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About Codeforces problem statements
Автор ahmed_aly, 14 лет назад, По-английски
I've noticed in the last few Codeforces contests that almost all problem statements are very long and contain a lot of useless parts.
For example in this problem, the first 4 paragraphs are completely useless, which is about 40% of the problem description.
I don't see any fun in reading a lot of useless parts, and I used to read and understand everything carefully because it could contain something important.
Why should I waste the contest time in reading and understanding useless parts?
I wish to see smaller and more direct description in the next contests.

What do you think about this?
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14 лет назад, # |
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I think, problemsetters should find a balance between direct description (which is also no so interesting, 'cause from my point of view, it's quite interesting to understand - what is meant under the problem, what is hidden and what is important) and making too overloaded and heavy statements. It's very complicated question, to my mind
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14 лет назад, # |
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It is a kind of tradition and I personally like it.
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  • 14 лет назад, # ^ |
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    I'm with you that the problem statement should contain a story, but not very long one.
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    • 14 лет назад, # ^ |
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      I think that story and real statement should be mixed. It isn't good when 40% of text is absolutely useless.
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14 лет назад, # |
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This is a commonplace in olympiad informatics. Skill to find important details in text is part of problem.
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14 лет назад, # |
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I think problem writers prepare us to real life :)
In my current job I usually spend 90% of time to just understand matter of problem, and only about 10% of working time to solve it.
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14 лет назад, # |
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All participants read the same long statement.
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14 лет назад, # |
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I believe problem "Beavermuncher-0xFF" is really bad example

in this problem the first 4 paragraphs are marked by italic and you may guess that they are unuseful

even you may not guess about unuseful parts you spend no more than one minute for read all statement and after that you may divide statement for useful and unuseful parts easily
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14 лет назад, # |
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How about this one? If somebody just reads the output section, the above story is almost useless...
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  • 14 лет назад, # ^ |
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    of course, you may skip some parts of statement at your own risk but I believe you will spend no more than one minute for reading statement

    it is possible to change statement for "given prime n and integer m, n < m, write YES if m is next prime after n otherwise write NO" but in this case statement is really dry, ungraceful and boring
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    • 14 лет назад, # ^ |
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      So I suggest avoiding this by giving a new name to the objective :-) In case they are forced to read the problem statement to find out what the objective is. Of course it would make the problem statement a bit lengthy but in this case I think it's still acceptable.
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    • 14 лет назад, # ^ |
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      I totally prefer such statements though.

      There was a contest where each statement was two-five lines long, and I loved it.

       

      And also I have never seen an interesting background story in the problem statement. Usually they are pretty rediculous. And I'm not into that kind of humor which is usually used in the problem statements.

      So if someones made a contest with no stories whatsoever, I would be very happy :)

       

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      • 14 лет назад, # ^ |
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        no two minds think alike

        I got too much messages like this: "wow, I love this contest! stories was interesting indeed!"

        and I believe that any big story is not a trouble while problemsolving
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        • 14 лет назад, # ^ |
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          I think a big story could be a trouble and it could confuse someone, specially if the problem statement is not in his native language.
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    • 14 лет назад, # ^ |
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      I agree with you that giving a story can make problem solving fun, but yours were somewhat very long for most competitors. This is because competitors always have to solve many problems as quick as possible. If a long non-essential statement disturbed to understand the statement correctly, competitors will feel it really unnecessary.
      At least, I think a story part should be short enough.
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    • 14 лет назад, # ^ |
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      In my opinion, good examples of good problems, which have funny and not long storie, are TC problems about John and Brus, aren't they?
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14 лет назад, # |
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I agree. Long story would be fun if it adds something to the description of the problem. Reading such long stories, at times you repeat early paragraphs thinking may be you missed something, and then finding out it was all gibberish in relation to the problem, is very irritating.  
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14 лет назад, # |
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I agree with you. I wish that each problem statement contains no more than 256 words.
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14 лет назад, # |
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I like story like Beavermuncher-0xFF because it's funny. As for me it's more interesting to use Beavermuncher(i don't understand how it sounds in English, but боброжуй in Russian sounds very funny), then to count some numbers.

Sorry for my poor English.
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  • 14 лет назад, # ^ |
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    After some years in olympic programming, you will ignore all invaluable data in problem statements.
    All statements are read again after a competition ;)
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14 лет назад, # |
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Okay, check that! :D
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14 лет назад, # |
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Quote from last Open Cup:

Vladislav Isenbaev is a two-time champion of Ural, vice champion of TopCoder Open 2009, and absolute champion of ACM ICPC 2009. In the time you will spend reading this problem statement Vladislav would have solved a problem. Maybe, even two. . .
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