Its been a really bad day today. My performance in round #218 was disastrous. My brain was almost shut down for the first hour. Then somehow it started working (but not as efficiently as I wanted). I made my first submission at the 58 minute mark to the A problem. (Yeah, you can call me a n00b. I earned it.) Then inspiration struck for the B problem and I quickly coded it. But I overlooked a critical condition which led to my solution being hacked. Needless to say I didn't try any other problems. I was more keen on hacking others' problems for the last 30 mins.
After my solution B was hacked, I quickly realized what went wrong. After the end of the contest, I resubmitted the solution and it got Accepted. All I had to do was to put a simple if block. :(
So was I. It happens.
Upsolve remaining problems. i was in a similar situation as you. you can look at my graph. i used to struggle with As at a point. it will get better, i assure you. But upsolve! :)
yeah. your graph is impressive. waiting for the tutorials to upsolve.
I would rather suggest trying to come up with the solutions yourself :) Remember, it's up"solving" not up"looking it up".
What do you think the tutorials are for, then? For those who solved the problem to read an alternative solution?
The tutorials help you get a correct idea, and you still need to implement it yourself. That's the mainline process of learning algorithmic coding, AFAIK.
Completely copying a solution isn't good, but it can be very helpful to read something about it (CF editorials aren't usually very detailed, anyway).
Sure, if you can't find the solution after a reasonable amount of time, consulting the tutorials is perfectly fine. Still, I feel the largest learning effect comes from trying things and coming up with creative approaches yourself.
It does, but sometimes it's just impossible. One case is when the problem in question is really hard and has many steps, and you don't see some smaller, powerful step. Another is when the problem just uses a clever trick. If you haven't encountered anything even close to it, it may be very hard, but just learning it from a hint would save a lot of time and effort. It's good to think stuff up by yourself, but sometimes you just don't know...