Good Language Choice For School Programming Test? 407
An anonymous reader writes "The Australian Informatics Olympiad programming test is being run in a couple of months. I'm an experienced programmer and I'm thinking of volunteering to tutor interested kids at my children's school to get them ready. There will be children of all levels in the group, from those that can't write 'hello world' in any language, to somewhat experienced programmers. For those starting from scratch, I'm wondering what language to teach them to code in. Accepted languages are C, C++, Pascal, Java, PHP, Python and Visual Basic. I'm leaning towards Python, because it is a powerful language with a simple syntax. However, the test has a run-time CPU seconds limit, so using an interpreted language like Python could put the students at a disadvantage compared to using C. Is it better to teach them something in 2 months that they're likely to be able to code in but possibly run foul of the CPU time limit, or struggle to teach them to code in a more complicated syntax like C/C++ which would however give them the best chance of having a fast solution?"
Many good choices (Score:5, Funny)
You don't want a test that favors kids who have studied that particular language in the past. I suggest the Turing-complete language LaTeX. It's the only way to be sure.
Hello World (Score:5, Funny)
There's C then there's C written by newbies (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In a programming contest memory leaks and such are meaningless. In fact, algorithmic complexity is also nearly meaningless. O(n^3) solutions that you can code in 5 minutes win over the O(n lg n) solution that takes an hour to code up.
Re:There's C then there's C written by newbies (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
In a programming contest memory leaks and such are meaningless.
Correct. Spitting out the right answer in a reasonable time is the only thing which is important.
In fact, algorithmic complexity is also nearly meaningless. O(n^3) solutions that you can code in 5 minutes win over the O(n lg n) solution that takes an hour to code up.
Correct for your example (meh, polynomial, that's good enough) but not for the questions they'll be asking in the test. It typically won't be a choice between O(n^3) and O(n log n), more like a choice between O(n^4) and O(n^n). And then they'll give you examples with n=3 and n=4, and their test case will have n=17.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, I take this back.
Go with C++. If not, in 20 years, some of these kids will come after you for ruining their lives by seducing them into the nasty painful world of programmers. It's a nasty way of life. Scare them shitless off it - teach them Perl and make them debug each other's code. Tell them all the grownups use Perl.
English, but seriously (Score:2, Interesting)
English, Vulcan, or whatever the local human language is. Or just give everyone a translation device.
Oh, you mean the language for the programs. My bad, I thought you meant for the instructions and problem description, sorry.
But seriously....
Your first line is to see what eligible language the students mostly know already or what is taught in that school or school system and go with it.
Barring that, go with whatever is commonly used in most university college freshman programming classes. It may not give
I'm guessing the CPU limits are generous. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm guessing that the CPU limits are generous and are more about filtering out bad algorithms than bad languages.
For example, someone using stooge sort instead of quicksort...
While the language used would increase the budget, the algorithms used will very quickly swamp any language gains.
When I did programming contests, they were more bound on thought (how quickly you can come up with an algorithm) and then implementation time. Rarely did compute time come into it.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree. Some problems in programming competitions could be solved with a simple exhaustive algorithm. The main point of the CPU time limit is to make people use better and more creative algorithms, i.e. if you solve it correctly CPU time shouldn't be an issue in any language.
Re:I'm guessing the CPU limits are generous. (Score:5, Funny)
Right, the OP says that Python is an accepted language, so it's only sensible to assume that this isn't a sneaky trap set by the Ruby Mafia intending to disqualify testers for using it.
The Navy research showed Python is a good language for learning OOP and if programming contests today are anything like what they were when I was in ACSL, boy would having a scripting language be handy. I wonder how anybody could compete in c (but perhaps that's a built-in test - picking the right language for the job is an important skill).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
While the language used would increase the budget, the algorithms used will very quickly swamp any language gains.
