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Code your Future...and win a prize!

By Clay Breshears (Intel) (133 posts) on March 30, 2009 at 2:12 pm

It's here!! The Intel Threading Challenge 2009 contest has been announced.  Visit the official contest web page to get the details and sign up for participation.

This year, we'll be running things a little quicker than we did for the previous contest.  There will be two separate contests held this year.  The first will start with the first problem posting on 06 APR 2009.  There will be 6 problems poised at two week intervals with about 3 weeks for you to code up, write up, and submit a solution.  The majority of points will be for the speed of execution for the code submitted to solve the problem, but there will also be a scoring component that requires you to write up a small article on your coding solution.  An link to an example can be found on the Official Rules page.

There will be a grand prize winner after the 6 problems have been submitted and judged.  Since we're going to be throwing problems at you in a fast and furious manner, we're only going to take your top three scores and add them together.  The winner will be the programmer with the highest sum of three scores. So, if you get busy with school or work and miss a couple of weeks, you can miss a problem or two and still have a shot at the whole enchilada.

If you're wanting to flex your concurrent programming muscles and code for the future, join us for a 13-week long intense competition to develop threaded codes to solve programming problems.  Make it fast enough and you could be lauded by your colleagues and earn a prize for your efforts.

Added 02 APR, from my comment below:

If there are questions about the contest, we've opened up a forum for general contest questions like Dmitriy has posed above.  Go to http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/general-contest-questions/ for this forum.

There will be problem specific subforums that will open up soon after a problem has been first revealed.  Questions, comments, concerns, swapping performance stories, and algorithm suggestions can all be posted there for the specific problem.

Categories: Academic, Events, Intel® Software Network 2.0, Parallel Programming, Software Engineering

Comments (12)

March 31, 2009 10:31 AM PDT Dmitriy Vyukov Total Points: 27,232 Status Points: 27,232 Black Belt

When I am clicking "To enter you must register for the contest here" on this page: http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/threading-challenge.....ial-rules/ I am getting just to main ISN page: http://software.intel.com/en-us/ ?

March 31, 2009 10:32 AM PDT Dmitriy Vyukov Total Points: 27,232 Status Points: 27,232 Black Belt

Arrrgggghhhhh Please, repair line feeds in comments

March 31, 2009 10:51 AM PDT Dmitriy Vyukov Total Points: 27,232 Status Points: 27,232 Black Belt

Very nice that phase judgement is based only on top 3 out of 6 entries! 2xCore i7 is also nice. Btw, is libnuma is installed on the Linux box (since the system is NUMA) ? Since hardware is the same for the Win and Linux boxes, what it means that CPU MHz is 1596 on Linux box? Or it's different boxes? Btw, Clay, may you provide just some hint ahead of time whether there will be some "non computational" problems? Like garbage collector, language run-time, server run-time, concurrent collection, logger component, etc?

March 31, 2009 1:51 PM PDT Clay Breshears (Intel) Total Points: 16,177 Status Points: 16,177 Black Belt

I got to the entry page, but being on the inside, it might not reflect what you're seeing. If you still haven't registered, try https://fm1cedar.cps.intel.com/isn/registration/isnRegpage.aspx?Lang=ENG&TARGET=http%3A%2F%2Fsoftware.intel.com%2Fen-us%2F. I noticed that the spacing in comments has gone away with another post. I'm not sure about installations, but I can check. I'll also have to check on the processors speeds. I thought both platforms were the same processor.

April 1, 2009 8:58 AM PDT Clay Breshears (Intel) Total Points: 16,177 Status Points: 16,177 Black Belt

I have been assured by the sys admin that the processor speeds of the chips are the same. The 1596MHz speed from the Linux system is what is being reported by the /proc/cpuinfo file. There is no libnuma installed. It was not on the RedHat installation. There will not be any "non computational" problems along the lines of the examples given. Just things like sorts, searches, trees, graphs, trigonometry, stacks, arrays, scans, chess pieces, air flow designs, boolean logic, calculus, origami, pipes, bowlers, hurricanes, random walks, etc.

