| There are some confusion. Competitive programming is not about optimizing CPU time, but about optimizing programmer time: Competitive programming is a type of programming competition where participants compete against each other to solve algorithmic and computational problems in a limited amount of time (usually a few hours). The competition typically involves a set of problems of varying difficulty levels that participants must solve within a fixed time frame. The objective is to solve as many problems as possible and score the maximum number of points. Competitive programming is often used as a way to test and hone programming and problem-solving skills, and it is popular among students and professionals in the computer science and software engineering fields. It can also be a fun and challenging way to learn new programming concepts and techniques. While it may look at first a good idea for an enterprise to have such programmers that are able to program fast, I'd be wary about the code quality, maintainability, or even merely its adequacy to user specifications. And yes, about run-time too. One can argue that if a competitive programmer finds a solution quickly, he has time left on his hands to fulfill those additional goals. It's indeed the argument used eg. by Lisp programmers, where the speed of reaching a solution is helped by the quality and high-levelness of the programming language, rather than brute competitiveness of the programmer. Then time is left to optimize the program if there are parts, or algorithms that are too slow for the user. But remember than the best gain of run-time performance are obtained by choosing the right data-structure and algorithms, rather than micro-optimizing and hacking. There are multiple dimensions and notions behind the word "performance". Recently, energy efficiency has become an important performance parameter (you may choose an algorithm because executing it consumes less energy). Of course, companies may need programmers competent in various performance optimizations. Among other competencies... http://cliki.net/Performance |