I get so tired of hearing this nonsense go unchallenged. If, for a given task, there is a fastest known algorithm, it's almost always going to run much faster in a compiled language than an interpreted language, period. The idea that one can simply change algorithms to get better performance only applies when a better algorithm is known, and even then, it's still highly likely to run faster in a compiled language.
The exceptions are largely those cases where the bulk of the computation utilizes a highly opti
Psyco (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Python doesn't have a built-in JIT?? What's with all the Perl hate, then?
Re: (Score:2)
Personally, my dislike for Perl has almost nothing to do with the runtime environment and more to do with the mindset that causes someone to think this [ozonehouse.com] is a good idea.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I think a lot of the perl hate comes from the perl users getting stuff solved fast and (often) ugly, when the perl haters spend far more time creating their (often) far prettier solutions. If the programs need to be written quickly, I'd say perl would be the language to use (except that it's not permitted, of course.) If the programs need to execute quickly, C -- but it'll ta
Re: (Score:2)
Python people don't (generally) claim Perl is slow. Their objection is the language itself.
(I liked my brief exposure to Perl, but it is a tough language to learn and retain.)
Language shouldn't push you past the limit (Score:5, Interesting)
If one of our entries was rejected due to exceeding the CPU limit, it was always due to a problem in our logic that the sample data hadn't triggered, but that the actual test data had.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I have competed in both the informatics olympiads and the ACM collegiate programming contests, and in my experience there was a much greater emphasis on algorithms in the informatics olympiad. Whether your algorithm was O(n^3) or O(n^4) did make a difference to the results.
That said, the choice of programming language only adds a constant factor to the runtime, so your point still stands.
They won't hit the time limit (Score:2)
Really
If they hit it, they're doing it wrong or you have the next Rain Man meets Linus Torvalds in your class.
But if you're worried, I'd say go with Java (what I would say really is go with C# but since you can't do it)
But python is fine so don't worry.
Pascal (Score:2, Interesting)
I would go with Pascal. And if not, Java.
Pascal has a is very simple and clear syntax and semantics. It has strong and static typing, making many errors very easy to catch at compile time. The case for Java is similar but the syntax and semantics are a bit more complicated.
C is terrible to teach, they'll have to deal with pointers all the time. Reading something from input? Pointers. Passing by reference? Pointers. Strings? Pointers. Sure you may omit that those are pointers but the segmentation faults will
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VB.Net* has the advantages you've listed for Pascal and Java, and it solves all the problems you listed for other
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As for c++, modern (i.e. good!) c++ code should look very much like python, except that it is statically typed, of course: Pointers should be avoided. No char*, definitely no manual memory management. No "delete"s. Only strings and vectors. Segmentation faults usual indicate that programming skills need to be updated...
You're kidding, right? If you think "good" C++ code avoids all use of pointers, new and delete then you have obviously never worked on a project of any meaningful size or scope. Pointers a
Go With Your Gut (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless these kids already have a programming proficiency, go with your gut.
The exercise is as much about allowing them to test the programming waters as it is about them winning. If you are starting with a blank slate, that means you need to create an environment that is intriguing. If YOU think Python is the thing, you'll be passionate ... and that is a lot of what makes a good coach/tutor in an olympiad.
Further, I think you could do a lot worse than Python. It is really a great language and is popping up in a lot of disciplines as the scripting tool of choice. It will perform well and has great characteristics that make it well suited for someone learning the ropes. Plus, the language is modern enough to be relevant should they desire to pursue IT further.
I would stay away from C/C++. In the hands of novices in a timed activity, I would wager it would be more trouble than it's worth.
If Python is an allowed choice then... (Score:4, Insightful)
Python will give you th least problems (Score:5, Insightful)
C, C++ and Java are not an option. They all need years to master and have numerous non-obvious pitfalls. Pascal is pretty limitad and definitly a historic design. PHP is obscure in palaces. Visual Basic still is a bad joke, confined to just one platform and wioth numerous design problems.
