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Write Code, Crush Foes, Get Hired – Multiplayer Programming Tournament

blog.codecombat.com

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Re: Write Code, Crush Foes, Get Hired – Multiplayer Programming Tournament

#4

Post by gsaines »

iMuzz wrote: post #3

I remember seeing these guys get accepted to Ycombinator on stage at at Start Up School 2013. Cool concept! Here's the link if anyone is interested. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syoqjYLDs48

Thanks iMuzz, that was an intense day for everyone, and it's always surprising to see how much of a splash that made!

Re: Write Code, Crush Foes, Get Hired – Multiplayer Programming Tournament

#8

Post by schmatz »

michaelmior wrote: post #5

Interesting that there's an option to simulate games to speed up tournament progress. I wonder how the output of the simulation is validated.

Hi michaelmior,

Those simulations are used to calculate the public leaderboards during the competition. They aren't used for final rankings as the simulation results need to be validated. However, they provide a nice way for people to gauge their standing.

To perform the final ranking/validation, we'll play n of the top games on each team against each other and then sort by wins and losses. We're not quite sure of how large n will be, but I think it will be 150-250. It would be nice to calculate the public leaderboards this way, but as a O(n*m) calculation, it really doesn't scale in practice (we have to strike a balance between accuracy and responsiveness of the ranking system). The public leaderboards are calculated with a Bayesian algorithm.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask! :)

Re: Write Code, Crush Foes, Get Hired – Multiplayer Programming Tournament

#9

Post by asselinpaul »

Great to see CodeCombat getting more exposure.

I've actually started to use it to teach Javascript to 10 year olds in my local primary school (through a CodeClub I run). It has been a great experience and a lot of kids are moving quickly through the campaign levels. I even have a few kids who moved on to the multiplayer levels.

Quick remark: the computers in the school are Core 2 Duo machines with 1.75GB of RAM. They are running the latest version of Chrome on XP but often crash on CodeCombat (lack of RAM?). It's a shame but reloading usually solves the problem. Also, getting coordinates on the map is usually quite tedious (it doesn't seam to work all the time).

I am really excited about the future of CodeCombat.

Re: Write Code, Crush Foes, Get Hired – Multiplayer Programming Tournament

#10

Post by gsaines »

joshbert wrote: post #6

I wonder how their last employment program went. Any comments, gsaines?

Really well actually. The TLDR summary is "we got swamped and made 4 placements."

We had ~50 good candidates that got in touch, but we took PG's advice to do things that don't scale, which meant I was doing high touch recruiting. About 2 weeks in, we decided to refocus on 12 of the candidates and we placed 4 of those. In the interim we've built out an automated profile system, employer portal, and a bunch of internal tools to scale up so that this time we can handle increased demand.

The overall feedback from employers was very favorable. One startup told us that our candidates were 5x more likely to pass technical screens that their other recruiting channels.

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