And nobody keeps you from playing around and writing and compiling a few programs on your own. It's a virtual system which gets reset when they start a new round. And I'd assume they've set up proper resource controls so you can't damage stuff.
just an fyi for other readers - the auditing link for non-students is down. it doesn't work regardless of how many times you press submit.
just another sign that ibm is behind the times?
Not that I know of, and as a student I found the competition cycle also a bit off-putting, since it discourages just messing around a bit during random down-time that's not aligned to the schedule.
