hmehta's blog

TCO21 Algorithm Round 2B
By hmehta, history, 3 years ago, In English

The second Round 2 of the Algorithm Competition of 2021 Topcoder Open is happening! Round 2B and and its Parallel Round will take place on Wednesday, June 2 at 07:00 UTC -4

Both the matches will be **rated**.

Please note that you must register for this round in the Arena. Registration is now open for the round in the Arena or Applet and will close 5 minutes before the match begins, so make sure that you are all ready to go. Click here to see what time it starts in your area.

In order to advance to Online Stage 3, you will need to place within the** top 200** of any Round 2. Read more about the Algorithm Competition and view the whole schedule here. 

Members eligible to compete in the Parallel Round include:
- Members who have qualified to Round 3 from Round 2A
- Members who did not qualify for Round 2
- Members who didn't compete in Online Round 1
- Qualifiers for Round 4 or TCO21 Algorithm Finals from Online Stages 1, 2 and 3

Don’t know how to compete in Topcoder Algorithm Competitions?
Check out this guide to successfully compete in an algorithm match.

You can compete using:

  • Topcoder Java Applet - You can refer to this guide here to set up the applet. (Note that those who have Java 8 installed on their machine will see a security issue — You will have to add Topcoder in security exceptions in Java Control Panel. Please refer to the details in the guide.)
  • Topcoder Web Arena(Beta) - Please watch this video for step by step guide

Did you qualify for Round 3 or Round 4 or Algorithm Finals from Online Stages 1,2 and 3? We have a **parallel-rated round** for you to compete.

Best of luck to you in the Arena!

- The Topcoder Community team

  • Vote: I like it
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Comments Comments (23)
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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +5 Vote: I do not like it

Gentle Reminder: The round begins in 80 mins :)

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

    It might not be always possible but can we have important rounds like TCO on weekends. SRM usually happen regularly so it's fine if they occur on working days.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +44 Vote: I do not like it

I guess everyone with a positive score will qualify. What's happened to TopCoder? It definitely used to be more competitive than that.

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
    ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +3 Vote: I do not like it

    User Interface is not that attractive . I feel very conjusted while using code arena web version. It is one of reasons why I want to spent less time there :( .

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
    ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

    I think the problems are pretty good but the interface is not very welcoming for a newcomer. Also, in other platforms, we just have to submit a file with the complete code; however, here we need to write a method of a struct, which is not easy to test locally unless you already have a ready template.

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +1 Vote: I do not like it

    Well it is round 2b. Many people qualified from 2a, and some even advanced to round 3 beforehand. But I agree that topcoder’s interface could be better, it should have support to c++17, the round is too short, there is not even pretests (only a couple of sample tests). I also never understood the write your solution inside a method of a struct, couldnt it just be a function?

    damm I listed more reasons than I thought I would. But more importantly I like the problems

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      3 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +24 Vote: I do not like it

      I have a lot of complaints about topcoder's interface too (the java applet crashed multiple times on me during the contest), but their contest format is not one of them.

      For weak samples, it's because it's a different culture. Pretests are purposely not strong otherwise the hacking phase would be pointless. I kind of like that you can't do "proof by AC" so you actually have to learn how to test your code.

      The class/method thing is also not an issue. Leetcode does the same thing without hindering its popularity. It's arguably the more "inclusive" format because even non-competitive programmers can pick it up immediately without dealing with parsing and formatting output. Or TLE from not having incantations like sync_with_stdio and cin.tie. FWIW leetcode isn't even a CP site (it's mainly for interview prep) yet it has like 10K participants in each of it's weekly rounds, with trash-tier problems. I can't see why topcoder can't modernize to something like that.

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        3 years ago, # ^ |
        ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +1 Vote: I do not like it

        But leetcode does not require the struct, only the function which is ok. I dont understand why requiring the struct

        To test in topcoder you need to do something like this:

        structName().methodName(x)

        why not this instead?:

        functionName(x)

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +4 Vote: I do not like it

    I think that in addition to the interface and some technical issues, problems are also often not of the best quality... (This may be my personal opinion, but today's problems were all quite straightforward and standard). I think that admins are doing the best what they possibly can with the proposals they receive, but they don't seem to receive a lot. Even though Topcoder pays well compared to Codeforces and Codechef, there are some technical requirements, like small limit on the input size, the preparation environment is not very friendly, and, most importantly, it's quite sad to use your problems on a platform where at most 200-300 people will see them... All these things makes TC a bit unattractive for problemsetters, I don't even know anyone who sets problems there personally :(

    Hopefully, after the development of new arena is finished, and all the difficulties are resolved, Topcoder will become a much more attractive platform and will receive much more good proposals.

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

      Todays problems were much easier when compared to other div1 rounds from topcoder, but it is not always like this. I guess that was the case because this was just a qualifying round in a early phase

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3 years ago, # |
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Can't we submit during intermisson??

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +8 Vote: I do not like it

    You can't. It is supposed to be a rest interval between coding phase and challenge phase (or you can use it to prepare tricky test cases for the challenge phase as well).

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +6 Vote: I do not like it

Does everyone who advanced to round 2 get a tshirt?

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +51 Vote: I do not like it

Is there a separate limit on stack size? I'm asking seriously.

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +44 Vote: I do not like it

    It's OS default stack size unless otherwise specified in statements. I found that when I tried to declare a large array in a function.

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +62 Vote: I do not like it

    It seems so. My 300 failed systests. I upsolved it later and the only difference was that I changed vector<int> que[M] to vector<vector<int>> que(M). It was kind of unexpected for me in 2021.

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +84 Vote: I do not like it

    TC digging its own grave more enthusiastically than I would have imagined

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

What I liked about today's round is that it had an easy, an easy, and a medium.
Quite fitting for the second qualifier round at this stage.
And indeed, everyone with a positive score seems to have advanced, and their number is close to 200.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +1 Vote: I do not like it

my blog article on the easy problem (alternate odd even): https://shadekcse.wordpress.com/2021/06/02/topcoder-tco21-round-2b-combinatorics-problem/

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