Negationist's blog

By Negationist, history, 3 months ago, In English

Is it just me or do editorials kind of suck? Often, the methods they present are overly complicated and/or not made with idea of improving the reader's intuition in mind. It's gotten to the point that I only look for broad ideas and never look for specific implementation. And I always leave them kind of annoyed.

Example Problem: https://mirror.codeforces.com/contest/2008/problem/G (sakurako's task) What I don't like: "Now, we can find where the mexk should be in linear time. Firstly, if it is before the first one, then the answer is k, otherwise, we can assign k=k−a1. Then let's look at the second element. If a1+k<a2, then answer should be a1+k and otherwise we can assign k=k−a2+a1−1. In other words, when we look if our k can be in range from ai to ai+1, we know that number of elements that were not in the array and less than ai equal to k+ai. Then, when we find such i, we can output the answer."

This is dumb and overcomplicated. What they should have said was something like this. "Assume the array is empty, then, mex = k-1. For every array element(0 to n-1) check if mex >= i*GCD. If so, it means the mex is influenced by this array element. Thus we should do mex++. Otherwise do nothing." I went to bed trying to understand the editorial and sleeping frustrated. It seems to me like the tutorial writer care more about showing off then actually developing useful intuition.

I understand making contests and tutorials is hard but still. Some editiorials just seem so disconnected. idk. Anyone else feel this way?

  • Vote: I like it
  • +5
  • Vote: I do not like it

»
3 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -10 Vote: I do not like it

If I am not mistaken, the editorial's job is just to show the solution. Improving intuition comes after solving/seeing the solutions to hundreds of problems. It is not really gonna improve after perusing just one editorial.

  • »
    »
    3 months ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +8 Vote: I do not like it

    Yes but not all presentations are equal. My point is that they are not presenting it in a way that is easily turned into your own intuition(often).

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

Ya sometimes I have to rely on yt vids or look at other people's submissions to understand the solution

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

tbh for me i feel like even if an editorial is vague or not well explained or anything

i feel like providing an example might actually help alot and explain the idea on that example