, where he helped to organise programming
competitions at the college.
BCS chief executive David Clarke said, "The Programming Competition
has been running for over 20 years to provide a fun arena for
practitioners to demonstrate their programming prowess. It promises
a challenging and entertaining opportunity for programmers to
compete with their peers on equal terms."
This year's competition is sponsored by IBM and Microsoft.
Programming Competition finalists:
Boss Computing
Capula
Creative Assembly
Edgespace
IBM Hursley Laboratory
Former Manchester University students
Former Imperial College students
Imperial College
Trinity College Dublin
University of East Anglia
University of East Anglia 2.
The final will take place on 16 April.
More information
www.bcs.org/progcomp