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| Department Announcements
The First Annual Programming Efficiency Conference and Challenge (aPECc), April 17, 2009 - Conference Details Here
The First Annual Programming Efficiency Conference and Challenge (aPECc)
Friday, April 17, 2009
including
A Guest Speaker
Time: 9:00am to 12:00am
Location: TAMU-Commerce Campus Journalism Building, Room 129
Preliminary Schedule
9:00 to 9:15 Introduction and Welcome
9:15 to 10:00 Guest Speaker
10:00 to 10:15 short break
10:15 to 11:00 Tutorial
11:00 to 11:30 Announcement of winners
The Department Computer Science and Information Systems is sponsoring the First Annual Programming Efficiency Conference and Challenge. This meeting will include a guest speaker.
The programming challenge is to write a function in C/C++ that will execute in the least amount of time possible and solve the following problem. The problem is to determine if an array of random numeric data contains any duplicate values. Further requirements of the programming challenge are available on the attached page or see the ‘announcements link’ on the Computer Science home page – cs.tamu-commerce.edu. The speed of the code submitted will be tested with one or more data sets that contain no duplicates and has at least 1 million values. The name(s) of the individuals whose code executes the fastest will be announced at the beginning of the conference. The winner or possibly winners will be given approximately 15 minutes to explain what techniques were used to make the code efficient. Prizes will be awarded in the following categories.
High School students
Community College Students
Undergraduate Students at Senior Level Colleges or Universities
Graduate Students
Prizes will be announced at a later date. Please check back.
Writing code that executes quickly is a challenge for all programmers but especially for individuals beginning the process of learning the techniques of programming. While selecting the correct algorithm is extremely important, the actual implementation of the algorithm will vary. The actual code used to implement the algorithm can have an impact on the speed of the program. Many individuals use memory that is not needed and operations that are not necessary. Very few individuals are taught techniques that combine operations to reduce the amount of time required to execute a program. The issue is not a matter of optimization or selecting a different algorithm, but one of modifying the algorithm and avoiding unnecessary operations to improve speed.
The purpose of this conference is to begin the examination of programming techniques that can be used to improve the speed of programs. A tutorial will be given to illustrate the issues to be addressed by the conference in succeeding years. There will be a call for papers addressing these issues beginning with the second annual conference. If you plan to attend and/or submit code for the programming challenge, please register by going to the following link: http://cs.tamu-commerce.edu/announcements.asp
For further information contact:
Dr. Dan Creider
Computer Science and Information Systems
Texas A&M University-Commerce
Phone: 903-886-5407
Email: daniel_creider@tamu-commerce.edu
Programming Efficiency Challenge
Requirements: The programming challenge is to write a function in C/C++ that will execute in the least amount of time possible and solve the following problem. The problem is to determine if an array of random numeric data contains any duplicate values. The code must be written in entirely in C/C++. The code cannot include any ‘built in routines’ such as sorting, searching, hashing, etc. If your program contains any of these operations (algorithms) you must write the code yourself. The code must be written and submitted by a high school student, or currently registered undergraduate or graduate student. The data will be stored in a dynamically allocated block of memory of type long and could contain as many as 30 million values in random order. The data can be any value in the range of signed long. Write the code to solve the problem as a function; no main module to be included. Pass to the function the array (pointer of type long) and the size (type long) of the array. The function call would be as follows:
result = check_for_duplicates(data, size);
The two arguments to the function will be assigned appropriate values prior to the execution of the function. The function will return a value of one or zero using a return statement. Return a zero (0) if no duplicate value is found or return a one (1) if at least one duplicate value was found. If you develop a solution to this problem that contains more than one function, the prototype(s) for any additional function(s) must be included in the beginning of the ‘check_for_duplicates” function. Your submitted code will be tested for accuracy and speed. The code will be tested on a PC with a Intel 3GHz single core processor. The compliler used will be Dev-C++ compiler version 4.9.9.2. This is a free compiler and can be obtained at http://www.bloodshed.net. A main program has been developed to test your code using the call statement as shown above.
The dead line for submitting code for this programming challenge is Monday, March 30, 2009. Submit the code in a text file to Daniel_Creider@tamu-commerce.edu. Please include your name, email address, phone number and university you are attending at the beginning of the text file. Please submit your code as soon as possible. All code submitted will be verified for accuracy and speed with a common data set on the same computer.
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