Why do programming competition contestants use C++ and Java?

After competing in and following this year's Google Code Jam competition, I couldn't help but notice the incredible number of [successful] contestants that used C/C++ and Java. The distribution of languages used throughout the competition can be seen here.

After programming in C/C++ for several years, I recently fell in love with Python for its readable/straightforward nature. More recently, I learned functional languages like OCaml, Scheme, and even logic languages like Prolog. These languages certainly have their merits and, in my opinion, can be applied more easily than C++ and Java for certain situations. For example, Scheme's use of call/cc simplifies backtracking (a tool required to answer several problems) and Prolog's logic specification, although inefficient due to its brute-force nature, can drastically simplify (and even automatically solve) certain problems that are difficult to wrap one's brain around.

It is clear that a competition contestant should use the tools that are best suited for the challenge. Even x86 assembly is Turing complete - that doesn't justify solving problems with it. In this case, why are the contestants that use less common languages like Scheme/Lisp, Prolog, and even Python significantly less successful than contestants that use C/C++ and Java? Worded differently, why don't successful contestants use languages that, although may be less mainstream, are arguably better tools for the job?

There are several motivations for my question. Most importantly, I would like to become a better programmer - both in the practical aspect and the competition aspect. After being introduced to such beautiful paradigms like functional and logic programming, it is discouraging to see so many people discard them in favor of C/C++ and Java. It even makes me question my admiration for said paradigms, worrying that I cannot be successful as a Lisp/Scheme/Prolog programmer in a programming competition.

Great question! As someone who has dabbled in programming contests a bit myself, I may have something to say.

[Let's get the standard disclaimer out of the way: contest programming is only loosely related to "programming in the real world", and while it tests algorithmic and problem-solving skills and the ability to come up with fast bug-free working code under time pressure, it does not necessarily correlate with being able to build large software projects, write maintainable code, etc (beyond the fact that well-structured programs are easier to debug).]

Now for some answers:

• C++/Java are more common than other languages in the real world as well, so you'd expect to see a higher proportion anywhere. (But it's even higher in the contest population.)

• Many of these participants are students, or got into contests as students, and C++/Java are more common "first languages" that students learn. (Undergrad students these days may start with Scheme, Haskell, Python, etc., but high-schoolers (often self-taught) less often.) In fact, many of the Eastern European participants still use Pascal, and are more amazing with it than the rest of us will ever be with any language.

• The school- and college-level contests usually use these languages. The International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) allows only C, C++ and Pascal (or maybe it allows Java now; I haven't kept up), and the ACM Intercollegiate Programming Contest (ACM ICPC) allows only C, C++ and Java. TopCoder allows C++, Java, C# and VB (really :p); and recently, Python. So you could say the "contest ecosystem" has more C++/Java programmers in it. Google Code Jam and IPSC are among the few contests that allow code in any language, actually.

• Now the question is, in GCJ where the contestants are free to choose a language, why wouldn't they choose Python or Scheme? The most relevant factor is that these languages are slow. Sure, for most real-world programming they are easily fast enough, but for the tight loops that are often involved in getting a program to run under the n-second limit for all test cases, these languages don't cut it for any of the algorithmically more involved problems. (A problem designed to accept O(n log n) solutions but not Θ(n²) solutions for C/C++ frequently rules out even optimal O(n log n) solutions in slower languages. Even Java used to be given a handicap at USACO; I'm not sure this is still the case.)

• Another factor is the libraries: C++ and Java have better libraries for frequently useful algorithms and data structures (e.g. red-black trees, C++'s next_permutation), while Python's libraries (good enough for the real world) are less useful here, and Prolog and Scheme... I don't know about their libraries. This is a relatively minor factor, because these programmers can write their own code when necessary. :-)

• General-purpose multi-paradigm languages are more useful for just getting things done within the time constraints of the contest, than languages that force a philosophy or way of doing things on you. This is why Prolog will always remain unpopular, for instance. (General philosophy: some languages are "enabling" languages that let you do anything including shooting yourself in the foot, some are "directing" that force you to do things the right way.) This is also why C++ is three times more popular than Java in the general contest participants, and much more popular among the top contestants. Since code doesn't have to be read by anyone else, it's ok and even useful to have loop macros like FOR(i,n) (less code to type, and more importantly less chance of making a bug when in a hurry). Nothing against Java, there are a few top programmers who use Java too. :-)

• Finally, although many of these top programmers may have C++/Java/Pascal as their "first language", they are not good because of their language, so you don't have to despair about that. Many of these same programmers have won contests like the ICFP contest even with intentionally using crazy languages like shell scripts, m4 (used in autoconf), and assembly (the team named "You Can't Spell Awesome Without ASM").

I liked Jerry Coffin's idea of plotting contestants of the Google AI contest, so I took all of the results and plotted them (calculated mean, standard deviation, and then graphed the normal distribution curves in Excel).

With Lua and JS, got this: http://i.imgur.com/DZf3A.png" title="Hosted by imgur.com" />

Without (there were few contestants, so maybe the results are skewed): http://i.imgur.com/E5m9x.png" title="Hosted by imgur.com" />

It looks like Java participants did markedly worse than the rest, while Go, Common Lisp, and C are on the better end.

Why we all speak English and not Esperanto? Well, it just happened so. Even though English is inconsistent and bloated and Esperanto is intentionally designed as 'better tool'.

