Code Festival 2016 was held in Tokyo on 25-30 of November. Boris qwerty787788 Minaev has shared with us his impressions, and Maxim Zlobober Ahmedov and Nicolay KAN Kalinin shared photos.
— To start with, let's mention that, AtCoder and Indeed company announced the festival. How many quals were there? In what way were they arranged?
— There were 3 contests, in which you could take part. In the first part TOP-10 were selected, in the second one — TOP-5, the third one — TOP-5. To sum up, there are 20 foreigners to be selected.
— Which quals the Japanese had then?
— Probably the same, but 200 participants passed the qual there.
— That means, the event is more orientated on Japanese people?
— The previous years the event was held only for Japanese, this year they decided also to invite some foreigners.
— How long did the contest lasted?
— It was quite short. To pass it you had to solve all the problems. It turned out that in first 15 minutes the first 3 out of 5 problems needed to be hand in, and other two are handed in later — you had to think hard on them. The foreigners had to hand in everything taking into account the penalty time.
— The rules of АСМ?
— Nearly. You don't loose anything for penalty attempts, that means it's possible to submit problems any number of times
— No debugging, no testing — just submit, and that's all?
— Yes, it was possible. In addition they also showed verdict on every test.
— Was it clear from the very beginning that those who passed the samplings would be waited in Japan?
— Yes. They payed for the road — bought the tickets. They fed me a bit during the event. On the fifth day I was invited to the Indeed office. Indeed is the American company, which decided to open an office in Tokyo. For an hour they were talking about what the company is doing, and then there was a diner with the engineers. Five people came, three of them were Russians, who work in Yandex. They were communicating with the Russian-speaking public. They told us, that came to Tokyo because of the desire of traveling.
Organizers provided us with the access to the internet by giving routers including Sim with some already payed traffic. Comment and photo: Maxim Ahmedov
— Is it true that in Japanese offices there are balconies with special plants as a recreation area?
— Exactly in the Indeed office there are no. The engineers said they reconstructed their American office here — they all came from Austin.
The competition was held in a business area of the city, which had huge office buildings made of glass and metal. Comment and photo: Maxim Ahmedov
— How many days did the contest lasted?
— During 4 days, from the early morning, 8 o’clock, till 10 o'clock in the evening. The fifth day was a day off.
Sakura blossoms even in winter. Comment and photo: Nicolay Kalinin
