Mozy Contest Impressions (was: Re: Mozy Contest Answers)

[Dave Smith]

Just wanted to share my impressions about the Mozy coding contest. I 
found that the majority of the questions had to do with the ability to 
parse text and manipulate strings. Only one question had to do with 
anything else, and it was thrown out. I can only conclude that BDS 
thinks people who can write programs to parse text in 10 minutes or less 
are worth a $10,000 award. I personally think the breadth of the 
questions was lacking. Maybe phase 2 had a wider breadth of problems -- 
I didn't advance, so I don't know.

I personally felt limited as my strongest language (C++) lacks good text 
processing in its standard library. Since I was not allowed to use my 
favorite libraries (Qt has an awesome string class that would have made 
the problems *much* easier), I was unable to complete several of the 
problems in the alotted time.I did complete one of the problems in 2 
minutes using Perl, while most of the others left me gasping for air 
after 10 minutes of C/C++. Oh well. :)

Curious how others did, and also wondering if the $10k was awarded today.

Best of luck to BDS in their hunt for talent. I think we're all 
struggling to find good developers right now.

--Dave


P.S. The reason I didn't advance, as many of you know, is that I am a 
poor coder. Bummer for me, eh?