Zencoder, a provider of AI agents integrated directly into developers’ environments, announced today that it has acquired Machinet, a developer of context-aware AI coding assistants with over 100,000 downloads in JetBrains IDEs. The strategic acquisition further cements Zencoder’s position in the rapidly expanding AI coding assistant market, while broadening its multi-integration ecosystem across popular development platforms.

Expanding the Developer Experience

Following the acquisition, Machinet users will gain access to a significantly enhanced developer experience, including:

• Enhanced JetBrains Integration

By combining Machinet’s specialized expertise in JetBrains IDEs with Zencoder’s existing support, developers can look forward to even more powerful tools tailored for these widely-used environments.

• Augmented Unit Testing

Machinet’s context-aware unit test generation technology will be integrated with Zencoder’s advanced testing agents, offering developers a more comprehensive and automated testing experience.

• Industry-Leading Customization

Machinet’s developer community will now benefit from Zencoder’s deep capabilities in understanding large codebases, adapting to team-specific coding styles, and aligning with organizational architecture patterns.

“This acquisition aligns perfectly with our mission to turn everyone into a 10x engineer by providing AI solutions that handle routine coding tasks and let developers focus on innovation,”

said Andrew Filev, CEO and Founder of Zencoder.

“By bringing our advanced coding agent to Machinet’s thriving JetBrains community, we’re fulfilling our mission to deliver the best AI coding experience regardless of development environment.”

Streamlined Transition for Customers

As part of the acquisition, Machinet’s domain and marketplace presence will be transferred to Zencoder. Current Machinet customers will receive detailed guidance on transitioning to Zencoder’s platform, which leverages its proprietary Repo Grokking technology and AI agents.

Existing Machinet users will now gain access to Zencoder’s full feature set, including:

• Advanced multi-file editing and refactoring capabilities
• Deep codebase understanding across repositories using Repo Grokking™
• Sophisticated self-repair mechanisms that automatically test and refine outputs
• Expanded integration with over 20 developer tools, including Jira, GitHub, and GitLab
• Access to Zencoder’s specialized coding and unit testing AI agents

Industry-Leading Performance

Earlier this year, Zencoder’s AI platform demonstrated benchmark-breaking performance:

• A 2x improvement over previous best results on SWE-Bench-Multimodal
• State-of-the-art results on the challenging “IC SWE (Diamond)” section of SWE-Lancer, outperforming top published results by 23%

With the integration of Machinet’s technologies, Zencoder aims to further enhance its capabilities, reinforcing its leadership position in AI-assisted software development.

Availability and Next Steps

Zencoder’s full suite of AI coding and testing tools, including the newly enhanced JetBrains integration, is now available through zencoder.ai, with subscription options ranging from free basic plans to comprehensive enterprise solutions.

Current Machinet users will be provided with detailed transition instructions in the coming weeks.

About Zencoder

Based in Silicon Valley, Zencoder offers powerful AI coding and testing agents designed to empower professional developers. Founded by serial entrepreneur Andrew Filev, Zencoder’s globally distributed team of over 50 engineers helps organizations accelerate innovation and ship impactful software faster. The company holds ISO 27001 certification, is SOC 2 Type II compliant, and is in the process of finalizing its ISO 42001 certification.

In a significant stride towards bolstering software supply chain security, Docker has introduced the Docker Maintained Community Packages (MCP) Catalog and Toolkit. This initiative is designed to offer developers and organizations a repository of secure, high-quality open-source packages maintained directly by Docker, addressing the growing concerns over the integrity and trustworthiness of software components in containerized applications.

The Docker MCP Catalog serves as a curated collection of frequently used open-source packages, selected based on community usage patterns and relevance to contemporary development workflows. By standardizing these images under Docker’s stewardship, the company provides a more trustworthy alternative to packages that are often sourced from less vetted or anonymous contributors.

Complementing the catalog is the Docker MCP Toolkit, an open-source suite of utilities aimed at simplifying the processes of building, testing, and verifying Docker images. This toolkit not only assists developers in reproducing Docker-maintained packages but also empowers contributors to create similarly secure and reliable images tailored to their specific use cases.

