"It was my first real exposure to a complex system, and I felt the fascination of databases." Recently, the final of the 2nd OceanBase Database Competition (the first distributed database kernel development competition in China) ended in Beijing. Zhejiang University's "K-ON! team" won the crown, and for the captain Lin Haoran, this opportunity gave him a deeper understanding of the database.
After the launch of the second OceanBase Database Competition (hereinafter referred to as the "Database Competition"), it attracted nearly 2000,<> contestants from Tsinghua University, Peking University, Fudan University, Zhejiang University, Northwestern Polytechnical University, East China Normal University, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China and other universities, as well as some database enthusiasts from enterprises also participated.
In the end, the "K-ON! Team" of Zhejiang University won the championship, the "426 White Commando Team" of Northwestern Polytechnical University and the "0xc0 Team" of University of Electronic Science and Technology of China won the runner-up, the "824445721 Team" of Peking University, the "Don't panic Team" of Zhejiang University and Beijing Institute of Technology, and the "DaSE997 Team" of East China Normal University won the third place.
Across books, on the field to train troops
In the six months since the database competition was held, Wang Bingjie has opened the door to a new world, but the process of opening the door is not easy.
Wang Bingjie is a member of the Key Laboratory of Big Data Storage and Management Industry and Information Technology of Northwestern Polytechnical University, and he and his teammates Yang Junkun and Zhang Chenglin are among the contestants who deal with databases more. In their view, the database records information on all aspects of social life, "finance, military industry, daily life... From micro to macro information, the record itself is the greatest significance of the database. Wang Bingjie, on the other hand, what they need to do is to better optimize and manage the database during the competition.
The three of them "secretly signed up" to participate in the competition without the instructor of the laboratory, because the three only wanted to use this competition as a training ground, Wang Bingjie said, "I just want to see my level, and I didn't think about winning the ranking." ”
Perhaps their strength did not allow them to keep a low profile, and halfway through the preliminary round, the "426 White to Commando" scored 340 points, the second of all participating teams to get a full score.
Liu Wenjie, an associate professor at the School of Computer Science of Northwestern Polytechnical University and the instructor of the "426 White to Commando Team", was very happy to learn that several of her students had signed up for the competition in the middle of the competition. She said, "I encourage students to participate in the competition, and I also want to see the level of my students through the competition." ”
However, the escalation of the difficulty of the rematch and the stronger strength of the rematch team have given a disgrace to the team that has just ushered in a "good start". Due to problems with the team's initial framework at the beginning of the rematch, the three gritted their teeth and insisted on revising while watching the results of other teams on the real-time updated leaderboard continue to improve. Seeing that the team had no results for a long time, the mentor who had just learned that they participated also came to ask, "Are you still participating?" ”
In the six-month competition, almost every team has encountered similar problems.
The champion "K-ON! team" has difficulty finding new optimization points after the game progresses to a certain stage. "Maybe some of the easier optimizations that are easy to think of have been done by our team, and other teams have also done them, and when the score is relatively high, it is difficult to find points that can continue to optimize, and this process is more torturous." Lin Haoran said.
For the top 12 "trivial team", the problem is that "the accidental deletion function causes the results to be invalidated." "After the final, the team's results were once ranked first in the leaderboard, but due to the incorrect deletion of the check function in the system, the team's results will be considered invalid and the score will be zero.
When I learned the news, there were still 3 days before the end of the final, but it was not easy to re-add the removed features. Chen Qiao, a member of the "Trivial team" who studied computer science as a bachelor and is now studying at the School of Philosophy of Fudan University, said, "I have learned a lot of theoretical knowledge, but I don't know what to do in the actual operation process." ”
In response to a similar situation, Yang Chuanhui, chief technology officer of OceanBase, said, "The current database education in colleges and universities focuses on theory, but after learning database theory, many students still have no way to understand what a database is, let alone how the actual database is made. "The database competition is held precisely to discover and cultivate more young talents who will manage and optimize databases in the future.
Look for the exit from theory to practice
Faced with the difficulties encountered by the contestants in the process of participation, Liu Wenjie said that database theoretical knowledge and practical combat ability are indispensable. "If you want to do the underlying code of the database, the basic knowledge, including the theoretical courses of computer science, must be mastered very well; The emphasis on practical ability is because we found that some students have high theoretical scores, but let him write a piece of code, and he can't write it in half a day. ”
Duan Hancong, a researcher at the School of Computer Science and Engineering of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, and a student of doctoral supervisor also participated in the database competition, and his feelings were similar to Liu Wenjie, "Regarding the database field and the software technology urgently needed by other countries, the country has overall planning and strategic corresponding investment, but in fact, our grassroots teaching line should further increase investment." ”
The focus of teachers is also the pain point of many students, and participating in the database competition is an attempt by this group of young people to find an outlet from theory to practice.
