On The Eve Of The Google International Code Jam 2006

Event

Four years running the world IT-giant Google Inc. helds the programmers competitions – Google Code Jam, which aims at finding the best specialists in the field for the company’s R&D regional divisions. This year three “Jams” have already discovered the best coders in China, India (April) and Europe (July). The forth – Global – Jam was launched in the middle of August with the registration process, which will end up into competition qualification round this month. In October New York will witness the competition finale where the world best programmers 2006 will be defined.

Answering the question

Though the competitions are privately purposed, they very well monitor the general situation at the world programming market – the finale compositions show where the strongest coders come from, which countries have the most favorable technical background and educational conditions to bring up high-qualified specialists. It’s notable, that the number of some countries is regularly represented in the Jam final rounds from year to year - so, it is possible to distinguish the leading “programming nations”. Thus, according to the preceding Global Jams, the best programmers come from Northern America, Baltic countries, Russia, China, Western Europe - Germany, the Netherlands, and from Eastern Europe – Poland, Croatia, Slovakia, Belarus and Ukraine.

Ukraine: One of the leading programming nations

Three times Ukrainian programmers become the finalists of Google Code Jams. In Global Jams 2003 and 2004 Ukrainian representatives got into the top 15 and 50 accordingly, this year a Ukrainian hit the European contest finale as well. This testifies, that Ukrainian programmers are quite strong to compete with the best world specialists.

History

Ukraine always showed high IT potential. It turned historically so, that for a half a century Ukraine was a scientific development generator of the Soviet Union, presenting the world with great scientists and inventions. Here in 1951 on the professor Lebedev’s project the first computer in the continental Europe was made. Since then the computing machines were improved and refined further on for various destinations: scientific and manufacturing, space and sea, military and civil. The “computing achievements” of Ukraine were highly estimated and awarded by international associations and at international exhibitions. For instance, IEEE Computer Society conferred the medals “Pioneer of Computer Engineering” on professors Lebedev and Glushkov. The first mass production of integral circuits in Europe started in Ukraine, and in 1972 the first Cybernetics encyclopedia in the world was edited also here.

Along with the significant acquirements of science and technologies of the past, independent Ukraine inherited the educational system, which till today proves the high level in engineering and technical subjects. The majority of nowadays Ukrainian IT-companies are managed by the professionals, descending of old noble school.

Location

Situated in the Central Europe, Ukraine has been and keeps being the cross of trade, political and cultural roads between many nations. That allows it to be in the know of the every fresh tendencies and changes not only in the stated spheres, but also in scientific, hi-tech, educational ones. The profound technical ground of the past in combination with wide access to up-to-date information sources, creates a favorable environment for high-qualified programmers development.

Today

For the moment Ukraine can boast of a large number of national companies working in IT-field, about two thousands of them are software developing ones. Besides, many international IT-corporations have representative developing centers in Ukraine and the fact that their number keeps on growing proves that Ukrainian specialists are highly estimated.

Meanwhile the Google Jam applicants are in the anticipation of  the contest to prove that they are the best programmers in the world and October will show, how the leading programming nations holds their positions.

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