“Security remains a top priority for the open source and container ecosystems,”

stated Docker in its official blog post.

“By offering both the catalog and toolkit, we aim to reduce uncertainty in the software supply chain and help teams ship with confidence.”​

Docker’s MCP initiative aligns with broader industry trends emphasizing software supply chain integrity, especially in the wake of high-profile vulnerabilities and dependency attacks. It also supports best practices such as Software Bill of Materials (SBOMs) and digital signing, both of which are integrated into the MCP offerings.

The project is anticipated to see widespread adoption among developers seeking vetted base images, DevOps teams aiming to enhance CI/CD hygiene, and organizations striving to meet compliance standards related to open-source usage.​

Docker encourages community feedback and contributions to the MCP initiative via GitHub, promoting transparency and collaboration in building a more secure container ecosystem.

As threats to the software supply chain continue to evolve, Docker’s MCP Catalog and Toolkit represent a timely and proactive measure towards fortifying one of the most critical layers of modern application infrastructure.

Microsoft has announced a series of significant updates to the Microsoft 365 Developer Program, aiming to provide developers with a more robust, secure, and accessible environment. These enhancements, shaped by community feedback, are set to roll out over the coming months.

Streamlined Tenant Provisioning

A new and improved tenant provisioning flow will become the default for all new qualified members of the Microsoft 365 Developer Program. These tenants are commercially enabled with add-on options. Existing members will have the option to transition by expiring their current tenant and provisioning a new one.​

Support for Commercial Add-ons

Later this year, members will be able to purchase additional subscriptions on their development tenants provisioned through the new experience, including Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses.​

Improved Tenant Ownership and Management

Microsoft is enabling clearer identification of tenant owners, making it easier for developers to manage and secure their environments.​

Option to Transition to Paid Subscriptions

Developers wishing to move beyond the Developer Program will have the ability to convert their development tenant into a standard paid Microsoft 365 subscription.​

Future Improvements on the Horizon

Microsoft is exploring additional ways to make the Microsoft 365 Developer Program more inclusive, flexible, and valuable for a broader global developer base. These improvements are currently in planning, with more details to be shared as the roadmap is finalized.​

What’s Next

A comprehensive update detailing the next wave of changes is expected by September 2025. Currently, no other changes are planned for existing Developer Program members beyond the enhancements mentioned.

While many developers have mastered the basics, senior developers should be well-versed in advanced TypeScript concepts to write more maintainable, scalable, and efficient code.

Below are seven advanced TypeScript concepts that every senior front-end developer should understand.

What Every Senior Front-End Developer Should Know About Advanced TypeScript Concepts

1. Union Types

Union types enable a variable to hold one of several specified types, providing the flexibility of dynamic data handling while preserving type safety. It’s akin to having a multi-functional tool that fits diverse scenarios.

Example:

More Real-World Example:

2. Intersection Types

Intersection types combine properties from multiple types, ensuring that a variable satisfies all the conditions. It’s a way to merge the identity of different entities, useful for designing more complex types.

Example:

In this scenario, a SuperAdmin type ensures that a user has both User and Admin properties.

3. Type Guards

Type guards act as validation checkpoints within code, allowing for safer type narrowing during runtime checks. These are like checkpoints that only let specific types through, enhancing security and accuracy.

Example:

4. Conditional Types

Conditional types provide powerful type transformations based on certain conditions. They enable dynamic type manipulation, similar to how logic gates control paths in circuits.

Example:

Conditional types allow developers to build types that adapt based on other types, leading to more expressive and flexible code.

5. Mapped Types

Mapped types transform existing types into new structures by iterating over each property, making it easier to implement type-wide modifications.

Example:

6. Template Literal Types

Template literal types use string literals to create new types, providing a way to enforce naming conventions or combine string patterns for type safety.

Example:

These types make your type definitions more expressive, offering clearer guidelines for code patterns.

7. Recursive Types

Recursive types are crucial for representing complex data structures like trees, linked lists, or deeply nested objects. They allow types to refer to themselves, providing a way to model data structures that are inherently recursive.

Example:

Recursive types are like building blocks that enable you to model structures as intricate as a family tree or a file directory.

