Do you consider candidates outside the US? (I'm in Asia but willing to overlap with US hours)
20 karma · joined November 5, 2013
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11704954 --> "I loved this book for being exceptionally clear and terse. I was hooked from the first sentence: "Probability is a mathematical language for quantifying uncertainty." That one sentence makes the concept clear in a way that the entire chapter on probability from "Statistics in a Nutshell" (http://www.amazon.com/Statistics-Nutshell-Sarah-Boslaugh/dp/...) did not."
--> "Statistics in a Nutshell" got added to list 20 of year 2016
Example:
var a = function(x){ this.x = x+1; return this; }
var b = function(){ this.x *= 2; return this.x; }
a(3).b(); //result = 8
FYI, he gave a Quora answer about his view on Competitive Programming http://qr.ae/dx4m6
"Especially in the United States, there's little glory to be had in doing programming contests. I've invested thousands of hours into them, solving problem after problem, writing line of code after line of code, for what? My peers, meanwhile, are off doing amazing things: some are doing ground-breaking research with professors, others are finding new passions that they only could have discovered at Stanford... the list goes on. I'll be retiring from competitive programming after World Finals this year, in part because I want to live a more normal life."
That's in 2013, and he is still participating in this year's contest, so I guess he is still in love with it :p
Anyway, I did my first code jam last year and also got my ego shattered when looking at the scoreboard. I passed the online qualification round though, but decided to stop since I think it's nonsense trying to complete with thousands of competitive programmers to get to top 1000 when I never practiced as much as them. I used to be like them when I did math contests in high school, so I know what it feels. It's not about your IQ or anything like that, it's just about practice, practice, practice.
It's up to you to decide whether competitive programming is good for your career. For me I'm still doing it occasionally for fun (not really competitive since I just pick problems in areas that I find interesting and do it alone), but since I'm already spend 8 hours a day at work and have a bunch of unfinished side projects in hand and a long list of other things I want to learn, I don't think it's worth spending thousands hours of my time to compete in such contests.
You can also refer to this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9337863 . I think the situation is similar, as doing competitive programming means putting yourself in relative comparison with others. It's just a double edged sword =)