Refocusing
Just last week I did a little thinking: Maybe I do a little refocusing in my life. Maybe I’d quit joining programming contests and do other things. I am doing other things right now such as learning game programming, web programming, photography, and others.
Last Wednesday, I joined the Java Cup 2007, hosted by the UP Cursor. It was a programming contest, and just as the name suggests, participants should use the Java programming language. There were three Ateneo teams (there were supposed to be four though), Byron and I made up one team. The last time I programmed for a contest was around October of last year. I thought this contest was the last.
The JAVA Cup was divided into two rounds. The first rokund was independent of the second round. In the first round, we were required to write a program in an hour. Whether you were first or last to submit, it didn’t matter. To win the round, you had to have the most elegant code. Haha, this reminded me of a line Doc Manalastas kept saying: “Elegant in its simplicity.” We didn’t win, but our schoolmates did. They each won a PSP. So this is what elegant code is worth 
The second round was an ACM-ICPC stype round where the one who gets the most number of problems solved in the fastest time wins. For an inter-university competition, I guess Byron and I did well. If the contest ended 30 minutes earlier, we would’ve won 3rd place. Hahaha, too bad we hit a brick wall at that point and weren’t able to think that clearly to be able to solve more problems. Maybe with more practice, we could really win one day.
After the contest, it hit me. This is one thing I enjoy doing. This is the reason why I love programming. I love the challenge of problems and I love solving them/learning about the solution.
I decided to try out the DISCS Programming Open on March 10. Whether I do good or do badly, it doesn’t really matter. I just want to have fun. (What a geeky way to have fun!)
Aside from that, I realized one more thing. For the past two years, I’ve been programming with people I don’t really know that well. Communication between each other was awkward (especially since I tend to be shy at times). The last team I was with used C and C++ which I wasn’t that familar with at the time (I think I can manage now ).
After this contest, I remembered my experience joining the IUPC hosted by our organization, CompSAt. I was with Byron and RJ, two batchmates I’ve been with for the past 2 and 1/2 years. It felt better programming with people I knew. In any team, communication is key.
–
P.S. Whee! I changed the layout of blog.maloki.net. It looks much cleaner now 
Filed under: Uncategorized by Loki