Joost said
- not sure how Google Code Jam deals with execution times, ..
It isn’t primarily concerned with execution time .. but during the 2.5 hours in which you get to solve a problem in a round, when you think you have implemented an algorithm that works you start a “solution submission clock” by downloading the small data set. From the time of download you have four minutes to produce a correct output file. During that four-minute period you must run your algorithm on the data set, upload the output (which is instantly checked for correctness) and, if not correct you must debug, re-download (the data set changes with each submission of a candidate solution) re-run and resubmit, so effectively your program could take up to four minutes to run (assuming you got it right first time and didn’t need to debug and resubmit) For the large data set you have eight minutes.
... but with the Spotify Programmers Challenge, I wasn’t able to solve a problem because I couldn’t stay within the 1 second execution limit (using C++, which is supposed to be pretty fast). I guess my algorithm was just too crappy – it solved the example inputs instantly and correctly, but I guess it must’ve buggered up for the larger inputs
theflyingtinman is an Envato staff member