Conclusion

Advanced TypeScript concepts such as union types, intersection types, type guards, conditional types, mapped types, template literal types, and recursive types are essential tools in a senior developer’s toolkit. Mastering these features ensures that your code is type-safe, concise, and scalable, setting a strong foundation for complex application development.

Material provided by: Kristiyan Velkov

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

Kristiyan Velkov, Contributor at DevStyleR, is with over 10 years of experience in JavaScript and open-source development. He has honed his skills in tools like React.js, Angular, Vue.js, and Next.js. He also dive deep into DevOps, web accessibility, and security—because great code is about more than just functionality!

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The virtual DOM is a programming concept where an ideal, or “virtual”, representation of a UI is kept in memory and synced with the “real” DOM by a library such as ReactDOM. This process is called reconciliation.

This process significantly enhances the performance of web apps.

Understanding the virtual DOM is essential for developers who want to get the best out of React. It plays a key role in how React updates the UI, ensuring that changes are applied quickly without unnecessary re-renders.

What Is the Virtual DOM and How Does It Work?

The virtual DOM is an in-memory representation of the real DOM elements.

Instead of interacting directly with the real DOM, which can be slow and costly in terms of performance, React creates a virtual representation of the UI components.

This virtual representation is a lightweight JavaScript object that mirrors the structure of the real DOM.

Here’s a step-by-step process of how the virtual DOM works:

Understanding React’s Rendering and Update Lifecycle

Step 1: Initial Rendering (Virtual DOM Creation)
When the app starts, React builds the entire UI as a Virtual DOM, a lightweight JavaScript representation of the real DOM.

Step 2: Reacting to State and Props Changes
As the app runs, any changes in state or props trigger a re-render of the affected components. React updates the Virtual DOM to reflect these changes, without immediately modifying the real DOM.

Step 3: Diffing Algorithm — Spotting the Differences
React employs a highly efficient diffing algorithm to compare the updated Virtual DOM with its previous version. This comparison identifies only the changes, or “diffs,” between the two versions.

Step 4: Reconciliation — Deciding What to Update
Based on the identified differences, React determines the most efficient way to update the real DOM. Rather than re-rendering the entire UI, React targets only the specific parts that need updating.

Step 5: Applying Updates to the Real DOM
Finally, React updates the real DOM to match the Virtual DOM.

For example, let’s say we have the following counter functionality in the App component:

The virtual DOM representation will look like this:

When the Increase button is clicked once, only the h1 element is changed:

Comparing the Virtual DOM to the Real DOM

The real DOM is a built-in standard interface in browsers that represents and interacts with HTML elements, from Doctype declaration and the root html element to every other element in it.

This real DOM represents the whole HTML document as a tree structure and allows JavaScript to manipulate and change HTML documents.

Sometimes when those changes occur, the whole document might re-render.

This is in contrast to the virtual DOM, which uses a diff algorithm to compare the current and previous versions of updates to the DOM. It only re-renders the parts of the UI that have changed, instead of the whole thing.

Conclusion

The Virtual DOM is one of React’s core features, designed to enhance performance and ensure efficient UI updates. By leveraging the Virtual DOM, React can batch updates, reduce the frequency of expensive reflows and repaints, and apply changes with precision. This streamlined process results in faster, smoother UI updates, significantly improving the overall user experience.

Images and material provided by: Kristiyan Velkov

Kristiyan Velkov, Contributor at DevStyleR, is with over 10 years of experience in JavaScript and open-source development. He has honed his skills in tools like React.js, Angular, Vue.js, and Next.js. He also dive deep into DevOps, web accessibility, and security—because great code is about more than just functionality!

LinkedIn         X

Stanislav Tashev is a final-year student at the Professional High School of Computer Programming and Innovation in Burgas, a Microsoft Certified Trainer, an active member of the “Association of Graduates of the Professional High School of Computer Programming and Innovation,” and plays a key role in organizing the upcoming edition of Code Of The Future. His focus is on actively supporting the development of young programmers by sharing his experience and expertise.

We talked with Stoyan and Stanislav Tashev about the upcoming edition of the Code Of The Future 25* hackathon.

How did the idea for the “Code of the Future” hackathon come about?

