[dsacco]

But no one mentioned those things, and the book doesn't seem to either. Why make this book about the crusade against Google's interviewing zeitgeist?

For what it's worth, I work with someone who used to be (is? I think he stopped competing) red on TopCoder. He's one of the best developers I've ever worked with. I don't know about the causation there, but his development process and skill is better than most of what I've seen in many other tech companies (I say this in the context of reviewing other companies' source code for errors and getting an understanding of what their respective SDLCs look like).

That's obviously a sample size of one, but I felt like saying it because I think you're really pushing it with your comment. It almost just seems like you have an axe to grind. I can agree that a good developer doesn't need to be adept at competitive programming, but it does help with understanding things like algorithms, data structures and time complexity.

I think you trying to claim that competitive programming has "nothing to do with getting a better job" is just as egregious as people who only hire engineers that can produce impeccable red-black trees on a whiteboard with little preparation.

[gpawl]

Relax, parent poster was simply clarifying that the 'competitive' referred to programming "sports" contests, not competing for a programming job.

[dsacco]

Sure, but I don't think a good faith interpretation of the title would require that sort of disclaimer, and look at the rest of the thread that resulted.

[rattray]

I hadn't heard of "competitive programming" before, and at first assumed this was a post exactly about "getting a better job or a better salary" (the most likely alternative interpretation).

So I was grateful for the clarification, and didn't take it as algorithm-hate.

[dilap]

Doing + training for local & ACM programming competitions was easily as valuable for me as the CS classes I took in college. (It helped that our coach was the awesome Eugene Luks.)

There's a lot more than just the core problem solving bits involved in making software, but it's a v. useful skill.