You mean they are hard or easy?

A simpler idea works (for A2). For every "hillock", choose the second largest ladder. Then compare all such chosen ladders (with some subtleties / edge cases). Worked for me in the validation input at least.

A simpler idea works (for A2). For every hill, choose the second largest ladder. Then compare all such chosen ladders (with some subtleties / edge cases).

Timing! I'm visiting Georgia with a friend next month. That burger indeed looks delicious! Any food/travel suggestions Mike? What's that burger called by the way? The place/ restaurant name?

Haha.. A smooth segue into that Fermat reference — "I have discovered a truly marvelous list of all writers, which this margin is too narrow to contain". Here's hoping someone Wil(e) 'rediscover' that list 358 years down the line. :p

Perhaps too early to ask, but do you have a tentative schedule in mind of when the second edition of this bootcamp might be? Do you plan it this year or next?

Solve Div 3, Div 4? Do you always wanna remain at 'A'? I think it's a good thing that every once in a while even a Problem A can take you by surprise. That way, all the noobs (like myself), get to try their hands at non trivial problems during a contest. Cz the fact that you (or I) am still hoping for problem A to be easy implies that you're not practicing / thinking long enough during non-contest times anyway. So the chances of you having tried your hand (head) at a even a slightly non trivial problem are close to zero. Contests then is a good excuse where you're forced out of your laziness and try to solve problems that you otherwise wouldn't spend time on. Besides, if it is hard, it is so for all those to whom it matters.

Oh yes. You're right.

I think we wouldn't notice the difference. The difficult tasks are probably already there, but the LGMs can make one feel like they were really easy. Also, such a round would just shift the normal, as the top finishers would still anyway compete at break neck pace, as it's still a race. Besides, i guess inventing such harder problems is not an easy task. It takes time and expertise that only a few possess.

Why are TC contests so tedious to setup and participate in ? Or is there something I don't know. I tried once to set it up, and it was SO cumbersome. That's sad cz many of the problems I encountered were of a high quality.

That is so kind of you! To have gone ahead and answered a genuine doubt inspite of most others downvoting it. I have nothing to do with this post, I was looking for something else but just accidentally chanced upon this. Thought I'd stop by and appreciate your kind gesture. You're awesome!

Thank you!

The author says "but restrictions do not allow us to use Dijkstras". Why can't we use Dijkstra to solve this ? Can someone explain ? What restrictions are making Dijkstras inapplicable here ?

Thank you! I stand corrected. :)

Yes of course, I understand. Though I did mention specifically "problem-solving" AND that too when the concepts are clear. If someone's still shaky on conceptual ground, the pseudo code is really helpful, no doubt. I was talking more about the application to some selected problems, rather than just converting English to code, which is straightforward once you know the pseudo code. In short : Pseudo-code and algorithm explanation is like the 1 in 10000000000. But applications and actual implementation give you the 0's. For the most part, we need to put the 0's ourselves! :)

If possible, please have problem-solving with actual code. That really helps drill in the implementation for those who might grasp the concept but still not know how to use it in practice. Thanks again for your EDU lectures. Learned a lot watching you solve problems and implement them in code.

Thank you! Very kind of you :)

What youtube courses is he talking about ? Can someone please share the link of his youtube courses ?

You and CF will come out of this stronger Mike. You've served the community relentlessly for so long. A slight amount of inconvenience to us is nothing in front of the challenges you might have faced in creating this amazing platform and community. You have our backing. Everytime.

More power to you Mike. More power to CF.

You're probably much closer to the grassroots reality than I am. So your words hold more weight. I must be wrong. Thanks for pointing out :)

OK. I must be wrong. Thanks for sharing the personal experience :)

I think i have misunderstood the problem. It is not clear to me what is meant by the use of the word "leaving" in the problem. Does "leaving" mean to remove those edges from the original graph ? Or does it mean we remove the rest of the edges and leave those in the good subset (do not remove the edges belonging to the good subset from the original graph ) ?

I didn't get it. Can you please clarify a bit more ? 0 means NO EDGES, fine. But how can there be "leftover" vertices in the good subset ? The good subset is a subset of edges, not a subset of vertices, right ?

I used to think the same. But India is unlike Russia, China etc. Even people from rural India, have a non-trivial grasp of English nowadays. Indian children from rural schools can be compared to better English speakers in Russian and Chinese schools. While of course they'd understand Hindi/local better than English, the clientele here is an educated and motivated one. If people are doing CP, that mostly implies they have had a decent educational upbringing, access to Internet, which in the Indian context signifies decent enough English comprehension skills. Also, if they can program already (which they can, since they're doing CP), that means they've already been through English texts / resources of programming languages and are thus used to the language in an academic setting. Besides, language is rarely the barrier in getting better at CP.