Stoyan: The idea for the “Code of the Future” hackathon was born from our personal experience as participants in many similar competitions. In the past, we have taken part in hackathons, even winning top prizes, but we were always interested in how such an event is organized from the organizers’ perspective. The best way to find out was to organize a hackathon ourselves. We decided to create “Code of the Future” and offer a platform that combines all the good practices we’ve seen with our own innovative ideas.

How do you determine the themes of the competition?

Stanislav: Our main goal is for the competition’s theme to be a surprise and announced on the day of the event, to ensure fairness and equal conditions for all participants. In last year’s edition, we gave each sponsor the opportunity to propose their own theme if they wished. This year, we’ll make the format even more interesting—sponsors will again be able to suggest themes, but at the opening ceremony, we’ll choose only one at random. This adds an element of surprise not only for the participants but also for us as organizers.

How prepared do participants need to be? What advice would you give them?

Stoyan: The hackathon is open to everyone, regardless of their level of technical preparation. We changed the evaluation criteria to place more emphasis on ideas rather than technical execution. Of course, participants will need to create a prototype (MVP) and validate their idea, but we encourage greater creativity and innovation. Our advice is to spend enough time developing the idea rather than jumping straight into coding. From personal experience, we know the first day is best used for generating the idea and distributing tasks within the team. Everyone can contribute according to their skills—some can do market research while others focus on development.

What is different about the 2025 edition?

Stanislav: Besides the new approach to choosing the theme, this year we’ve listened to the feedback from the previous edition to improve the participants’ experience as much as possible. We have prepared numerous surprises, more conveniences—including more food and coffee—as well as improvements to the mentorship program.

What is your favorite part of organizing the competition?

Stoyan: It’s very hard to pick just one aspect, but one of the most exciting moments is when we first hear the participants’ ideas and have the opportunity to discuss them. It’s a special moment when you see creativity and innovation come to life.

What challenges do participants most frequently encounter, and how do they overcome them?

Stanislav: Participants often face various challenges—from technical problems to a lack of clarity about how to structure their idea. That’s why, as in previous years, we’ll provide mentors. This year, however, we are adding a mentor reservation system so that teams can have personalized time with a mentor who focuses on their idea, presentation, and validation. Mentors won’t write code for them, but they will provide valuable guidance throughout the process.

How does the hackathon influence students’ skills and the projects they develop?

Stoyan: The hackathon is an excellent opportunity to develop skills in innovation, idea validation, and creating an MVP—a minimum viable product. This is a crucial process for starting a successful startup. Participants gain experience in presenting their ideas, analyzing the market, and creating practical solutions.

Can the projects be realistically applied in a business environment?

Stanislav: Absolutely. We even have an example of a project that started as a hackathon idea and is currently being successfully implemented in a business environment as a startup project. This shows that the innovative solutions created during the competition can find real-world applications.

To succeed in the tech industry, you need to be willing to learn and adapt – and with many big tech companies now offering free online courses, it’s never been easier to develop the skills you need to thrive. This is an excellent opportunity to learn from industry experts and enhance your skills without breaking the bank.

In this article, we’ll explore the best free courses offered by the leading tech companies, covering topics from artificial intelligence and machine learning to data science and cybersecurity.

Google – Google Developers Courses

Google offers a wide range of free courses on its Developers platform, covering topics such as:

Android Development

Learn to build Android apps with courses like “Android Basics” and “Android Fundamentals”.

Machine Learning

Dive into machine learning with courses like “Machine Learning Crash Course” and “TensorFlow tutorials”.

Cloud Computing

Explore Google Cloud Platform with courses like “Google Cloud Platform Fundamentals” and “Cloud Engineering”.

Microsoft – Microsoft Learn

Microsoft’s Learn platform provides free courses and tutorials on various topics, including:

Azure

Learn about Microsoft’s cloud computing platform with courses like Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals: Computer Vision

Artificial Intelligence

Explore AI and machine learning with courses like AI-102 Course Introduction

Data Science

Develop data science skills with courses like Explore and analyze data with Python

Amazon – Amazon Web Services (AWS) Training and Certification

Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers free courses through its platform AWS Skill Builder .