Thus, one reason is a tradition. In most schools programming is still taught in C/C++, Java, Pascal or even Basic. And participate in those contests mostly students, which choose language they know better.
Also, you can notice that most algorithmic books feature psedudocode in style of Pascal or Ada, and very very rarely - Lisp. I don't know why, perhaps also a tradition. Or perhaps it's just not so good for the algorithms.

Another reason would be speed. Although it's not a problem for Google Code Jam, in almost all contests 2x speed gap is a difference between 'Accepted' and 'Time Limit' verdicts.
In other words, if optimal algorithm in C++ runs 10 times faster than in Ruby, it may mean that sub-optimal algorithm in C++ will still be faster than a good one in Ruby. And contest authors usually don't want to allow O(n^2) submissions, if O(n*logn) can be achieved.

First, I'd question your premise [edit: or what I take to be a premise -- that contestants using C++ and Java fare about equally well]. For example, here's what languages were used for the entries that came in the first 100 places and the last 100 places in Google's recent AI contest:

Contestants using C++ and Java did not seem to be anywhere close to equally successful in that contest. Contestants using Python didn't seem to fare particularly well either, though there were considerably fewer of them, weakening any conclusion in that regard.

Second, of course, an awful lot of the explanation (as others have pointed out) is undoubtedly just the number of people who are familiar with each language. There are probably more people taking a course in Java right now than the total number of people who've ever written any Lisp, Scheme or Prolog.

Edit: I think a third possibility is simply versatility. To pick an extreme example, Prolog is very well suited to a few problems, but equally poorly suited to many others. Few people can (or at least do) learn more than one or two languages well enough to use them in a contest, so most people who are interested in such things are likely to choose languages that can work reasonably well for almost anything, rather than attempting to learn a specialized language for every problem that might be chosen.

In nearly all Google Code Jam rounds, more of the higher-performing contestants code in C++.

Below are the language stats from Google Code Jam 2012 Round 1A, 1B, and 1C (listed top to bottom). The number of contestants in each round are 3,686, 3,281, and 3,189 respectively.

fun question, probably should be community wiki.

Look at number of finalists by countries: http://www.go-hero.net/jam/10/regions. notice number of people from East Europe and Russia. those places have very strong C++ communities, as well as Java, for number of reasons.

look at number languages in qualifiers: http://www.go-hero.net/jam/10/languages/0 and finals: http://www.go-hero.net/jam/10/languages/6. C++ starts out less than half and has 75 percent in finals. either good programmers prefer C++ or C++ makes the programmers. Probably by the time you master C++, other things become trivial.

You are free to draw your own conclusions though.

First of all, as you have pointed C++ and Java are mainstream languages. These automatically means that people who start doing programming competitions will be introduced to them first - by the way who learns Lisp as a first language:) I also participate regularly in such competitions - I use C++ to compete, although my favorite language is Java. It is just I want to practice another language apart from Java - also C++ is a little bit less verbose and runs faster which is important for programming competitions. Now to my point - people become experts first in mainstream languages. To participate in programming competitions you must have quite a good grasp of the language you are using. You don't have time to search on the internet for stupid things - like forgot a construct. It is just that speed is an important factor there. To use Lisp in a competition, you must be fond of it. I don't think there are such many people out there. Correct me if I am wrong. And honestly the pros you have mentioned like simplifies backtracking: In whatever language backtracking is easy - declare a method and just call it again for every possible outcome. It couldn't be simpler. I haven't felt till now that the language I am using is trying to trip up my feet for programming competitions.

A vital reason might be that every contests don't support languages like python or prolog. Specially ACM ICPC World Finals support C/C++ and Java. And TopCoder also supports only C++, Java, C#, VB, and now Python. It is natural for the contestants that they will choose one language that is available in every contest. Another reason might be execution speed. And yes, another reason is these are the languages that most of the people learn first.

OMG ... People are all going through the Stats and Figures !!

Lets not forget the basics.. These are the only two languages (mostly) which are taught to people in college/schools...!

That might answer the heavy rush!

Big libraries were a selling point for Java in ACM ICPC. It's handy to be able to realize you want some random data structure or algorithm and just pull it out of the standard libraries.

Keep in mind that C++ is not only the majority among all contestants, but as the rounds progress, its percentage just keeps and keeps improving.

I'd say it is true that most of the participants are students (However, since it is an open tournament with chances to a job interview with google, then you have to consider that many who participate are graduated). But the latest rounds are only for people with ton of experience. They are not just students who just learned to code in C++ / Java.

Of course, the student argument also works against languages like LISP and OcaML or ProLog. That is languages, that are used a lot in AI areas but in the mainstream world students are the most likely to be learning and use them.

Big contests other than google's support few languages, but that still wouldn't explain why Pascal or .net are not near the level of Java (As they tend to be equally supported in the major contest events).

A lot of the best coders in these contests know a lot of languages. But they still prefer to use C++ during the rounds it must be for a bigger reason than "learned C++" first.

I would argue against the claim that languages other than C++ or Java are better tools for the job. If direct data says that the finalists are more likely to use C++ and Java it is a direct contradiction to that claim.

Google AI competition data does not actually contradict any premise regarding the code jam. It actually does show that top coders are able to use languages like Common Lisp when it is truly the better tool for the job. If we want to use this data to assume that CLISP is a great tool for AI competitions, then we should also assume that C++ is a great tool for algorithm competitions like GCJ.