The TopCoder MM Competition Engine does not allow competitor's solution to do File I/O operations directly. The system utilizes the Java primitives – int, String, double. It allows for grouping with arrays. It takes data directly in and out of the competitors code. Normally, we will use cache approach to load the input (see the last section of the tutorial video - http://www.topcoder.com/contest/problem/MMScreencast/MM_Screen.avi or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP7se8V81ZY ). The purpose of the contest is to reproduce the performance problem, profile it, find the root cause and propose a solution for it. see detail requirements in wiki Keywords: Python, C++, Java, software, programming, contest, competitive, code, development, topcoder