On the other hand Python is fine, with the only thing to master the indention. Not on the list, but Ruby would also be nice. And for a minimalistic, yet powerful language, loot at (again not on the list) Lua.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And for a minimalistic, yet powerful language, loot at (again not on the list) Lua.
You beat me to it. Lua is ridiculously easy to pick up and will give the students a chance to worry about actual algorithms and lateral thinking rather than jumping straight into OOP. For the uninitiated: Lua does not natively support a polymorphic OO environment but it is very easily implemented with metatables.
Disclaimer: I'm a Lua fanboy. :)
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C, C++ and Java are not an option. They all need years to master and have numerous non-obvious pitfalls. Pascal is pretty limitad and definitly a historic design. PHP is obscure in palaces. Visual Basic still is a bad joke, confined to just one platform and wioth numerous design problems.
On the other hand Python is fine, with the only thing to master the indention. Not on the list, but Ruby would also be nice. And for a minimalistic, yet powerful language, loot at (again not on the list) Lua.
So I've gotten from this post that PHP is fine as long as you're not coding in palaces and Lua contains other programming languages if you loot it.
Re:Python will give you th least problems (Score:4, Insightful)
Pray tell me how a modern Pascal dialect (as used by Free Pascal Compiler for example) is "limitad".
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, scripting is not about execution speed, but development speed. You are of course right on the developer angle. Language, process, design method, etc. cannot cause incompetent developers to create good software. That is just the vision by incompetent management (of which there is a lot), because they would like to treat developers as exchangeable components, not individuals that are, on to bottom line, possible worth a lot more than they are.
However, language can stand in your way, making development m
Ask them (Score:3, Interesting)
Python would be my choice (Score:3, Informative)
I tried teaching my self some Python a while back and found it very easy. The only experience that I had before in any computer language is MEL (Maya Embedded Language). I bought a book called Game Programming (Publiser: Wiley, ISBN 978-0-470-06822-9) and over my two week Christmas break I was able to build a nice little top down shooter with programmer graphics.
It uses the pyGame library for most of the heavy hitting (like writing to the screen and the like) but it also introduced me to Objects and Classes as well as how to think in small steps to help break down what I was trying to do.
I always suggest this book to artists that I meet who wants to get into scripting. And most of them who have borrowed it end up buying it for themselves when thay have to give back my book.
Probably Java (Bleh) (Score:2, Interesting)
However... It's nigh on useless these days to have "Pascal" on your CV (I'm sure both the Pascal developers out there will disagree - Yes I'm looking at you Delphi devs...)
I did C, Pascal and COBOL at UNI and since then I have spent some 15 years writing VB (3->.Net), C, C++, C# etc. In the la
No Perl ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Probably because there would already by a module that solves the problem.
How about the simplest of languages?... (Score:3)
Brainfuck.
Looking Beyond AOI (Score:2)
Perl !! (Score:4, Insightful)
Perl is very simple to learn (check out "Robert's Perl Tutorial"). Perl allows the programmer to do what he wants - regardless of the style. There's even English.pm. Perl has many upsides ie: it's a powerful parser and indispensable toolkit... and highly embeddable. If there was ever a seed language to learn, it's Perl.
There's also the fact that Perl programmers are real unix men - and let's face it, you'd rather have real unix graduates than Ruby fannies?
Re:Perl !! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a big fan of Perl myself but I wouldn't recommend it for new programmers. The phrase "enough rope to hang yourself" doesn't begin to describe it. It's also probably a bad choice in this scenario because it isn't on the list of accepted languages, although if you were decently skilled I'm sure you could write one liner to translate your perl source into any one of the accepted list.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
although if you were decently skilled I'm sure you could write one liner to translate your perl source into any one of the accepted list
Not necessary, just do this:
:)
#!/usr/bin/python
import os
lulz = os.system('perl myprogram.pl')
Look, it's in Python!
