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I don't get it. If it is agreed upon that this acm day is not reasonable or practical, why do we still need to define it and why is it 'suitable for feeling progressive' ?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It provides a great way to explore different areas of math and cs.
Which is why I enjoy the questions, but not the competitive mindset surrounding it. It's like casual cycling vs racing.
If you're offering up that analogy yourself, I guess I don't understand why you're asking, "what's the point of competitive programming?"
The point of "competitive _anything_" is The Competition itself. What's the point of competition running?!? Shouldn't running be a utilitarian function of escaping an angry lion in the African savanna? Therefore, what's the point of Usain Bolt competing in sprints?!? It's the competition. Same reasons for competitions in spelling (spelling bees), cooking (Iron Chef), etc. Humans just like to compete.
You don't have to enjoy those competitions to understand why other people participate in them.
I'm curious; what's the point of competitive programming? It strikes me as opposite to our actual goal of programming in collaboration/the metrics applied do not seem to further the general quality of our work and output.
people are competitive, and competitions motivate. They aren't for everybody, but for some, they find it valuable. The competition and the coding ability are two separate life skills, forced together in the crucible of the high school education system.
I cannot criticize the motivation, or the fact that my students in high school can solve problems many professionals I know cannot. I can criticize that the competitive spirit marginalizes some of the groups we need to Encourage more.
I'm curious; what's the point of competitive programming? It strikes me as opposite to our actual goal of programming in collaboration/the metrics applied do not seem to further the general quality of our work and output.
people are competitive, and competitions motivate. They aren't for everybody, but for some, they find it valuable. The competition and the coding ability are two separate life skills, forced together in the crucible of the high school education system.
I cannot criticize the motivation, or the fact that my students in high school can solve problems many professionals I know cannot. I can criticize that the competitive spirit marginalizes some of the groups we need to Encourage more.
I'm curious; what's the point of competitive programming? It strikes me as opposite to our actual goal of programming in collaboration/the metrics applied do not seem to further the general quality of our work and output.
Under the clock, you push yourself beyond what you thought you were capable of and usually learn something about algorithms. This sounds a lot like startups.
Can anyone here explain why is competitive coding used so much in the hiring process. I think while basic things like asymptotic complexity or binary search are sometimes used in real world, I am still to see a problem which uses advanced competitive coding knowledge. Why base so much on a test that is almost surely never used. I am generally good at competitive coding, and I think I will be on the gaining side once…
Personally I use it to determine how a candidate approaches a problem. Most of these types of questions have an obvious solution that has a terrible runtime, and then have several optimisation layers on top of that.
I want to see:
* can the candidate reason about a complex problem that has multiple steps.
* are they able to offer a basic solution in pseudo-code (the dreaded "whiteboard" section).
* can they analyse their own solution, for example expected runtime, optimisations, etc (also how they handle criticism)
* how would they go about testing their solution - that is, what test cases would they use to verify their solution is correct (along with this, what error checking would they do)
There are no 'right' answers to these questions - it's about the process.
> I am still to see a problem which uses advanced competitive coding knowledge
In my work I've found it's not about applying a clever hack: its about recognising patterns and learning which algorithm/data-structure is appropriate, and how to apply it effectively. Just like in a competition.
I'm curious; what's the point of competitive programming? It strikes me as opposite to our actual goal of programming in collaboration/the metrics applied do not seem to further the general quality of our work and output.
"An acm day is a day at which you do nothing but pracitce, typically spending 16 hours in practice and sleeping/eating/doing other stuff in 8 hours. For sure, this is not reasonable for our daily lives, but we need to define such a day as it is suitable for feeling progressive." I don't get it. If it is agreed upon that this acm day is not reasonable or practical, why do we still need to define it and why is it 'suit…