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which academic discipline corresponds to what we do at programming contests?
By yashar_sb_sb, 10 years ago, In English

which academic discipline corresponds to what we do at programming contests?

contests like codeforces, topcoder, google codejam, ICPC and other similar contests.
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10 years ago, # |
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Combinatorial Optimization, maybe?

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    10 years ago, # ^ |
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    No, I wouldn't say algorithmic programming is a subset of combinatorics.

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      10 years ago, # ^ |
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      I think 'Combinatorial' is used in a wider sense here

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorial_optimization

      combinatorial optimization is a topic that consists of finding an optimal object from a finite set of objects.[1] In many such problems, exhaustive search is not feasible. ... Some common problems involving combinatorial optimization are the traveling salesman problem ("TSP") and the minimum spanning tree problem ("MST").

      Combinatorial optimization is a subset of mathematical optimization that is related to operations research, algorithm theory, and computational complexity theory.

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    10 years ago, # ^ |
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    As others mentioned, not.

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10 years ago, # |
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Well, I don't know, but when I went for Computer Science as discipline in university the interviewers in the universities were amazed how I could solve the problems they gave me. And I think that such questions are pretty easy for everyone doing programming contests. I don't know whether you are asking because you are intending to study somewhere, but that is what I have seen and have as experience

PS: They give mostly algorithmic or logical questions at these interviews which are not commonly seen if you do not do such contests

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10 years ago, # |
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There is no need to have relations with exactly one university discipline...

I think that two mostly corresponding disciplines are: (1) Algorithms and DataStructures; (2) Dicrete Math (alternative name of the same discipline is Discrete Structures).

But they together cover maybe about a half of programming contests' topics. Very many other disciplines become very useful sometimes.

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