Python or Java (Score:4, Insightful)
I assume you want something that'll give the kids an advantage in the competition, and be useful if they want to start programming seriously.
Pascal - it was nice back when Reagan was in the White House and Michael Jackson still had his nose, but it's obsolete.
PHP is for writing dynamic web pages. It's good at what it does, but it isn't really a general-purpose language.
C and C++ are faster than interpreted languages. That is, sometimes they're slightly faster. And they're almost always harder to write in.
VB? Go fuck yourself.
So that leaves Java and Python.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm interested in hearing your theory on why PHP is not a general-purpose language. Especially since it's capable of being used for web, command-line and GUI applications. As for C/C++ sometimes being slightly faster, well there's a reason any application requiring high performance is written in these languages - they're often more than a little faster. I shudder to think how MW2 would run if written in Python...
Aside from this, Java or C++ would get my vote - bigger potential employment market.
Just my opinion. (Score:2)
I'm a proponent of teaching C/C++. If you know those, you can learn Python, Java and PHP. Visual Basic is not a consideration nowadays.
Regardless of language, teach proper logic. A good coder in any language will have a better run time than a bad coder in any language.
As a person in a place to teach, I truly urge you to teach logic before syntax. Logic before language. It's very important.
Boy you're going to get lots of replies (Score:2, Interesting)
I read over quite a few already and find it funny people are saying things like python are the easiest of the bunch to learn. Command line easiest? really?
As much as I don't like MS, their VB is by far the easiest of the bunch to learn. And you won't have any speed issues at all to deal with, it executes extremely fast. It's an event-driven language also which makes it easier to compartmentalize things and avoid confusion for new users. Debugging in C can be a nightmare. VB does a great deal to force
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If the only goal is to get these kids doing well in the contest, I agree that VB might have some merit, although there are IDEs for other languages that provide similar tools.
However, if the instructor also intends to give these kids skill with something they could actually use later in life, VB seems a poor choice compared to almost all of the others (Pascal being an obvious exception).
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However, if the instructor also intends to give these kids skill with something they could actually use later in life, VB seems a poor choice compared to almost all of the others
You would be amazed at how many big titles are written in VB (windows) and RB (macintosh). Heck, our store's POS system [xsilva.com] is written in RB. (though they don't advertise it as such!) It's out there, all over the place. It just has a bad rep on being a kiddy language and so the publishers don't tend to brag it up.
My hobbies tend to
Java (Score:2)
+ Serious real world scalable language used in both business and science
+ Freely available on a wide variety of hardware -> gives access to any child with any kind of computer
+ Learn OO from day 1
+ Java collections give students access to data structures and algorithms without having to get bogged down in writing them at a low level
- Never learn to implement those low level data structures in algorithms (but don't forget you have just 2 months!)
- Slower than C
- Not as close to the hardware as C
Overall a
Why no functional languages? (Score:2, Interesting)
The syntax viewpoint is an oversimplification. (Score:3, Interesting)
The difference between C++ and Python isn't simply that C++ has a more complicated syntax.
In C++, the kids will have to wrestle with the static type system and the lack of automated memory management. (Problems that can be partially overcome with a lot of "greenspunning" that requires significant C++ experience).
The number one factor in performance is the choice of algorithms. A Python program with good algorithms will beat a C++ program which uses poor algorithms, or which does stupid things like copy aggregate objects in order to avoid memory management difficulties.
It's sad that the list of languages includes only immature dynamic languages du jour like Python and excludes mature dynamic languages that have good compilers. Bad education!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's sad that the list of languages includes only immature dynamic languages du jour like Python
I think you meant "du last two decades", as Python's first release was in 1991 [wikipedia.org]. What qualifies as "mature" in your opinion? Is it OK to start using ALGOL yet?
Simple (Score:2)
Things you might want to consider (Score:5, Insightful)
I've participated in local and regional Informatics Olympiads, and went to the IOI once. I was involved in training local students a few years ago, so I know quite a bit of the ins and outs of these competitions.
