PP and myself didn't stop reading because the article was flawed. We stopped reading because the article turned out to be about a subject with little professional relevance that we don't care about. (And I say this as a former competitive programmer!)

In my professional opinion, competitive programming is to being a good programmer in industry as ballet is to being a good football player in the NFL.

Yes, they're tangentially related, and yes, NFL players do train ballet; but, if you put Baryshnikov out there against Ray Lewis he's going to get smacked.

You’re saying we should judge things on their substance as a whole, and not by superficial details?

Persuasive! I wonder if we could apply that insight to any other field of endeavor…

Nah, that would never work.

> You’re saying we should judge things on their substance as a whole, and not by superficial details?

This is literally the goal of the study. Judge programmers based on the superficial details of competitive programming results.