I think 0.2 years has passed since this reply. Any updates on when the analysis of 2015 finals will be published?
On Monday, November 14, 2016 at 7:37:11 PM UTC+5:30, Pablo Heiber wrote: > Hi eatmore, > > > Thanks for your excitement and I am sorry you are disappointed. Most of your > questions have what I believe to be pretty reasonable answers. > > > 1. Finals in Dublin. Choosing a location is not as easy as pointing our > fingers to a Google offices anywhere in the globe. There are some > requirements. > -The office needs to have a big enough room to hold the finals. > -There needs to be significant engineering presence locally to do the setup > of computers well in advance of the core Code Jam team arriving (there are > personal and legal reasons for not deploying the core team months in advance > to do it). > -The country needs to have visa policies that are welcoming enough for us to > be confident that with 99.999% probability, any finalist from our global > audience will be able to get a visa (I know some people complain about the > visa process for the US, for instance, but our visa team reports some other > countries would make it harder or even impossible for finalists from certain > countries that usually get people into the finals to get a visa). > -There are also other logistic considerations like good availability of > reasonable flights and accommodation to/from the countries where we receive > the most finalists. Additionally, some offices hold large annual events > around the finals' time and are thus too busy to receive us most years, so > they are hard to use. > > > That being said, we strive for diversity of location and experience, and we > are trying to get 100% new locations to hold the finals. However, having an > event that is technically and logistically flawless, accessible to finalists > from as many countries as possible, is top priority. > > > 2. Analysis of 2015 finals. This our big overdue debt to you all. We > apologize for this, once again. 2015, 16 and going on there was a big > shake-up inside Code Jam: we are changing the systems to accommodate our > growing and more diverse audiences, adding and growing Distributed, and > having significant changes in the core team developing the contest. All of > that is making it harder to get to fix a 2015 problem when there is always a > 2016 or 2017 nicer thing to do for you guys, and it always feels more > impactful. We are going to do it, though. Thanks for your patience. To your > actual question: not many more years, less than 0.2 years will suffice. > > > 3. Swapping of DCJ and GCJ finals and skipping a Saturday contest. These were > two separate decisions: > 3a. Moving Saturday to Thursday: Being a weekend, Saturday was a bit of a > logistic problem for us. The regular options for food and catering are not > available, plus, there are Googlers in the office on weekdays excited about > the contest, so we'll get a bigger fuzz. There is also a larger possibility > for everyone traveling to the finals to enjoy the weekend out traveling if > it's free from activities. Weekends usually offer the most going out options > if you choose to do that. > 3b. Swapping DCJ and GCJ order. DCJ is more complex, it's harder to explain > problems and solutions, and the easiest DCJ problem imaginable can be solved > by several orders of magnitude less people than the easiest GCJ problem, that > can be solved, given enough time, by most programmers. That makes GCJ a more > natural thing to stream than DCJ (it's also older and that makes it more well > known at this point). And we don't have the resources to stream both at this > point. If DCJ happens before, we can talk about it's problems, solutions and > what happens in the contest during GCJ's streaming the next day. This way it > will at least get more live streaming exposure, and hopefully get more people > excited and training for it specifically. > > > We know that the choosing of the day of the week and the order is bound to > make some people happy and some sad, so we are choosing what we believe is > better for most people. Options that are clearly 100% better for everyone > (like advancing the top 26 to the finals instead of a random set of 26), > well, we already made those, and they probably don't even look like decisions. > > > I hope having an explanation at least softens the disappointment for the > possible dislikes. We are still working to making Code Jam in general and the > finals in particular the greatest, most enjoyable and interesting so far. > > > Best, > Pablo, from the Code Jam team > > > On Mon, Nov 14, 2016 at 12:49 AM, eatmore <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all, > > > > Recently, Google announced the dates for the next Code Jam, as well as the > location of its onsite rounds. I'm disappointed. They've chosen a location > where GCJ onsite round was already held before. Again. Come on! Google has > more than 70 offices (source: Google), enough to have each GCJ onsite in a > new place for years to come. > > > > Also, analysis of 2015 World Finals is still missing. How many more years > should I wait? > > > > Also, for some reason DCJ final round is scheduled one day before the regular > final round. Previously, DCJ round were always scheduled after regular > rounds, why do it differently this time? > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Google Code Jam" group. > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/google-code/acb5eb41-9d46-484d-897a-9396c8bb2fab%40googlegroups.com. > > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Code Jam" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. 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