All the languages have pros and cons, but PHP and VB obviously aren't suitable (if only for their encouragement of crappy coding practices). Java offers little advantage over C/C++, and it forces OOP onto you so it adds an unnecessary layer of complexity for the students.
The "industry standard" of competitive programming is C++, since it offers near-C speed with the power of various algorithms (eg. sort) and data structures ( maps, sets, priority queues ). Those who intend to take the competition seriously should be using C++ as their primary language. But then judging from your requirements the vast majority of your students won't fall into this category, so I wouldn't recommend C++, at least not at this stage.
Python generally is a good first language for its simplicity and power. There are a few problems with using python for competitive programming though. First, speed can become a problem for *some* contests, which have rather tight runtime constraints. The contests that cater for a wide range of languages are usually better in this respect, but a lot out there are primarily C/C++/Pascal/Java. Secondly, the fact that python supports a range of built in advanced data structures and algorithms means that you may lose the chance to teach them how to implement the basic stuff, eg. using a binary search tree to implement a map (typing `` mymap = {}; mymap[foo] = bar; '' is surely easier than implementing a BST yourself). You might ask why learn to reinvent the wheel when most modern languages provide these features, but these data structures and algorithms is the core of informatics olympiads, and one needs to learn from the basics. That being said, if the timeframe is just 2 months, I think teaching python might be most rewarding for the students.
C and Pascal are basically on the same league. C is a bit more "archaic" than Pascal in terms of the way it does things, but feature-wise they are roughly equivalent. The languages are simple, fast, and bare bones enough to force the user to implement the basic stuff. In the long term they are good languages for teaching data structures and algorithms, but require a bit of patience on the part of the student since you need to know quite a bit before you can do anything "flashy" with them.
My experience with most average students is that they usually struggle to form precise ideas on what to tell the program to do, and then when they do have rough ideas they then fail to write a syntactically correct program, and if they really do write a syntactically correct program the program usually fails on correctness for most inputs, or simply do the wrong thing. Running time shouldn't be a concern before the students actually get a correct program, and my experience is, unless you have really really bright students, most of them probably won't be able to come close to writing a correct program within competition constraints, so don't worry too much about running time.
In short, I recommend python, but in the long term you might want to think about using C/Pascal. And if you restrain yourself to a subset of C++, it might work too.
I also recommend Python (Score:3, Insightful)
The libraries that I used kicked Java/C++ library asses, to the extend that what was going to be a "short" 500 line program in Java dealing with parsing images, turned into an 80 line program in Python.
The best part is, it was extremely easy to debug as I wrote, since just about any line I dropped into the source file, I could check with the interpreter.
It also only took half an hour to pick up from other OOP languages.
I <3 Python
Teach them C++ (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Teach them C++ (Score:4, Informative)
How does it feel living at least 22 years behind the rest of the world? I am asking because Turbo Pascal supports OOP for that long.
It's just me (Score:4, Interesting)
or teaching a language to non programmers children and sending them to Informatics Olympiad after two months is pretending too much?
In addition to the language, you must first teach them very basic concepts like variables, loops, recursion...
As soon as they start to digest them and write their first "Hello World"... BANG! You send them to Informatics Olympiad!
Avoid "object oriented" languages (Score:3, Interesting)
There is an incredible performance penalty for most object oriented code written by beginners: they aren't taught to avoid the layers of abstraction that eat away at your performance, and they often hide incredible errors behind layers of abstraction that make debugging a nightmare.
Python seems a good compromise: as a scripted language, it's quite portable. It has good text processing, there's a large base of small examples to teach students with, and it doesn't suffer from that horrid mass of badly written, interdependendent, unstable and unnecessary utilities known as CPAN that clutters a lot of Perl programming.