April 1, 2009 10:14 PM PDT Dmitriy Vyukov Total Points: 27,232 Status Points: 27,232 Black Belt

Re: try https://fm1cedar.cps.intel.com/isn/registration/isnRegpage.aspx?Lang=ENG&TARGET=http%3A%2F%2Fsoftware.intel.com%2Fen-us%2F. I got to another page via this link. There I click "Already have Intel login", then "Ligin", and then got to the main ISN page again... Hmmm... I didn't enter any additional info, neither click "Register"... Am I registered? How I may check this?

April 1, 2009 10:45 PM PDT Dmitriy Vyukov Total Points: 27,232 Status Points: 27,232 Black Belt

Re: The 1596MHz speed from the Linux system is what is being reported by the /proc/cpuinfo file. Ok. Probably it relates to the HT. Re: There is no libnuma installed. Please provide full /proc/cpuinfo at least. Linux may use 'compact' or 'scatter' (OpenMP terminology) processor numbering, it's crucial for scheduling - basically whether I have to bind related work to processors 0 and 1 or to processors 0 and 4. Also it would be useful to know L1D$ size, basically on blocks of what size I have to break-down data. Is it this processor: http://ark.intel.com/cpu.aspx?groupId=37111 ? It seems that there is a typo in hardware specification - it's not "X55700", it's "X5570". For ones who are interested here is a spec: http://download.intel.com/design/xeon/datashts/321321.pdf L1D$ - 32kb per core L1I$ - 32kb per core L2$ - 256kb per core L3$ - 8MB per-package inclusive (Intel finally switched to AMD scheme :) )

April 2, 2009 1:38 AM PDT Dmitriy Vyukov Total Points: 27,232 Status Points: 27,232 Black Belt

Re: There will not be any "non computational" problems along the lines of the examples given. Pitiful server-side and systems programming, they think that the problem is solved there because of the "inherently parallel workload"... Are not many of the sorts, image processing, tree/graph processing, vector processing, combinatorial problems also inherently parallel?

April 2, 2009 11:30 AM PDT Intel Software Network Support Total Points: 3,894 Status Points: 3,394 Brown Belt

Dmitriy, if you're still having trouble with logging in, please contact us directly by email and we'll be glad to help (isn.support at intel.com).

April 2, 2009 5:18 PM PDT Clay Breshears (Intel) Total Points: 16,177 Status Points: 16,177 Black Belt

If there are questions about the contest, we've opened up a forum for general contest questions like Dmitriy has posed above. Go to http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/general-contest-questions/ for this forum. There will be problem specific subforums that will open up soon after a problem has been first revealed. Questions, comments, concerns, swapping performance stories, and algorithm suggestions can all be posted there for the specific problem.

April 2, 2009 9:11 PM PDT Alex

It is really great competition ;) for talented individuals with prize pool $33.3/week ($100 to one person for 3 weeks) From the Official Rules: "The contest is open to participants worldwide." "All prizes will be awarded within six weeks of the date the competition closes." "You must provide Intel a Taxpayer Identification Number ("TIN") prior to the awarding of any prize" From the IRS: "Who needs an ITIN? ... A non-resident alien individual not eligible for a SSN, who is required to file a U.S. tax return only to claim a refund of tax under the provisions of a U.S. tax treaty, needs an ITIN." "If you qualify for an ITIN and your application is complete, you will receive a letter from the IRS assigning your tax identification number, usually within four to six weeks."

April 3, 2009 1:05 AM PDT Dmitriy Vyukov Total Points: 27,232 Status Points: 27,232 Black Belt

Re: we've opened up a forum for general contest questions You forgot to update "Contest Forum" link on the main contest page: http://software.intel.com/en-us/contests/Threading-Challenge.....ontest.php

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