Programming contest strategy

Each year the ACM hosts a truly international programming contest - the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC). Dating back to a contest held by Texas AM and, if so, then what that strategy should be. We show that a team can gain an advantage by choosing a good strategy, but that there is no one best strategy. A team must choose between winning by number of solved problems and winning by points. Finding the optimal strategy to win by problems is shown to be NP-complete, while to win by points a team must solve problems in order from easiest to hardest.

[1]  W Wayt Gibbs.  Innovations from a robot rally. , 2006, Scientific American.

[2]  José Paulo Leal,et al.  Mooshak: a Web‐based multi‐site programming contest system , 2003, Softw. Pract. Exp..

[3]  Fabian Ernst,et al.  Programming contest strategies , 1996 .

[4]  Shahriar Manzoor.  Common mistakes in online and real-time contests , 2008, ACM Crossroads.

[5]  Ronald C. Dodge,et al.  Organized cyber defense competitions , 2004, IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, 2004. Proceedings..

[6]  V. Tanaev,et al.  Scheduling theory single-stage systems , 1994 .

[7]  Kwangkeun Yi,et al.  Engaging students with theory through ACM collegiate programming contest , 2002, CACM.

[8]  Dalton Hunkins,et al.  Adding objects to the traditional ACM programming contest , 2004, SIGCSE.

[9]  Laszlo Szuecs.  My favorite programming contest problems , 2001 .

[10]  Lionel E. Deimel.  Problems from the 12th annual ACM programming contest , 1988, SGCS.

[11]  Vivek Khera,et al.  The internet programming contest: a report and philosophy , 1993, SIGCSE '93.

[12]  Fredrik Manne.  Competing in Computing , 1999 .

[13]  John Werth,et al.  Preparing a team for the ACM scholastic programming contest (panel session) , 1991, CSC '91.

[14]  Steven Skiena,et al.  Programming Challenges , 2003, Texts in Computer Science.

[15]  Donald J. Bagert.  Competing in the ACM scholastic programming contest (abstract) , 1993, CSC '93.

[16]  Peter Salenieks,et al.  Professional skills assessment in programming competitions , 1988, SGCS.

[17]  Sue Fitzgerald,et al.  The computer science fair: an alternative to the computer programming contest , 1996, SIGCSE '96.