Etan Horowitz

November 2, 2007 Friday

Etan Horowitz, Sentinel Staff Writer

A SECTION; FLORIDA; Pg. A1

Having left the obscurity of their bedrooms, some of the world’s top college computer coders are vying today for a combined $260,000 in prize money and worldwide bragging rights.

Armed with rulers, calculators and graph paper, they have come to Orlando from all corners of the world including Japan, Poland, the Netherlands and Romania.

Abandoning their real names, they have become “ACRush,” “domino” and “cyfra.”

Their challenge? Using complex computer-science techniques to solve algorithm problems and computer design tests.

In addition to the money, doing well at the TopCoder Collegiate Challenge can mean landing a dream job at Google, Microsoft or another top technology company.

Wrapping up this afternoon at Walt Disney World’s Contemporary Resort, the event mixes the high-pressure atmosphere of a sporting event with the arcane world of computer programming.

“It’s a door opening at the highest level,” said Jim McKeown, a TopCoder spokesman.

The challenge is broken into four parts: software component design, algorithm problem solving, graphic design and a marathon match. The winner of each contest gets $15,000 to $25,000, but it’s the algorithm competition that is the main event.

During each round, contestants — most wearing T-shirts and jeans — sit at computers for about 1 1/2 hours trying to solve three complex algorithm problems.

Best of the best

To make it to Orlando, they’ve beaten out more than 2,500 coders in a series of online competitions. Although TopCoder is based in Connecticut, the majority of the players are from outside the U.S.

One exception is Yiu Yu Ho, a 23-year-old computer-science doctoral student at the University of Central Florida.

“I’ve already lost my sense of how normal people think,” Ho said. “When you do too much of this, you think in terms of how a computer will work around a problem and when you think like that, you lose track of how I used to think.”

Born in China, the soft-spoken Ho grew up in Hong Kong and came to the United States about seven years ago. He was the only American competitor in the algorithm contest and one of two Americans out of the 120 in the four challenges.

Ho started using a computer when he was 6 years old and began coding when he was 16.

On Thursday, Ho was eliminated from the competition.

Some of this week’s problems include building an algorithm to compute all the different ways to arrange songs in a music collection, figuring out the most cost-effective way to build police stations at different spots in a city and several other problems too complex to even describe.

Speed is a factor

Each problem is worth a different point value and the faster contestants solve them, the more points they get.

When the competitors began Wednesday, there were 48 people in the algorithm competition. That field has been whittled to eight who will compete this afternoon for the championship.

During each contest, other players and spectators crowd around computer monitors that display what competitors are doing.

To the casual observer, what appears on each screen doesn’t make any sense. But to those in the know, every bracket, equal sign or number on the screen elicits a strong reaction and commentary.

To take home the championship, a TopCoder not only has to solve the problems correctly but also has to be strategic in deciding which problems to tackle first and must keep an eye on how quickly the others are solving the problems.

“I think of it as 3-D chess,” McKeown said.

TopCoder began holding the coding challenges about five years ago as way to find potential employees.

“To us, they all seem to be pretty much top technical talent,” said Alicia Schwartz, a human-resources business partner at Deutsche Bank, one of the event’s sponsors.

Pageantry and drama

At this week’s competition, it was easy to see similarities to a sporting event.

Before each matchup, the competitors are introduced by a deep-voiced announcer in much the same way the Orlando Magic are introduced at Amway Arena. Camera crews capture the action during the event and do post-game interviews with the winners. Giant flat-screen televisions display live standings and as the scores are tabulated, the crowd applauds when a player gets a problem right and gives a sympathetic “ooh” for a wrong answer.

McKeown said TopCoder is trying to ratchet up the pageantry and drama to help put math and computer skills on the same level as athletic skills.

“Look at the typical American family. Little Johnny gets patted on the head for scoring a goal in soccer, but if he solved a difficult math problem . . . [his parents would] say, ‘Ah, that’s good, that’s great, that’s nice,’ but it’s not the same thing as ‘atta boy.’ That’s what we are trying to do — to show that they should be highlighted and revered in the same way.”

Etan Horowitz can be reached at ehorowitz@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5447.