Every contest, there are always people who get AC on Problem A within a minute literally before I’ve even finished reading the statement sometimes.

I’m really curious how to do it so fast. Do they just skim the input and output format and instantly understand the pattern? Or is there some trick or habit that helps code so quickly and confidently without overthinking?

To be honest, personally I’ve gotten lucky a few times by just looking at the input and output examples and guessing what the math formula was, but I am not sure if it's a good habit in the long run.

Would love to hear from some experienced contestants. How do you read and process problems so fast, and how do you practice writing code quickly while still being accurate?

Lately I’ve been thinking about something that’s been bothering me for a while. On CF (and in competitive programming in general), it sometimes feels like there are two kinds of people.

There are those who see a problem once, and just get it. They read the statement, glance at the constraints, and somehow, within minutes, they’re already implementing a clean and elegant solution. And then there are people like me who read, think, test small cases, and still can’t quite reach that “aha” moment. Sometimes it feels like I’m grinding gears in my head while others are gliding.

So I started wondering: Is this “instinct” something you’re born with, or something you train? And will it be possible for normal people to eventually reach the same level as the “naturals” through enough deliberate practice, or is there just a limit we just can’t cross, no matter how hard we train?

Снова на Codeforces! Решаю задачи, ловлю WA, радуюсь AC Лучшее место, чтобы прокачать мозги

I’m pretty new to CF. I joined because solving problems here felt fun and genuinely rewarding. It is also a good way to have regular practices and improve yourself.

However, it’s a little disheartening to see the amount of AI-generated code submissions popping up during contests. AI is indeed powerful for sure, and it can definitely write good code that compiles and passes tests. But, if we’re using it to during contests, we’re not essentially bypassing the challenge. We are just actively damaging integrity and ruining the fun of it.

Codeforces was about the time spent debugging a wrong answer, and the moment when you finally crack a problem you've been stuck on. When submitting an AI-generated code, we don't get the chance to make actual improvements and render standings meaningless.

Using AI doesn’t make one a good coder. It is just copying and pasting and won’t carry one far in real interviews or actual software engineering challenges.

I think we should use AI to learn, to debug or understand key concepts when we are practising. But perhaps we should draw the line to prevent all from using it as a shortcut during contests. I was wondering if we can adopt a more secure contest environment, like HackerRank's blocking tabs and in-browser compilers mode. It will help reduce misuse of AI and bring focus back to real competition.