America Failing Again - Computer Programming Edition.

[MattSh]

by Matt Shalvatis

There was a time not all that long ago that when computers and computing were mentioned, one automatically thought of the USA. Computers? USA. Applications? USA. Smart phones and tablets? USA. Of course, some of that was only minimally true to begin with, and other parts ceased to exist on the American landscape a long time ago. So then, what is the current state of American computing, specifically software development? Sad to say, software development in the USA has seen much better days, and its future looks even less bright now.

For many years, the USA dominated the world in software development. Beginning in 1977, the Association for Computing Machinery initiated the International Collegiate Programming Contest, which has run every year since. In the early years, the USA dominated this competition. In the first 21 years of this competition, the USA won 17 times, including the first 13 in a row. Since then, America's star has faded fast. How fast? Well, read on for the sordid details.

The last time the USA won this competition was 1997. That's 19 years ago. Now while coming in in the top position is nice, it's not the only thing. There's nothing wrong with making a good solid showing. But the USA's showing in recent years has been lackluster to say the least.

So let's fast forward to the year 2016. What is the state of American computing versus the rest of the world? In the most recent competition, five of the top 10 collegiate teams were from Russia, two were from the USA, two were from Poland, and one was from China. This in and of itself speaks volumes about the current state of computer programming in the USA. But let's look even deeper into these results.

There was 68 ranked teams in this year's competition. A team got ranked by solving at least five of the 12 problems within the allotted time. Of the American teams, Harvard finished third solving 10 out of 12 problems, and MIT finished sixth overall, solving nine of the 12 problems. From this, the state of American computing might be seen as still basically solid. But let's go deeper into the rankings to see if this still holds.

(Note that both Harvard and MIT are private universities with total yearly tuition costs of $45,000).

Of the 68 teams in the final rankings, 14 were from China, 11 from Russia, nine from the combined EU, and seven from the USA. Now the fact that the USA had only seven ranked teams should already be considered a sign of weakness. And while it might appear that the Chinese are pulling ahead of the USA, when adjusted for total population, China still has a long way to go. Adjusted for population, the EU is doing about 20% worse than the USA, but Russia is doing about 3 1/2 times better than the USA. Let's also mention that the EU would be doing a whole lot worse on this list if it wasn't for three ranked teams from Poland.

Digging into the list a bit more, the next American schools we see are Cornell University, UC Berkeley and the University of Central Florida, at a 16 way tie at number 28. Cornell is a private university with annual tuition costs over $47,000. Only at this level do we begin to see schools that an average middle-class American could afford, UC Berkeley and University of Central Florida. At this position in the rankings, these three American teams are already behind nine ranked Russian teams, four ranked Chinese teams, a team from Ukraine, and a team from Belarus. And they are also tied with teams from North Korea and Vietnam, a second team from Belarus, and tied with four more Chinese teams. This is not very inspiring for the future of computer programming in the USA.

At this point I believe the pattern is clear without delving further into the list. But let me just mention the other two American universities that make this list. Stanford and Rice. The annual tuition costs at both of these schools are also over $40,000 a year, not exactly in the range of your average middle-class family in the USA. So of the seven American finalists, only 2 of them are widely affordable to the middle class.

OK America, the world is challenging us. The gauntlet has been thrown down. Come on America, you know what to do. It's time to roll up our sleeves, go to the closet and pull out your Wagging Index Finger of Ignorance and start waving it around proudly. You know, one of these things...

[IMG][/IMG]

Don't forget the chant too!

We're Number 1. We're number 1.

Damn America. You're still the best at something!

Sources:

Story on this year's final: http://www.techworm.net/2016/05/russia-students-best-china-us-win-programming-world-championship.html
Past Results: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACM_International_Collegiate_Programming_Contest
2016 Final Results: https://icpc.baylor.edu/worldfinals/results

[MattSh]

1. Author's Note:

Author's Note: I am the author of this article and am posting it here in full. I hereby authorize anyone and everyone to repost this article, in part or in full. In addition, if this article could have been better, please let me know. You know, so I can do better next time, if there's a next time!

[zalinda]

3. I have to ask

Of those competing, were any paying for college besides us? Is college tuition part of the problem in holding us back?

Z

[My Good Babushka]

2. It's starts very early when children in poverty

do not have access to the technology, the internet, and the modern means of information that the rest of the world, both the computer programming world and the global economy, runs on. American children are held back at every step.

[CentralMass]

4. I graduated from a high school in 1978 in a small town in MA and I had computer programming classes.

That school does not offer them anymore. I'm sure that there may be other public schools in the country that do.

Those courses are the reason that to this day I earn my living writing code as part of my job.

We need to expose kids to computer languages early and often. To allow them to build an interest and skill set.