Slower yes, yet fast enough. (Score:3, Interesting)
However, the test has a run-time CPU seconds limit, so using an interpreted language like Python could put the students at a disadvantage compared to using C.
In my experience time limits are there to prevent students using primitive algorithms (the ones with exponential asymptotic performance).
N.B. I would have recommended Perl instead - but I'd refrain :)
Python should be and is in fact fast enough for most tasks. Taking algorithms into account, C gives only marginal advantage: bubble sort would suck even if you'd write it in assembler.
P.S. If that is still concern, one can allow interpreted languages to have e.g. twice more time compared to compiled languages.
Re:Faster than you think (Score:5, Informative)
You can't really worry about the runtime limit since it should be rather liberal for a student's competition and you'll never know what the system's config will be (so Python may be fast or slow).
If you're going to be teaching new programmers, get them started on something they can use and something they can expand upon. Of the languages available to you I would say Python is the best choice.
Re:Faster than you think (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't really worry about the runtime limit since it should be rather liberal for a student's competition...
As the summary says "Accepted languages" (presumably the competition rules), I would tend to agree. They're not going to ask your students to complete something that those languages cannot reasonably accomplish. Bad C++ code will be slower than halfway-decent Python code. Teach a good foundation, and let the chips fall where they may.
(And I too vote Python, by the way.)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
As the summary says "Accepted languages" (presumably the competition rules), I would tend to agree. They're not going to ask your students to complete something that those languages cannot reasonably accomplish. Bad C++ code will be slower than halfway-decent Python code. Teach a good foundation, and let the chips fall where they may.
Agreed. I've done a couple of these programming competitions in my youth (heh :P ) and in my experience, the runtime limit is in place to force you to use a more efficient algorithm, not to force you to streamline your brute force approach. So there might be a problem that would take an hour to solve using brute force, or a couple of seconds using dynamic programming, for instance - choice of language isn't going to affect the performance appreciably compared to choice of algorithm.
For what it's worth, I
surely not; Pascal was meant for this (Score:5, Insightful)
We can sort of classify the languages into "slow" and "not slow" in various ways.
This should come as no surprise. Pascal was intended as a teaching language. None of the other languages was designed for teaching, unless you somehow equate Visual Basic with BASIC.
The second choice is probably C, but you'll have some issues teaching about declarations/definitions (inside out) and string-related stuff. The meaning of '=' is also not compatible with normal math notation.
The third choice is probably Java. You get most of the trouble of C, less speed, and greater need for boilerplate sourcecode bloat.
Re:surely not; Pascal was meant for this (Score:5, Informative)
Oh come on, Python was designed as a teaching language and in my experience students find it much easier to learn than Pascal (and it's much less limiting once you get past the basics).
As far as speed is concerned, according to the Programming Language Game [debian.org] Pascal is at best 60x faster than Python, and these sorts of competitions usually give you a few orders of magnitude in margin - the idea is to make sure your solution is in the right complexity class, not to try and enforce the most efficient possible solution.
Frameworks are more important than language (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Frameworks are more important than language (Score:5, Insightful)
Python, Java, and VB (one must assume it's VB.NET, and thus has the same libraries as C#) are definitely what I would suggest on the basis of libraries. OK, you can do C++ with the CLR and CLR libraries, but C++ is *not* a good choice for a first language.
There's a lot of hate on /. for VB, perhaps because not many Slashdotters have tried any version of the language from the last 8 years, but it *is* a good first language - static and strong typing (by default now, I believe), either procedural or OOP (full support for inheritance, unlike legacy VB), BASIC-style syntax (intuitive and quick to pick up), fully memory managed (real GC, not just ref-counting), structured exception handling (no, it's not On Error Goto anymore), and all the .NET/Mono libraries available (before you ask, yes Mono has a VB compiler/runtime, and once you compile it all down to CIL the libraries are usable by any language).