Meta – Meta for Developers

Meta’s Developer platform offers free courses and tutorials on various topics, including:

Mobile App Development

Learn to build mobile apps with courses like “React Native” .

Web Development

Explore web development with courses like Programming with JavaScript.

Additional Resources:

• Coursera offers a wide range of courses from top tech companies, including Google, Microsoft, and IBM.
• edX provides free courses and certifications from leading institutions, including Harvard, MIT, and Microsoft.
• Udemy offers a variety of courses on tech topics, including AI, machine learning, and data science.

These free courses offer a valuable opportunity to learn from industry experts and stay up-to-date with the latest technologies.

So why wait? Start learning today and take your skills to the next level!

Photo: Freepik

Zuckerberg emphasized that AI will soon be capable of writing code, performing tasks that are currently done by human engineers.

“Probably in 2025,” he stated, “we at Meta, as well as the other companies that are basically working on this, are going to have an AI that can effectively be a sort of mid-level engineer that you have at your company that can write code”.

Furthermore, Zuckerberg envisions a future where AI engineers will play a dominant role in building and generating code for apps, including AI systems themselves.

“Over time, we’ll get to the point where a lot of the code in our apps, and including the AI that we generate, is actually going to be built by AI engineers instead of people engineers,” he added.

These statements suggest that the tech industry is on the cusp of a significant transformation, one that could potentially displace human jobs in software engineering. While this may seem like a daunting prospect, it also highlights the incredible potential of AI to drive innovation and efficiency in the industry.

In addition to Meta, other companies are also exploring the use of AI in software development. For example:

• Microsoft has developed an AI-powered tool called IntelliCode that can help developers write code more efficiently and accurately.
• Google has introduced an AI-powered platform called AutoML that allows developers to build machine learning models without extensive coding knowledge.
• Amazon has developed an AI-powered tool called CodeGuru that can review code and provide recommendations for improvement.
• GitHub has introduced an AI-powered tool called Copilot that can help developers write code by suggesting lines of code and completing tasks.

These examples demonstrate that the trend of using AI in software development is not limited to Meta, but is a broader industry shift. As the development of AI technology continues to accelerate, it will be interesting to see how these advancements unfold and what implications they may have for the future of work in software engineering. One thing is certain, however: the future of tech is likely to be shaped by the rapid evolution of AI capabilities.

Sources:

• Mark Zuckerberg’s conversation with Joe Rogan on YouTube
• Microsoft IntelliCode
• Google AutoML
• Amazon CodeGuru
• GitHub Copilot

Photo: Screenshot from the video on YouTube – Joe Rogan Experience #1863 Mark Zuckerberg

Oleksandr Kulkov, or “adamant”, is a competitive programmer from Zaporizhia, Ukraine, and an author of over 60 competitive programming problems. Oleksandr participated in coding competitions since school, and continued doing it in his university years, participating in ICPC regionals and other local contests. Oleksandr is one of two active maintainers of CP-Algorithms, and one of the main organizers of the Osijek Competitive Programming Camp (OCPC), a bi-annual international camp for university students to prepare for ICPC in Osijek, Croatia. Beyond that, Oleksandr also has experience teaching algorithms, data structures and formal languages at university level, and has a notable Codeforces blog which once made him a top-1 Codeforces contributor.

Can you tell us about your early interest in competitive programming and how you got started?

I started around my 8th or 9th grade in school. I’ve been enjoying Mathematics and Physics since a very young age and participated in local Olympiads. But I also really liked computers! I suppose it started from being fascinated by video games and wanting to develop them when I grow up. And then at some point I had a course teaching to code in C++, and I liked it so much! It’s somewhat hard to put into words, but the idea that you can control such a powerful and versatile machine as a computer by giving it precise logically structured commands, and the extent of just how much you can achieve by doing so really struck me.

Then, since I was doing math and physics Olympiads anyway, I also got in informatics Olympiads, and I really enjoyed the tasks in it, and I was also fascinated by the underlying theory of algorithms and data structures. My school wasn’t particularly strong in informatics, so I spent a lot of time studying on my own, mostly solving tasks from previous years, solving some local archives and reading tutorials from https://informatics.msk.ru. It allowed me to advance to national level, where I learnt about Codeforces for the first time, and well, participating in Codeforces rounds at that time was like starting anew for me, since it brought everything up to the whole new level.

