Hardcore coding contest by Quora & InterviewStreet | Hacker News Reader

Hardcore coding contest by Quora & InterviewStreet

quora.interviewstreet.com

58 pointskahseng15 comments

Announcing Codesprint Quora, the first-ever company sprint, in collaboration with InterviewStreet (YC S11).

Feel free to ask us questions anytime at codesprint@quora.com

Questions will also be posted at http://quora.com/CodesprintQuora so you don't have to sign up for an account to read them.

This sprint is designed to seriously test your programming prowess on a wide range of tasks ranging from algorithms and product design to machine learning and data analysis. This comes from our intention to hire only the very best engineers, product engineers and data analysts. Come and participate, and learn about any or all the challenges we face in developing these systems: - Quora Feed Optimizer - Quora Trend Analyzer - Quora Typeahead Search - Quora Browser Extensions - Quora Nearby Redux - Quora Answer Classifier Redux and more!

Just started now!

The three week-long problems are now up here: http://www.quora.com/CodesprintQuora

In other words, work on Quora problems for the privilege of working for free. Of course, there is the promise of being recognized, but no promises on being hired.

These aren't stuff we are looking to use ourselves. We're choosing these problems (which we have already solved in a more complex form ourselves) because we think it'll be interesting for others to try to apply their programming skills at "real world problems" that startups solve.

So my question is what problem did Quora solve? other than mostly copying idea (pardon: being inspired) by websites like Yahoo Ask, Hunch, etc.

Slightly off-topic, but hopefully others can benefit as well:

I am learning to program on my own, and I have tried some of the CodeSprint Fall 2011 questions (http://csfall11.interviewstreet.com/recruit/challenges/dashb...). Often, I find solutions that "work", but that score poorly because they exceed the time limit (e.g. Card Shuffling, 3/10, 9 points).

What books should I read (or what videos should I watch, etc.) to get better at things like this? Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Reading this should give you a push in the right direction:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_of_algorithms

Also look up google code jam, I think they might have some links for learning. In general the kind of solutions sought are called "dynamic programming". I think there is also a book about solving TopCoder problems, though I can't find it atm, and haven't read it.

Edit: this might be the book I meant, "The Programming Contest Training Manual" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0387001638?ie=UTF8&tag=...

Starts at midnight where I live. Signed up out of curiosity, but I don't think I'll stay up till 5am. Wish I had learned about it sooner.

Don't worry. We actually have it in 2 parts. 4 questions in a sprint over 5 hours, 3 other questions lasting a week. You might find the weeklong ones more fun.

Is this information on the web site? I, too, wish I heard about this sprint earlier in the week (before I made weekend plans).

It will be when the contest starts.

The three week-long problems are now up here: http://www.quora.com/CodesprintQuora

Interesting, though I have to say these seem more like "working for Quora for free". Would be nice to at least get some interesting data sets in exchange.

Granted, I probably won't improve on Quora's code in a week, but still.

I guess I am simply not the target audience, as I had no plans of applying to quora.

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