A JVM Lover

Today during dinner time, I met Varun and he was wearing a T-shirt that said - "International Earth Sciences Olympiad". I inquired and this is what he told me ... The olympiad is organised in India by the Geological Society of India who train students selected through a screening test for the international competition. Varun gave the exam in his XIth standard and he prepared for it by referring to the Geology text books of CBSE and his state board. The smart chap won a bronze for the country in the competition held at Argentina. Geology is an interesting example of applied physics/chemistry and Varun might pursue the subject in his further studies. He is now enrolled in the Engineering Physics programme.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/print/2011/06/how-i-failed-failed-and-finally-succeeded-at-learning-how-to-code/239855/ There are two things that make programming special - * Its addictive (not all addictions harm). Because, there is instant gratification * Code is text. Text is easier to share and plug-into

Programming a Sport ? I didn't know that until today !! I was amazed to look around and find that so many initiatives abound on the internet that aim at popularizing programming. I got started at codechef.com , then watched an amazing inspirational video http://www.codechef.com/school The getting started page launched me into a web of great resources - http://www.codechef.com/getting-started Check every link ! I met two great heros of the sport in that great journey - 'tourist' and 'petr' The latter is elder to me while the former is just 19 now. petr works for Google but is still a great force in the sport. The ACM ICPC is like the olympics of programming where teams participate. Codechef's envision's the Indian team winning some day and the Go-for-Gold section is particularly geared towards that. Codechef also has a school section. Mathewkuttan, Maxwell - what do you think ?