Computer programmers place fourth

By Jessica Lafferty
Broadside Correspondent

"We were more sort of flabbergasted," said Joel VanLaven about his team's recent accomplishment at the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM) Mid-Atlantic Programming Contest.

Selected by team sponsor Dr. Liz White of the Computer Science Dept, graduate students VanLaven and his teammate Emerson Farrugia, one of two teams representing the university in the contest this year, placed 4th out of the 117 teams participating in the event.

Moments after receiving verification of their first correct answer the students looked on the score board to find their rank. Initially they were somewhat worried when they couldn't find it, but then realized they were in first place.

"We were just not expecting it; it was such a surprise," said Farrugia. Teams were judged on the number of correct answers they submitted as well as how long it took them to solve the problem.

"It was a difficult balance trying to be fast and accurate at the same time," said VanLaven. The team undoubtedly feels one of the reasons they did so well was because they solved a problem in the shortest amount of time and were the only team in the contest to answer the problem correctly.

Problems involved using languages like JavaScript and Pascal to engineer a computer program based on a given set of variables. For instance, suppose you logged on to an Internet site that gave you the lowest rate cable plan based on the features you wanted. There would be a program that calculated which plan would be the most economic depending on the information that was entered.

The teams were required to design programs such as these in under five hours. "These are the types of problems professors give as projects in a graduate course." said VanLaven.

Besides bragging rights, an accomplishment like this practically ensures both students positions with top computer corporations like IBM, as well as research positions for Ph.D. work. Both VanLaven and Farrugia will attend the Y2K World Finals in March.