Shuaib's blog

Hire excellent problem statement editor?
By Shuaib, 14 years ago, In English
Phew! I am just glad I am still blue, after beta round #66.

Way to go guys. Problems on Codeforces are usually tougher then those on TopCoder. And I love the fact that so many beta rounds happen within a month, compared to low rate of SRMs on TopCoder.

Having said that, CF guys, you really need to hire someone exceptional for checking the problem statements, I guess both for Russian and English versions, to avoid any kind of statements confusion during a round.

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14 years ago, # |
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I'm not sure. But I think Mike works with a big team to test the problem statements in English and Russian. I felt that from the contests' blog-posts. (When they say: Thanks to... )

But unfortunately they still miss some bugs. May be they need to harden their efforts a little :)

In spite of these bugs, I really appreciate Codeforces than TopCoder!
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  • 14 years ago, # ^ |
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    For the last round: instead of "some bugs" one should use "a lot of bugs". Killing bugs in statements and test data and they've decided not to unrate this round. I completely agree with author of this post.
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    • 14 years ago, # ^ |
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      Yes may be last time only there were lots of bugs. That's why they should harden there efforts and test everything better.

      TopCoder also sometimes have bugs. Everyone make mistakes!

      TopCoder is a huge profitable company, while Codeforces is still in its first steps. So, I think it can't hire.
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14 years ago, # |
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"Russian statements are generally correct and clear".
But 
"English statements sometimes makes no sense"
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  • 14 years ago, # ^ |
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    You have to know Russian to say a statement like that. Do you know Russian? :|
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    • 14 years ago, # ^ |
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       No, I don't.
      But I hear people from Russia say, that Russian statements were alright.

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      • 14 years ago, # ^ |
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        You are wrong. The last round was an ideal example of how ambigious can be the problem statement even in Russian.
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14 years ago, # |
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The English translations also used to suck before, but they are mostly fine now. Same goes for the stability of the server. So there is tremendous visible improvement, and I think Mike and the team will continue their efforts to make CF bulletproof :)
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  • 14 years ago, # ^ |
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    I agree there. Server downtime issues during contest was something that put me off of CF for a good while. But now it seems that server stays pretty stable during contest. Albeit it does stuck up during system tests once in a while I guess.

    But yes, there is visible improvement overall. And we all hope everything is only going to get better in future.
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