Java has about half those advantages plus a lot of silly restrictions (although at least Scanner makes getting keyboard input a lot less retarded than it used to be), but it's still a popular choice for learning a first language, and a practical choice for those who want to make a career of programming (though they should learn multiple languages anyhow). Python is a better choice, and possibly quicker to learn, although I'm not a fan of dynamically typed languages with significant whitespace.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Just curious - what other language besides Python is dynamically typed with significant whitespace? I've only run across Python in this category.. Thanks!
Re:surely not; Pascal was meant for this (Score:5, Informative)
I took a few minutes to RTFA and the software equivalent of scholastic olympics today are pretty much the same as they were in 1984 when my team took second place at the state level. It is a medium low level software engineering test demonstrated via a few medium low level implementations.
They are looking for two things:
Can you read the requirements and come up with an appropriate algorithm?
Can you implement the algorithm in their favorite language (pretty much any language in common use)?
The CPU time limit is to keep people from using bogo-sort (ie, randomize the data and then check if it is sorted, repeat until it's actually sorted.) If the students understand how to break a problem down and implement it using a standard approach, they will beat the CPU time limit. Even if they use bubble sort.
The real thing they are up against is the design and implementation time limit - I'm guessing they have three or four problems and four hours per team. The libraries they are allowed to use are basically nonexistent, meaning they software they are expected to write is going to be a software implementation of some algorithm, and they aren't going to be able to Google for syntax assistance so they need to be fluent in their language. They will have access to hardcopy manuals and manuals in electronic format, but that will just slow them down.
Given the limit on imported packages and code complexity (not to mention source code size - no more than 40,000 characters (which is ultra-overkill - it would take a week to hand write 40k worth of source code for an application that actually needs 40k worth of source code)) compile time will be negligible. A few seconds tops. Don't worry about compile times for this competition, worry about the time to actually come up with the algorithm and then to implement it in the correct syntax.
They aren't doing any serious object oriented coding because everything is in one class, and because they're allowing Borland's Pascal (well technically Delphi but they are using is as a super powerful Turbo Pascal. This means implementing simple algorithms.
If you want your kids to succeed in this arena, here's the best toolset to train them. Two piece of paper, a pencil, and a few crayons. Verbally describe a simple problem for them. Explain it only once. As you are explaining it to them, have them take notes on one piece of paper and capture the requirements. On the second piece of paper, using the crayons diagram their solution. A sort can be diagrammed by drawing boxes and arrows showing how things move around. String manipulation or array manipulation can be diagrammed by drawing a word with numbers below it and arrows above it showing how the elements are moved around. Teach them to understand the problem, come up with a practical approach, and then code it in the basic syntax in any language.
Because I expect the problems to have solutions that would be simpler if the language has iterators, and since they are disallowing pretty much all of the good Java external packages to do those things - I'm going to suggest a language with simple pointers - either Pascal or C/C++. Rearranging arrays (of characters, structures, or whatever) is trivial in either of those languages, and rearranging or iterating over an array is the perfect example of algorithm design and implementation typical of this type of challenge.
assume they don't get it right the first time (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a student's programming contest, right? Why are you even concerned about compile time or "startup" time?
Normally there is a time limit during which the competition runs. The faster your tools are, the more time you have to write code.
A kid might need 50 tries to get his program right.
Re: (Score:2)
You can't really worry about the runtime limit since it should be rather liberal for a student's competition and you'll never know what the system's config will be (so Python may be fast or slow).
I'll add to this.
I would expect that having a runtime limit, they are trying to weed out horribly inefficient and/or bad code. Teaching something easier for them to understand will help avoid this.
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In college I wasted SO much time debugging C/C++ code memory errors. Python was such a breath of fresh air. I could think of something with a mildly complex structure, implement it, and have it work pretty much on the first go.
I've spent days, DAYS debugging weird stack memory limitations in C++, where it would work right on a small data sample, but completely fail on a slightly larger set.
I used psyco on my Master's thesis to greatly speed up my python simulation (10-100x with a simple import statement).
