Summary
Python is now an approved language in Google's yearly Code Jam coding contest.

For a number of years, Google has run a yearly coding contest named Code Jam. The smartest (young) programmers in the world compete against each other for prizes and fame.

There are 3 online rounds (September 5-6, September 14 and September 19). The top 100 will be invited for the final coding showdown at Google New York on October 27, 2006. All travel and accommodation expenses will be covered by Google and there will be over $165,000 in cash and prizes.

What's most exciting for me is that this year, for the first time, Python is one of the supported languages. (The others are C++, Java, C# and VB.NET.) I'm hoping that at least some of the finalists will get that far by exploiting Python's superior coding speed!

(Googlers, others involved in setting up the competition, and their families, etc., etc., are not allowed to participate, as is customary in such things.)

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About the Blogger

Guido van Rossum is the creator of Python, one of the major programming languages on and off the web. The Python community refers to him as the BDFL (Benevolent Dictator For Life), a title straight from a Monty Python skit. He moved from the Netherlands to the USA in 1995, where he met his wife. Until July 2003 they lived in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC with their son Orlijn, who was born in 2001. They then moved to Silicon Valley where Guido now works for Google (spending 50% of his time on Python!).