The One Billion Row Challenge involves processing a large text file of weather station names and temperatures in Go. The challenge is to print the minimum, mean, and maximum temperatures for each station. The initial solution took 1 min 45 sec, with subsequent solutions optimizing the code to run in just 4 seconds. Strategies included using pointer values in maps, custom temperature parsing, fixed-point integers, and avoiding certain library functions to improve performance. The fastest Go solution achieved a speed comparable to an optimized Java solution. The process involved utilizing Go’s profiler to identify bottlenecks and developing independent solutions.
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