Re:My $0.02 (Score:3, Insightful)
C shouldn't even be on the list, neither should Pascal.
C++ is my favorite language but there's no way you can learn it in that time scale.
VB is almost obsolete and too much tied into to MS APIs.
That really only leaves Python or PHP.
Python is cute but it's not really very good for writing software that has to be published/deployed.
I'd go with PHP because it's much more useful for getting jobs, etc., after the competition.
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I can only respond to this statement by quoting Wolfgang Paul: "Not only is it not right, it's not even wrong!"
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PHP is not really what I'd suggest as a good choice. Unless you're doing web development it is fairly unused. And even if you ARE doing web development, its had plenty of bugs and major language changes from release to release.
PERL would be a better choice from a pure "usefulness in getting a job" standpoint. It can be used for web development, and a whole heap of
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Python is faster than you think.
huh? it's about 1000x slower than C. and No i'm not exaggerating. Numpy is fast and close to C. Python itself is not.
Re:Faster than you think (Score:5, Funny)
LOLCODE would be easiest to learn for the cellphone-texting rugrats of today.
Example of Hello World program:
HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
VISIBLE "HAI WORLD!"
KTHXBYE
Re:Too easy... can't resist... (Score:5, Funny)
Born free, free as the wind blows
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Java is easily the 2nd or 3rd fastest on the list.
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Are there only 2 or 3 languages on the list? (Did not even read TFS.)
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Basically, the real choices were C, Java and Python.
Java would squarely be 2nd in that case.
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C++ is definitely the best language in the world but half-learned C++ is worse than no C++ at all.
Re:Too easy... can't resist... (Score:4, Funny)
C++ is definitely the best language in the world.
My god
Java != slow (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, it's true that the JVM may take some time to start... but once it's running, JIT and other make it run quite fast... You see game servers hosting hundred of players on a "normal" machine (not 8-CPU 4-core or similar), web sites using JSP, ...
And if you don't start to use the latest API (reflexion and similar) and stick to "standard" java, it'll make you create clean code...
But I agree that starting the JVM is rather slow... Even slower if you start it in "server" mode (but then, you'll get a speed inc
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Fortran is great, if you use the appropriate wrapper. i.e. MATLAB...
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Given that they are students, he may need to add a module for creating neckbeards.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck [wikipedia.org]
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Looks cleaner than some of the Perl I've seen :)
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PLEASE DO FORGET #1
GIVE UP
Re:Strange limitation (Score:4, Insightful)
The contest has a cpu time limit which seems to be reasonnable for a programming contest.
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I think you are right, and there is no telling that one of the students won't code it in C to get those extra milliseconds. When there is a prize or bragging rights at stake, people (even kids) can be pretty relentless.
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Indeed, Most of the time using C for getting those CPU cycles will be useless.
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Re:Strange limitation (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure the CPU time limit would be generous enough that it won't matter if your programming language is interpreted 10x slower than hand-tuned assembly. They want to make sure you aren't using a brute-force O(n^3) algorithm when a linear one would work well enough.
Plus, the judges need a rule to allow them to terminate programs that may be stuck in infinite loops. Otherwise, a contestant could delay the results of a competition indefinitely.
(Imagine: "This competition was rigged! The judges killed my program before it had a chance to finish. It was working fine, and I was the first one to submit answers to all the problems. What? So it has a long start up time. You don't have a rule against 100-hour programs.")
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For relatively simple programs (like a school programming test or competition entry), you can compile the C in under a second. Pascal has almost no commercial use these days and is not going to be a good thing to teach them from a skills perspective.
That said - python would be a good choice, IMHO
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I think you mean "assembly." ;)
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C isn't really representative, at all, of how computers work. If you want that, teach them assembly language.
Java is typically running on a VM written in C++ and Java. It's not really similar to CPython's runtime at all, it's more like Psyco.