ASawe2.6Main's blog

By ASawe2.6Main, history, 20 months ago, In English

Hello, I was introduced to CP a few months back by a friend, and from then to now I would message him any questions I had. Of course, it's not a good habit to rely on others, and nowadays I don't want to bother him because I'm no longer a true beginner(although my skill says otherwise). I'm not sure why, but I find editorials too lacking when it comes to explanations through words, as many solutions write things like, "We approach this problem greedily" and then jumps straight into math equations. Greedy is too broad of a subject for someone as bad as me, and I would like to see more logic and motivation behind these solutions. Maybe I'm just really horrible at understanding things, but I'd like to find a way to improve and understand how to solve these problems I'm stuck on without bothering anyone. Any suggestions?

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20 months ago, # |
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I agree to you that the editorials are often shorter than I want them to be. I can share you my way to overcome such a difficulties. At first, when I can't clearly understand some sentence something I am trying to came up with this idea myself. I am reading all before that I understood well earlier and trying to solve problem myself from this place as if I am at contest now but I got some hints that are in that part of editorial I can understand well. Okay but there whatever will be situations when you can't figure out with a problem yourself and that's normal. Don't be afraid to ask — ask for your friends or if you don't wanna bother them — ask on codeforces. The good way to do this is to ask in comments from editorial. There will be people that help you with a high probability if there is an recent contest and maybe you will got a help even the contest was for a long time ago. If no one have seen your comment you can write a blog with your question and you can trust me — there will be exactly a people that don't skip your blog and will help you. There are no any bad in asking questions — competitive programming community should help itself members and it's a right practice. Okay maybe some people will give your negative for your help request but don't take it seriously. All the people are different someone will like your blog someone no but there are no any bad for asking help — know it, and know that there exactly will be some people who think the same and will help you. So finally my advice to you is such like this — try to do all yourself but if you meet a really difficulties don't be afraid to ask a help (for example at the codeforces). That's normal. Good luck !

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20 months ago, # |
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I read the editorial again.

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20 months ago, # |
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After reading the editorial, think more about the problem and try to understand how you can come to the solution. If you still don't understand it try reading someone's AC code to see if that helps you realize the logic. If it still doesn't make sense, you should find an easier problem.

I think doing problems where you need to read editorial often is good as you can learn new tricks/techniques from them, but if you can't even understand the editorial you need to do easier problems.

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    20 months ago, # ^ |
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    The problem being too hard for me could be the case, but what tends to happen is that when I get someone to break down the solution(without teaching me anything new), it just comes naturally to me, and when I read the editorial, it no longer seems confusing. I just feel like in an effort to formalize everything, some editorials just have too much math and mathematical definitions, which makes it harder for a grey coder like me to understand especially for problems that are about my rating(1000-1100).

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20 months ago, # |
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You might want to dive into comments of the editorial, frequently there I find better (better explained also) solutions than author's.