I personally like math problems as much as I like problems requiring only DSA. I really don’t understand the sentiment behind (by @syntaxhacker)
“questions based on observations and pattern findings instead of algorithms and ds”
How can you separate ds & algorithm from math is beyond my brain can comprehend. My guess is that you want problems that require nothing but knowing already discovered and well-known algorithms you can find in sites and solve without using your brain. If you lack the ability or passion to “observe” and “find patterns” and create your own algorithms then you’re in it just for jobs. Here’s an idea for your little brain: Someone had to “observe” & “find patterns” to come up with quicksort which to you may be an algorithm but is actually math & observation. Don’t try to classify DSA as not-math just because you suck at real math and got the idea that you are good at math simply because you can copy some math-stuffs which are trivialised to the point that they are not considered as “math” to you.
You are acting as if pure mathematical problems are never given on CC or any online platform.
If you are still in doubt, try and tell what DS and Algo are used along with Math in this - COMPEXP Problem - CodeChef
Here’s an idea for your little brain:
Not only are you giving an entire bullshit argument to the discussion but also flaming. I guess the one with “little” brain is someone else.
Don’t try to classify DSA as not-math just because you suck at real math
From the discussion, its pretty clear that their real unrest lies in the PhD or research paper math given in long instead of DS+ Algo questions. For PhD math it becomes a big googling game for most peeps.
90% people pariticipating in long challenges weren’t preparing for icpc or ioi or becoming any computer scientists for putting up such math questions .
most beginners dont have much math based observation . the goal of the long challenges is to help for us to learn new algos and use them differntly to solve the questions .so if we does oberserving for that silly pattern writing in books for days and realise how dumb we are when we find the actual answer or formulae and cry how much time we wasted for that when we will be able to do other problems based on algorithms and ds which are actually useful in real world problems instead stuck at the very first problem . @faded4k
Lastly , if you want math based and love so much math problems just do project euler problems Or try cracking np hard problems and stick with them .
Yep. I’m the one with the “little” brain. Also I thought flaming a bit was okay since the entire sentiment behind this thread is flaming against math by people who thought they were cool at math but suddenly got their dreams shattered
so just stop caring about the post when you just consider just yourself as one who is giving the contest. there are beginners as well experts giving the contest which you should keep in mind . when preparing long challenges imagine if people who were new to this cp ( who joined computer science or just started cp ) stuff and just see math based question involving just the pattern findings as the very first qn which considered as the easy problem will give up on doing cp as they find it hard and find no usage of algorithms in that find no interest in solving that just wasting their time .
More knowledge in TCS questions , oh the Irony is true!
This is my view : -
Even codeforces support beginners, they make most of the Div-2-A problems in such a manner, that anybody who knows programming can solve it . Because I remember, even when I was a beginner , I was able to solve Div-2-A problems
So that much support any website can give to beginners to encourage them
“90% people pariticipating in long challenges weren’t preparing for icpc or ioi or becoming any computer scientists”
where did you got such statistic? actually I think most people is preparing for contest similar to ICPC, IOI, or maybe preparing for coding interviews (where maths is also necessary) and most of them are interested in computer science.
“the goal of the long challenges is to help for us to learn new algos”
In part, but the number of algorigthms is limited. I think a coder of your level should focus more on problem solving skills (math helps a lot here) rather than on learning advanced stuff. Also ad hoc problems that doesn’t require any knowledge to be solved are the most beautiful (skill >> knowledge).
“so if we does oberserving for that silly pattern writing in books for days”
nature is made of patterns, ergo trying to find its patterns is silly? again if you are stucked for days is because lacking of skills, and solving it will benefit your problem solving skills. Also we should not discuss/spoil the problems during contest.
" which are actually useful in real world problems instead stuck at the very first problem"
if you get stuck in the first problem, go to the second! maths by itself is useful in real world problems. If you want to face real world problems you should try going to research (although to do research you should be able to solve the first question).
" if you want math based and love so much math problems just do project euler problems Or try cracking np hard problems and stick with them"
Yes I like maths (like any good competitive programmer). I’m not trying to solve P=?NP I’m more into graphs, game theory, topology
“From next month not gonna participate in codechef long contests”
yeah, long challenges are only for brave coders
Pattern finding or formula developing. Are you doing this month’s long challenge or you are talking about previous ones?
I get that problems like “Count number of trees with N nodes blah blah blah” that turns out to have a formula in O(N) by DP O(N ^ 3) or N ^ 4 or something then figuring it out can be frustating when you didn’t, but I haven’t even seen any of that stuff on this month’s contest.
This month’s contest utilizes things like binary search, segment trees, DP, graphs and a lot of other stuff, there’s nothing that boils down to “hey find a pattern then it’s a free AC”. Don’t tell me DP is basically finding patterns, it is not. You have to understand your states and what is required to get transitions. You can’t randomly say: maybe I can transfer to the next state with coefficient C(n, k - 2 ^ 8 + t). Graph problems like DOOFSET constructive problem? No, there’s nothing pattern finding in it. It’s understanding how the strings in answer should work. When you read the editorial you will probably just say, ehhhh but he pattern found that solution to construct the answer.
Last month? Ok there’s 1 strictly math problem, but no pattern finding there. CHEFDIL? Ok that can be argued as pattern finding, but then it’s extremely easy to prove and the pattern is trivial. Other than that, dp digit problems, spanning tree theorems that can be googled and stuff.
Overall I have barely seen any pure pattern finding problems at all, and when they exists their patterns are trivial and are solved by most contestants. So I don’t get the complaints here.
Better who start this topic. What happens to all guys who hate mathematics and pattern finding. Isn’t it awesome to put some brain in mathematics and solve the one page question with only few lines of a code. It’s this contest where I can’t do any question fully solved but I love that I will learn some new mathematics… If there was a problem from graph theory and I do it for 100 points will that feeling be same? It’s not always CC is like this. Sometimes it’s acceptable. This is my first Div 1 contest and I love it. Please don’t demotivate peoples here. If you don’t want to do Challenges then don’t do it. Don’t spread negativity.
@vijju123 requesting you to lock this post as too many personal remarks are being made and the topic is deviating a lot from the original point of view.
there were 8 problems in august challenge out of which 5 were straight forward(pardon me for KS1 but I know that it can be also solved by hash table)
since I didn’t talk about rest 3 problems I don’t know there difficulty or so.
5/8 = 62% problems were according to me were straight forward.
and look in these questions I only solved them via either hashmaps or sets(I don’t remember) or some mathematical manipulations.
You might be a good coder but I don’t think more, so I solve things easily.
Basically, i agree with you some extent, but see, if u are doing anything for rating, then you are going completely in wrong direction, honestly, i know many friends who stopped participating in long challenges, a long time ago,dont blame any website, if u think this website is not good,start participating on codeforces, atcoder, topcoder. solve problem of data structures from there, also u could work on topic wise preparation like , go to cp-algorithms.com and read theory and solve questions there, that will boost your algorithmic thinking and topic knowledge, why blame someone efforts, if there are other options for you. but yeah problems of codechef are going from blend of (maths+ds) to only (math).but last questions of div1 long are very good always and worth learning.i learnt many things from that, it totally depends on you,what you take from contest.
