Блог пользователя allthecode

How to explain Competitive Programming to a non-CS person?
Автор allthecode, 10 лет назад, По-английски

Frequently I have been asked by non-CS people what do I do in a competitive programming contest, but I never feel satisfied with my response. How would you answer?

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10 лет назад, # |
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Nice question for Quora, actually.

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    10 лет назад, # ^ |
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    Indeed, it could break the stereotype of questions "I'm lazy, why am I not successful" and answers "you're lazy, try doing something".

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      10 лет назад, # ^ |
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      I also see a lot of questions like "I am gray, can I beat tourist in 1 month/1 year/etc?", to which the top answer is usually "nothing is impossible" (if you asked me, I'd just give you a straight no. Red in a year is an achievable goal, but still requires a lot of dedication).

      There's also the "do I need to / should I study for competitive programming to get a job at google?" , to which the sensible answer is indeed "no, there are much easier paths". But the top answer tends to be something like "CP is a stupid thing practiced by stupid people who like to waste their time doing something that doesn't benefit them, while they could be helping the world and doing real programming like the cool kids".

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        10 лет назад, # ^ |
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        The common stance of someone who's very bad at competitive programming (and thereforce can't understand the joy of getting AC in some situations :D).

        The "nothing is impossible" answer is okay, it just means that there's a tiny, non-zero probability that the kid asking is just an unfound hard-working genius the likes of which the world has never seen and who'd be able to quickly dominate all contests... and not just lazy and expecting miracles for free.

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          10 лет назад, # ^ |
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          I think, people who can "dominate all contests" must have strong confidence, determination and the brain to not ask questions for which he should have better answer than everyone else (he should be more aware of how much he likes solving problem / programming, how much & quickly he wants to learn stuff...)

          Edit: This seems too off-topic from the original blog post :(

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        10 лет назад, # ^ |
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        CP is a stupid thing practiced by stupid people who like to waste their time doing something that doesn't benefit them, while they could be helping the world and doing real programming like the cool kids

        For all these guys, here is a amazing reply(again on Quora) by bbi5291

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        10 лет назад, # ^ |
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        "CP is a stupid thing practiced by stupid people who like to waste their time doing something that doesn't benefit them, while they could be helping the world and doing real programming like the cool kids".

        They also ONLY write unmaintanable code.

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        10 лет назад, # ^ |
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        CP is a stupid thing practiced by stupid people who like to waste their time doing something that doesn't benefit them, while they could be helping the world and doing real programming like the cool kids"

        Great answer man.. Really liked the defination.. :)

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10 лет назад, # |
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I usually say that I do something like Math contests with a help of computer. After hearing it people are usually disillusioned because they expected me to hack someone's facebook page:)

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