Report on the Usage of Text Editors and Computers at the Sites

The ICPC Latin America Regionals 2025 brought together 558 teams across various sites spanning several regions in Latin America. The sites were divided according to the following regional codes:

• 25br: Brazil
• 25ca: Central America
• 25cb: Caribbean
• 25no: South America North
• 25so: South America South
• 25mx: Mexico

Each site is labeled with a code combining the regional and country identifier.

• Visual Studio Code was by far the most popular editor, used by 443 teams (nearly 80% of all teams).
• Gedit was the second most popular, with 132 teams (about 24%).
• Intellij CLion, Codeblocks, and IntelliJ PyCharm were also widely used.
• Some sites showed specific preferences, for example:
  • In Brazil (25brbr), 82% of teams used either Visual Studio Code or Gedit.
  • In Bolivia (25sobo), a significant number used Codeblocks (32) and Visual Studio Code (59).
  • Some Caribbean sites (e.g. 25cbab, 25cbtt) had significantly fewer teams and a skewed editor distribution.

To analyze the editor preferences among the top-performing teams, we consider the first quartile of the overall ranking of the ICPC Latin America Regionals 2025. This covers the top 140 teams (out of 558). The distribution of code editor usage in this group is tabulated below.

The choice of code editors in ICPC Latin America Regionals 2025 favored Visual Studio Code by a large margin across nearly all participating locations. Text editors like Gedit and widely used IDEs such as IntelliJ CLion, Codeblocks, and PyCharm also held significant shares, indicating a diverse range of editor preferences among teams. This data can be used to guide future infrastructure preparations for similar events, ensuring adequate support for the most common environments.

The results point to a strong correlation between high performance in the competition and the selection of Visual Studio Code as the primary development environment. While other editors are present, their usage is marginal compared to VS Code within the top quartile. This information might guide future site setup and support recommendations for future editions of the competition.

This section describes the distribution and generational profile of computers allocated to each contest site in the ICPC Latin America Regionals 2025, comparing processor models and installed memory. We also analyze disparities among regions and highlight key points.

Abbreviations:

• Regions: BR=Brazil; CA=Central America; CB=Caribbean; NO=South America North; SO=South America South; MX=Mexico
• Memory (in machines): 8GB= 7–8.5GB, 16GB= 14–17GB, Other=outside those ranges

1. Disparity in CPU Generation:
   • Brazil and Mexico provided uniformly modern computers (Brazil: i5-9500, Mexico: i5-11500), all 9th and 11th Gen Intel, respectively.
   • Many Caribbean and Central American sites used older, lower-tier CPUs (e.g., 4th Gen Core i7/i3), while NO and SO had a wider spread, including both modern Intel and AMD processors.
   • Venezuela (NO) had the most recent CPUs (13th Gen i7-13700).
   • Significant hardware diversity exists in South America South (SO) region, including AMD FX and AMD A10 CPUs of previous generations.
2. Disparity in RAM:
   • Mexico, Brazil, and main SO sites offered 16GB RAM on nearly all machines.
   • Some CA and CB sites had a mix, with several 8GB and even lower RAM systems.
   • Advanced CPUs (12th–14th Gen Intel) were not always matched with 32GB memory (see Central America sites).
3. Site with Maximum Hardware:
   • Mexico (25mxmx): 133 identical modern machines (i5-11500, 16GB)
   • Bolivia (25sobo): 74/76 machines with i5-8400 (8th Gen), 16GB
   • Brazil (25brbr): 66 machines with i5-9500, all with 16GB
4. Oldest Hardware:
   • Some SO/CA/CB sites had 3rd/4th Gen i5/i3 or even first-generation i5-650 and AMD FX/A10 CPUs.

• Significant generation and memory disparities exist among regions, especially between sites in Brazil/Mexico and smaller sites in Central America or the Caribbean.
• Some teams had access to the latest hardware (13th/14th Gen, 16GB RAM), while others worked with 4th Gen CPUs or less, and 8GB or less RAM.
• For fairness and competitiveness, greater standardization of hardware across all sites is encouraged for future editions.