Google Code Jam 2008 is over!

[Bartholomew Furrow]

11,000 of you competed in the first round of Google Code Jam 2008, and on Friday morning the top 100 went head-to-head in Mountain View to vie for the top spot.  After 3 hours of grueling competition and a problem set that could make your head spin, we had a winner: ACRush of China, jumping into first place with 6 minutes, 40 seconds to go.  Innovative.Cat of China came in second, finishing the same set of problems with 5 minutes, 44 seconds left.  And a mere 2 points behind them, the difference between two larges, was bmerry of South Africa; he burned through most of the problem set with 1/3 of the contest to go, but couldn't quite finish it off.  Everyone solved our easiest problem, and six people solved the hardest one (which was six more than I expected!)

Congratulations to all of Friday's contestants, and to everyone who competed in GCJ 2008!

Bartholomew

[Igor Naverniouk]

The final round contest editorial is up at
http://code.google.com/codejam/contest
Click "World Finals".
Click "Contest Analysis"

Huge thanks to Xiaomin Chen and everyone who worked on the proof for
Bridge Builders, including, but not limited to Mark Gordon, Derek
Kisman, Christopher Hendrie, Tomek Czajka, Bartholomew Furrow and John
Dethridge.

igor