allthecode's blog

How to explain Competitive Programming to a non-CS person?
By allthecode, 10 years ago, In English

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 years ago, # |
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Nice question for Quora, actually.

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    10 years ago, # ^ |
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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 years ago, # ^ |
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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 years ago, # ^ |
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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 years ago, # ^ |
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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 years ago, # ^ |
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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 years ago, # ^ |
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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 years ago, # ^ |
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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 years ago, # |
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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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    10 years ago, # ^ |
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    In my case people keep asking: "can you create games?"

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      10 years ago, # ^ |
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      for me , they ask me if I can hack wireless routers XD and sometimes ask me about stuff related to android and Iphones

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        9 years ago, # ^ |
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        I know it's too late but for me they asked me if I can install windows :D

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