What are some of the biggest challenges you faced while competing, and how did you overcome them?

The biggest challenge for me was psychological. Generally, when I compete, I’m mostly motivated by pursuing a certain sense of excitement. For me, in competitions this sense stems from two things:

– Doing something that I particularly enjoy.

– Standing out among the others.

And these 2 are actually pretty bad stimuli if your target is to score top in competitions. The main reason for this is, by “standing out” here I mostly mean doing something unusual, rather than simply achieving a high place. So, solving a problem that others typically do not solve would bring me more excitement than solving the same problems as everyone else, and achieving a higher rank from doing so.

And “doing something I particularly enjoy” also means that I would tend to be narrowly specialized in a selection of “favorite” unpopular topics (string algorithms, geometry, etc), while being somewhat mediocre in all the others, especially the popular ones, such as DP. And it would also mean that in actual contests I might focus on the problems that I “like” leaving easier problems that I “dislike” unattended. Oh, and of course, it also made me averse to training, as I would perceive it as a mostly boring and tedious activity which is not that exciting.

The situation above is a bit less of an issue with a proper team composition, as you may try to just drop unfavorable problems on your teammates, while trying to score some harder ones, which your teammates may be less likely to solve. But even in such scenarios, it entails a heavy risk, and serious competitors are not very likely to take it, so ultimately it was probably part of the reason why I wasn’t particularly popular as a teammate in my university years. Besides, it bites you back much stronger in individual competitions, which would mean that e.g. my rating on Codeforces wouldn’t be particularly prominent, decreasing my credibility as a teammate even further.

Now, how did I overcome this? Well, in some sense I didn’t, as I never made it to either IOI or ICPC WF.

On the other hand, the problems caused by these factors were getting me an enormous deal of stress, and as years went by, I learnt to accept this part of me, and simply allowed myself to keep doing what I like and avoid doing stuff that I don’t like. It might not be the best course of actions if your goal is a high competitive performance, but at the very least it greatly helps me to keep some inner peace, and I believe that this approach is what allows me to still enjoy competitive programming and keep it as a part of my life, while a lot of people whom I was competing against and losing to in my school and university years moved on from competitions and are not very active anymore.

As a grandmaster on CodeForces, what strategies and practices do you find most effective for performing well in contests?

Heh, in the meantime I’ve lost my Grandmaster rank again 🙂

I think a general piece of advice that would be relevant for myself is to avoid getting stuck in trying one particular approach to a problem. If you ever find yourself far behind everyone else, it’s a pretty strong indicator that your general approach to the problem is very far from intended, and you missed some simple observation. And the advice for such cases would be to try to maintain several potential solution directions, and explore them concurrently, rather than focusing on trying one approach.

For me personally, it is hard, and I still struggle to avoid getting tunnel visioned into just trying to do the same thing over and over again, hoping that this time, in this formulation it will work. No, it never works, you just need to unload your head and go in a direction that you didn’t consider before somehow completely. It’s much easier said than done, of course.

What motivated you to become one of the main organizers of the Osijek Competitive Programming Camp? 

I used to participate in competitive programming camps a lot when I was a university student, and it was one of the most fascinating experiences in my whole life. I even kept trying to join with people I know online to further participate in Petrozavodsk camps when I graduated. And I participated at least twice, but since 2022, when Russia started an invasion against Ukraine, I really didn’t want to have any economic relations with Russian state entities, such as Petrozavodsk University. I figured that I might not be alone in this reasoning, but at the same time I really liked the format of programming camps, so I dropped the idea in a competitive programming Discord server, found a co-organizer, found a guy with connections to a potential host university, and then we somehow managed to make it happen.

Can you describe the goals and structure of the Osijek Competitive Programming Camp?

There are 2 people, me and Tähvend Uustalu at the organizational top of the camp. Usually, we also have some organizational support from the host university (e.g. they often manage payments and site organization for us). Besides that, each camp we have a team of authors spread across 7 different contests, who change from one camp to another. We usually reach out to potential authors on competitive programming platforms, such as Codeforces and various programming-related Discord servers. We also work with various sponsors who provide us with funds for the camp.

