Ahhh - the flaw of using the US educational system here in the country. I believe that it is not ideal for our situation. We are better off using the British education system. I think we are the only asian country using the US educational system.
Anyway, UAP is a Microsoft partner, afaik. Using Linux might not be 'attractive'. I don't know if ACM can have Ateneo or UP host next year's contest. :-) --o000o-- Prof. Rommel Palma Feria, MSc, MIEEE, MACM Director, University Computer Center University of the Philippines - Diliman Quezon City 1101 Philippines Voice: +63 2 9268837 Fax: +63 2 9204803 ----------------------------------------- Original Message: From: Pablo Manalastas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Philippine Linux Users Group Mailing List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wed Nov 12 22:29:19 EST 2003 Subject: [plug] [OT] Programming in the Philippines. We Filipinos like to brag that we produce Asia's best programmers, because we can speak, read, and write English. This is a big BULL---T. Asia's best programmers are the Chinese. In the ACM international collegiate programming contest held in Nov 5-7 at U.A.& P, 68 programming teams from from all over the Philipines and from abroad (China, Hongkong, Japan, Indonesia, etc) tried writing programs to solve 8 problems in 5 hours. Most Philippine teams solved 0 or 1 of the 8 problems. The best teams solved 4 problems each (Tokyo, Donghua, HK-UST, Ateneo). The top scorers are Chinese. The Chinese teams have been the top scorers not only this year, but also in the past few years in all ACM programming contests in the Asian region. How come they're so good, and we're so bad? 1. Because the foreign teams (including the Chinese) have to pass British-style Level-A Maths and Science before they can enter the University. The first two to three years of our Science and Engineering programs is the poor equivalent of Level-A. 2. Because we have to do senior high-school material in college (History, Theology, Philosophy, elementary algebra), together with some sprinkling of computer science (programming). Our foreign counterparts do nothing but hard computer science in the University. 3. Because for our foreign counterparts, programming is a way of life, like walking or breathing. For us, programming is a homework assignment due in three weeks, which we try to finish one or two nights before the deadline. 4. Because they love to program, and they get orgasm when they finally get that elusive code to compute the incenter given the coordinates of the three vertices, or generate all proper subgroups of a finite group, etc. We, we get our orgasm the normal way. So, if we like to code like the Chinese wizards, we have to live like they live, think like they think, and love programming like they love. To put this on track: Why doesn't U.A. & P use Linux for the ACM programming contest? After all, PC^2 runs on Linux! P~Manalastas -- Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Official Website: http://plug.linux.org.ph Searchable Archives: http://marc.free.net.ph ... To leave, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/plug ... Are you a Linux newbie? To join the newbie list, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/ph-linux-newbie ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using DeskNow Lite - Free mail & collaboration server http://www.desknow.com -- Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Official Website: http://plug.linux.org.ph Searchable Archives: http://marc.free.net.ph . To leave, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/plug . Are you a Linux newbie? To join the newbie list, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/ph-linux-newbie
