le.mur's blog

6 months since my first line of code. Today I'll take part in a round!
By le.mur, 5 years ago, In English

Since February of this year, I have been solving problems here on Codeforces. I've never done anything like this before. Also, I started without any math background. You can read the details here: https://codeforces.com/blog/entry/65565

I wrote my very first program less than 6 months ago. Now I solved ~250 problems. Some of them are educational problems on programming technique, some of them are problems from the real rounds.

Different things happened: some problems were solved easily in short time, some tasks stopped me for a few days. But every time I was very happy about the correct solution!

When I don't understand something, I can get angry, upset, or all at the same time. But with each solved problem, understanding appears more and my problem-solving speed increases, which I am very glad about. For example, at first I really didn't like the strings "Well, it was good without them!". But now everything is OK, we are friends with them). Now I can write the code, and then I look like this: wow, how can I.

And the time has come! Today I plan to participate in my first official round! I'm a little nervous and worried :-) But I hope I will like it.

Do you remember your first round? Tell me how it was!

  • Vote: I like it
  • +124
  • Vote: I do not like it

Comments Comments (24)
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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +37 Vote: I do not like it

Good luck and have fun!

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +21 Vote: I do not like it

Good luck and remember to not worry too much about your results.

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +21 Vote: I do not like it

I know the round has started already but wanted to say good luck!

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -6 Vote: I do not like it

rip queue

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +12 Vote: I do not like it

my very first contest was exactly like yours

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +30 Vote: I do not like it

I upsolved A in 5 minutes after the round! Next time hope to solve a problem in time)

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    5 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +32 Vote: I do not like it

    What do you think made it so much easier after the round? Or do you think if the round were 10 minutes longer you'd have solved it in time?

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    5 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +22 Vote: I do not like it

    Second contest, Div.2 and two solved problems! Keep it up! ;)

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5 years ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +13 Vote: I do not like it

I remember my first CF round(it was div1+div2). I thought that A was too hard(obviously, it was not), B was some extremely non-trivial DP(obviously, it was not) and I started writing bruteforce solution for F because it's not $$$O(n^2)$$$ but $$$O(\frac{n^2}{2})$$$ memory usage(n=10^5).

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +22 Vote: I do not like it

My first round is CodeForces Educational Round 70...almost quit CP...

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    5 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +5 Vote: I do not like it

    They said CP is fun... They said Educational contest is Educational...

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +16 Vote: I do not like it

"Do you remember your first round? Tell me how it was!"
Solved A, got hacked some minutes later (didn't know what a hack was), almost immediately rage quit. Wonderful times :D

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    5 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +13 Vote: I do not like it

    When I only started I thought that hacking was finding counter test for not working(not AC) submission and sending it to the person whose solution it was and getting points for this. I was so naive.

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -40 Vote: I do not like it

You solved 350 problems and now you cant solve div3 A in 2 hours. Sounds weird.

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    5 years ago, # ^ |
    ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +11 Vote: I do not like it

    May be stress.

    And keep in mind she has no any math background

    Also you can check her tries during contest, very complicated solution (hard to debug), i think i also can solve in a different way than I do (just check that all Math.abs(a[i]-a[i+1]) equals to 1 or (n-1))

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      5 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it -25 Vote: I do not like it

      What is "no math background"? I got to blue knowing only add, subtract, multiply, and divide.

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        5 years ago, # ^ |
          Vote: I like it +12 Vote: I do not like it

        Most of users I think have tech education. And it means that at least we have implicit math background (at the level of intuition we can prove that our solution is correct) You can read initial post from Mike (link in the post), and I think she has no math and programmatic skills 6 monthes ago.

        And also I think to be blue not such a big achievement (especcially with little number of participated rounds), maybe it even means we have weak math bg.

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          5 years ago, # ^ |
            Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

          For me solving 350 problems is enough to learn some basic ideas that you need to solve such easy task as Div3 A.

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      5 years ago, # ^ |
      ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it -21 Vote: I do not like it

      [deleted]

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        5 years ago, # ^ |
          Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

        no math background mean that u are not good at math

        also don't steal comment

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +20 Vote: I do not like it

My first round was Div 3. Solved 3 questions, was disappointed to see my rating fell -22. Little did I know that disappointment would be the cutest one of all the ones in future. Haven't been able to solve 3 after that up till now, lol!

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