Speaking of our goals, I described my main initial motivation above, but on a broader level, there are a bunch of things that we want to address:

– We want to provide a quality experience for our participants. As we participated in a lot of camps ourselves, we generally have a good understanding of what we enjoyed and found useful in the camps and competitions and what we did not enjoy, and we’re trying to shape the camp in accordance with this vision, of course, also taking into consideration the feedback from our participants.

– We want to keep the camp accessible to the general audience. I think a lot of camps in the region had some issues with this in one way or another, for example setting large participation fees, or being invitational only. In OCPC, we maintain the camp open to everyone who wants to participate and strive to keep participation fees at a reasonable and affordable level, so that students can participate even if they don’t have a sponsor university to cover the fee.

– We want our camp to be a platform for problem authors to showcase their original ideas and get decently compensated for it. From the very beginning of the camp, we decided that, as a matter of principle, author compensation would be our priority. And for me personally, it’s not only to attract more authors (though it is of course a desirable result), but also to give proper respect where it is due, as preparation of ICPC level contests is very hard and demanding work. At the same time, we adhere to the spirit of Petrozavodsk camp of offering authors a lot of freedom to how they want to shape their contest. We trust our authors to use their best judgment, and so far, we believe that it benefited the camp, even when individual contests ended up somewhat different from more standard ones.

As a special guest at the upcoming CodeIT programming competition, what are you most looking forward to?

I’m not very well versed in marathon style competitions, though I participated in a few whiles in university. I’m a bit anxious because I wasn’t very good at them, and usually was better at more standard algorithmic challenges, but it’s nice to leave your comfort zone every once in a while, so I’m looking to see what the challenge is and what strategies everyone would use to solve it 🙂

What message or advice do you hope to convey to the participants of CodeIT?

Don’t be afraid to leave your comfort zone and explore things you never thought you would!

How do you see the future of competitive programming evolving, and what role do you hope to play in that future?

I think there is a certain tendency in competitive programming to focus more on ad-hoc problems and avoid any problems that may benefit those who are good in implementation or have a lot of advanced computer science knowledge. While it makes sense that problem styles change alongside the community, I’m personally not a big fan of the change, as I usually enjoy the problems in which you may gain or utilize some systematic knowledge about the problem’s topic.

From my side, I hope that not being very restrictive in problem styles for the Osijek camp will help people to remember that good problems come in all shapes and sizes, not necessarily in the strict adherence to whatever the current competitive programming meta is 🙂

Python

This language is used in web development, data science, machine learning, and process automation. Python is also known for being an easy language to learn. It is suitable both for people starting to develop in the IT field and for experienced specialists.

JavaScript

It is a flexible language. It is cross-platform compatible. It is suitable for creating various web applications. JavaScript is one of the most preferred languages for work in Europe. It is used in web development as well as front-end technologies.

Java

The language is suitable for creating enterprise applications as well as developing for Android. Java is one of the main languages used in the creation of secure software solutions in the technology industry.

C#

C# finds application in the creation of games, the development of enterprise software and Windows applications. The language’s ability to integrate with Microsoft’s various technologies makes it a highly desirable working language for programmers in Europe.

The rapid development of the .NET ecosystem and Unity in game development adds to the flexibility of C#, making the language even more stable when creating high-performance applications.

SQL

Structured Query Language (SQL) is the leader in database management in Europe. In the fields of finance, healthcare and e-commerce, mastery of SQL is highly sought after and valued.

Using the language is key for professionals who manage large databases, retrieve information, or ensure that data integrity is maintained in all types of institutions.

PHP

The language is a leader among web development and content management systems. PHP’s ability to integrate with databases, as well as its ease of use, make the language one of the most suitable for creating dynamic websites and various web applications.

Ruby

Ruby is a language often used by startups and web developers because of the convenient environment it provides to programmers. The language focuses on developer productivity and convenience. This makes it a suitable choice when creating web solutions.

Each one of the listed languages contributes to the creation and development of different applications or to the invention of different solutions for the needs of the European market. By knowing the strengths of languages, developers help drive innovation in technology.