TCO18 Dev & F2F Finals - No Time to 'REST'!
It’s hard to believe that TCO18 finals are less than 3 weeks away! It seems as if yesterday that the TCO Queen Jessie was busy announcing the finalists’ names and starting to get things in place to get everybody to Dallas!
While I expect each of the final tracks to be tightly contested, I’ve a keen interest in the Dev and F2F finals this year - blame it on the “Once a developer, always a developer!” paradox. The line up for both these finals tracks this year has a mix of folks who’ve been around forever as well as several fresh faces. There are the champions of the yesteryears, there are those who lost out last year and will fight tooth and nail to win the title this year and then there are the dark horses - folks who’ve qualified for the finals for the first time!
A Truly Level-Playing Field!
Topcoder tried to make a conscious effort to make TCO17 finals a level-playing field last year. However, everyone realised there was plenty of scope this year to improve things and provide a platform which does not put contestants of a specific technology at an obvious advantage (or disadvantage).
To that effect, the efforts started much earlier this year and I’m excited to see how the finals and the overall process goes. Earlier this week, the TCO finalists were informed of the overall plan and the last few kinks are in the process of being ironed out as I write this.
No time to ‘REST’
Image courtesy - statusmind.com
How do you evaluate a .NET developer against a Java developer? How do you put a Swift iOS developer against a Node.js developer? Different languages, different technology stacks and lots of different considerations - clearly, this is not an easy problem to solve!
The one common factor across all backend languages though is the ability to build RESTful interfaces and build them well! To eliminate any inconsistencies, the finalists have already been informed
“At this year's TCO for the Development and First To Finish competitions we will be expecting you to build REST APIs. You may use your language of choice and we have created a docker file to assist with the submission process”
Of course, the problems will be significantly different for Development and F2F finals but I’ve no doubt that both will be equally fiercely contested.
Development Finals
I can see a lot of familiar faces in the development finals this year. An interesting mix of technologies including .NET, Swift, Node.js and several others. While I would have loved to see someone from India as well, sentiments aside, it’s a battle of “the best of the best” and it will be interesting to see who is crowned the champion this year!
F2F Finals
The best thing about the F2F format is that it puts a developer’s skills to test in multiple dimensions - speed, quality and efficiency, all with the clock ticking against you! I always find the F2F battle to be unpredictable and this year, with several new names, I’m expecting plenty of fireworks and surprises!
Of course, there’s a F2F champion in the fray again this year who almost missed out last year (due to the most absurd & unimaginable reason) and there are several others who’ll give him a close fight!
Look forward to seeing everyone in Dallas soon.
Let the battle begin!