Before participating in the database competition, the "K-ON! team" had just finished a competition and was very tired, but the OceanBase database competition still made them want to sign up. "The competition uses the real open source code of the enterprise, which is the code actually used by the industry, and it is different from the small code used in scientific research and study on weekdays, which is a relatively complex project." Lin Haoran said.
Lin Haoran feels that the database competition is more like a comprehensive practice process, and he uses the competition as a way to test his theoretical learning. After the competition, Lin Yuxin from the same team had a better understanding of how to comprehensively use database knowledge, and also had a better understanding of programming optimization and implementation.
In Wang Bingjie's view, a large number of practical tasks in the rematch process allowed him and his teammates to experience a "real battle". During the competition, for a module design, Yang Junkun felt that Wang Bingjie's idea was too abstract, in order to confirm which operation mode is more feasible, Wang Bingjie and Yang Junkun respectively completed the competition questions according to their own ideas, "In the end, whoever has a good practical result will follow whose plan." Yang Junkun said.
Ling Jian, Gao Hongyi and Zhang Qindong from the "0xc0 Team" of the School of Computer Science and Technology of China initially participated in the competition with the mentality of "having fun" and testing their practical ability by the way. During the preliminary round, the three people were busy "building cars behind closed doors", ignoring the communication group built by the platform. Team member Gao Hongyi said, "Compared with pondering by yourself, there are professional database engineers in the official communication group to answer questions, and communicating with them more after the rematch can open up operation ideas." ”
The three people have been exposed to many engineering projects in the laboratory and have learned a lot of theoretical knowledge, but it is the first time that they have independently implemented a database and perfected the functions on an enterprise-level database.
Yang Chuanhui hopes that more students will be exposed to the core writing in the actual production system through the competition, and carry out discussions and exchanges through this platform to better understand the database industrial system.
The "DaSE997 Team" of East China Normal University, the only one from the School of Data Science and Engineering among the top 6 players, described their experience as "like riding a roller coaster", and the biggest feeling of team leader Chen Ruihao was that "theory can only play its greatest role when combined with practice".
This competition experience has brought a lot of gains to them from the class, "I used to only know how to write SQL statements, but now I understand the complete process of SQL statement execution, and can independently realize the functions of database addition, deletion, check and modification." From theoretical learning to practical operation, team member Chen Yu began to pay more attention to the simplicity and reusability of code. She also began to correct her coding habits because, while working with her teammates, she discovered that "the original code can be so beautiful."
Build a growth track, production, education and research work together
During the two sessions this year, some NPC deputies pointed out that it is very necessary to promote the in-depth integration of industry, education and research, "carry out the combination of production, education and research, promote two-way exchanges between talents and enterprises in colleges and universities, cooperate and develop new technologies and high-tech has become a feasible road."
Nowadays, more and more enterprises cooperate with universities to build practical training platforms. OceanBase hopes to explore a new model of industry-university-research collaborative education through collaboration with universities, so that students can learn in practice and innovate in learning. Liu Wenjie believes that it is necessary to further promote the integration of industry, education and research in enterprises and universities, and accelerate the cultivation of database talents. "The cultivation of practical talents needs to allow students to contact real open source code and have the opportunity to understand the implementation mechanism of the kernel, so as to better join the database R&D team."
In the view of Yang Zhenkun, founder and chief scientist of OceanBase, talent growth needs cycles, and talent training needs to be continuous. Recalling the situation when he set up his database project team more than ten years ago, he lamented the changes today.
Yang Zhenkun said frankly, "The database is not spring, and a hundred flowers blooming is spring." "A hundred flowers need more industries and more talents to participate in the construction, and the training, attention and discovery of young database talents have played a key role in the rapid development of the database field."
Du Xiaoyong, Dean of Mingli College of Chinese Minmin University, hopes that students can recognize and like databases through the competition, and choose databases as their employment direction when looking for jobs in the future, so as to contribute to the development of domestic databases.
As Dean Du Xiaoyong expected, after completing the entire competition, Huang Pufan, Feng Hui and Fan Qianyi from the "824445721" team of Peking University were more clear about the decision to take the database as their future development direction.
After studying for the semester, Huang Pufan organized a "civil database interest group" in the school, which is full of students with strong interest in databases, and often shares learning materials and exchanges and discussions together. At that time, they planned to work in the database industry in the future. After learning about the database competition, Huang Pufan immediately pulled team member Feng Hui to form a team to participate. This competition also strengthened their determination.
As one of the few undergraduate contestants, He Hongdong from Ruixin College of Beijing Institute of Technology learned a lot of new knowledge through the competition. He and his teammate Jia Bokai discussed that if there is a competition next year, he will continue to sign up. In He Hongdong's eyes, "the database competition gave me a chance to get in touch with real-world database storage engines."
(Liu Yuxi, Wang Junli, Luo Xi, Yu Kehan also contributed to this article)
Cheng Si, trainee reporter of China Youth Daily Source: China Youth Daily