adviser's blog

By adviser, history, 2 years ago, In English

As we all know codechef does not allow anyone to see testcases because they think it will spoil the fun of thinking extra bit. but i think that even after trying 2-3 hour if one is stuck and does not know where it is going wrong one should see the testcase because though editorial are avaible but for practice one need to know why his/her code is not working or where it is going wrong. because of testcases many people do not practice on codechef.

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2 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +69 Vote: I do not like it

IMO seeing the test cases is often largely useless given that often, your code fails on some huge test case that is largely useless for debugging. Many problems also have thousands of test cases in a single file and it's often the case that your code fails on a test case very far down.

Instead, I can recommend to everyone the vastly superior method of stress-testing. Try the following:

  • Write a very naive and simple solution to the problem (maybe exponential complexity) (if you can, you may also just copy someone else's solution: CodeChef readily allows you to do this)
  • Write a program to generate thousands of small (!) test cases
  • Using those two, find a test case where your program gives the wrong answer.
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    2 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it -97 Vote: I do not like it

    don't you think it's little hectic work. as already we have less time to practice due to university burden and in that some time also i would write code to produce testcases? don't you think instead codechef should provide little/small testcases?

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      2 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +42 Vote: I do not like it

      For real? I mean if someone knows basic c++ they can probably write a test-case generator for most of the problems within 5 minutes.

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      2 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +43 Vote: I do not like it

      I often do that during the contest. It's not a big deal.

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    2 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it -35 Vote: I do not like it

    -is-this-fft- why r u such antagonistic?? Always saw u putting ur opinions(which is fine) but never supporting other's. u seem like an arrogant guy. Just becoz u r IG doesn't mean u r always right.

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      2 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it -23 Vote: I do not like it

      to farm upvotes ofc

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

        This doesn't make any sense: why farm upvotes? If your answer is "contribution" then know that comments that get +40 or similar have virtually no effect on my contribution.

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      2 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +23 Vote: I do not like it

      I supported the last similar "suggestion" blog that I commented on.

      But I think maybe you're right, in some sense. If I support a blog, I just upvote because the blog says all there is to say. Thus if I have something to say, it tends to be a criticism. So there might be an illusion that I'm against everything.

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

      I don't normally response to clone but I spare you one this time.

      Just becoz u r IG doesn't mean u r always right.

      Git gud kid.

      Joke aside, I somewhat admire his effort to comment on these kinds of posts. I don't necessarily always agree with his points but at least he provides his line of thought. If you want to prove him wrong, do it with your own reasoning. Don't be a hypocrite calling someone antagonistic while you're attacking him on a personal level.

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2 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -17 Vote: I do not like it

If testcases are publicly available, then problems can be easily stolen by the other competitive programming platforms. One could create a clone of CodeChef without putting too much effort into it. That's probably the main reason why competitive programming platforms are not very eager to make their testcases available.

Where do these people practice? Codeforces does not allow to see its full set of testcases either.

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    2 years ago, # ^ |
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    i don't mean that all testcases should be available in file. even codeforces concept of not showing large testcases is right. but codechef does not even allow to see small testcases. what if someone like me is only missing some edge cases? so it would be good if codechef does same that codeforces do.

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

They have already talked about this problem before on their site and have a strong viewpoint about it, so I believed that they won't change it no matter what.

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

Inclusive of test case visibility , I think Codechef should also look into the issue of Plagiarism quite seriously . Yesterday I did a contest after a long time , but again I saw the same issue that the successful submissions of the questions C & D increased drastically in the last few minutes and even I noticed a guy whose all 4 questions which he solved were of different kind (Different way of writing for loops n so many things...). I think this is a major thing to be looked at.

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    2 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it -12 Vote: I do not like it

    I did check youtube and other telegram channels but didn't find solutions of C and D posted anywhere. Some may have cheated but its definitely under 100 otherwise it would have reached 1000+ submission similar to September Cook Off

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

      U checked but didn't find , but few were successful in doing so I guess ._.