TL;DR I am thinking of holding a series of livestreams on youtube/twitch of me solving problems without having seen them beforehand. I want to highlight how to approach a medium-hard programming task when you are faced one. I want this to be a social and chill environment. Your ideas/feedback would be greatly appreciated.
TS;WR
Hello guys! I have been doing competitive programming for a while, and lately I have been thinking about how I have developed myself during the past years, and what is different between how I used to approach problems in the beginning and how I do it nowadays. I was thinking that it would be a pretty nice idea to give back my thoughts to the community.
What I was thinking about is recording some videos or streaming myself solving some competitive programming tasks that I haven't seen before. The inspiration for this idea came from a friend (teammate) of mine who wanted to do this quite some time ago, in order to train for ICPC. The format would sound like this: you would propose tasks that you find interesting or that you had been challenged by when approaching them from the first try, and I would try to solve them during the stream (deciphering the statement, finding the solution, implementing the solution).
Why I want to do this
I have been coaching some people for a while, and during this time I have the feeling that somehow explaining a problem/solution turns out to become very different when you have solved the problem beforehand as opposed to coming up with it when you are facing with the task for the very first time. Not only are there a lot of pitfalls that I tend to forget having made after I had solved a problem, but also it's that a lot of the times I don't recall the thought process that needed to happen in order to solve it. That's why it's sometimes hard for me to even give hints to people, if they're stuck on a task, for example.
With this format, I am hoping to capture and highlight the general thought process that happens between reading the statement of a problem and getting AC on it, in addition to the solution itself. It might also include tips on implementation and debugging along the way.
Some more details (FAQ style)
So is this some sort of online coaching sessions?
Yes and no. While the main goal of this is me trying to highlight the thought process of solving the problem, I want to see it as more of a group where you and I both discover which ideas and approaches work on tasks, and which don't
What happens when you run out of ideas for a solution?
Some problems might pose difficult for me as well, and given that I would be live, there's a high chance that I might get stuck. At these times, I think I might move on to another problem (which is probably what I would do in a contest), or ask for a hint from you guys.
How do we propose tasks?
What I was thinking of is a simple poll where you could add options, and vote for the best ones. This website seems to provide a quite neat interface for creating exactly what I need.
Some people solve contests; why don't you just do that?
While I certainly don't want to restrict myself to this proposed format, the reason why I am thinking of solving problems "offline" as opposed to during the contest boils down to the fact that even though solving contests would yield a similar scenario, I am usually more stressed during contests, and that would relate to less talking and more thinking; for now, I think solving tasks offline would provide me with enough calm to more easily and succinctly describe my thoughts.
When is it going to happen?
I was thinking of doing the first stream this weekend (probably on Sunday, probably at around 3 PM EEST, probably on YouTube). Not much is settled (I would like to hear your opinions first); more details coming soon.
Please only use links when adding options. I would pick the tasks that have most votes during the stream. For this session, please restrict yourselves to problems that are not too hard, so that I would be able to build up my courage :). Problems can be on any judge from Codeforces, Atcoder, CSAcademy, Kattis, Infoarena, and others. They can be either ICPC style (preferred) or IOI style. Difficuly level should be around Codeforces Div1 A/B/C (or Div2 C/D/E)
Please, do your best to check beforehand if I have solved a task, and do not add/upvote tasks which I have already solved.
Final words
I will be updating this post as the week progresses, but I was very eager to post this. I am very excited about this idea, and I can't wait to hear your feedback. Any ideas of yours are greatly appreciated.
I hope that I'll see you during the stream!
