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Project Euler

projecteuler.net

101–110 of 172 posts

Re: Project Euler

#101
post #92

I guess I'm becoming an old fart. I used to like programming puzzles, challenges, things like this. But as time marches on, I realize that the real-world problems I have to solve are already so challenging and require enough critical thinking, that I'm best served just focusing on them. Between family life, doing real-world challenges for income, downtime to breathe, diverse hobbies for the spiritual good of my perso…

The trick with Project Euler is that they are not programming problems.

Re: Project Euler

#102

After hearing about it for years, I decided to start working through Project Euler about two weeks ago. It really is much more about math than programming, although it's a lot of fun to take on the problems with a language that has tail call optimization because so many of the problems involve recurrence relations. I like that the problems are constructed in a way that usually punishes you for trying to use brute for…

My only real complaint is (according to my experience) unless you happen to understand some mathematical concept/s involved in the question, it's incredibly difficult to get some insight or clue for how to go about solving it. The forums are a fantastic resource once you already know how to solve the problem .

seeing a simpler/more elegant solution after you solve it will make you appreciate it more. It's also a strategy to teach math: first you fight the problem, then you learn the trick, and it will stick way longer. Unfortunately, this method is not used in high schools (not over here in BE anyway).

Re: Project Euler

#103
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with Project Euler being mostly about math. I prefer Codewars for practicing programming or learning a new language.

Euler was a mathematician after all. Now thinking about it I wonder what project Djikstra would look like, or say maybe project Stallman.

I think a Project Turing might be an interesting one, solving problems specific to computer science (maybe something like pathfinding, evolutionary algorithms, data structures, etc)

Re: Project Euler

#104
post #92

I guess I'm becoming an old fart. I used to like programming puzzles, challenges, things like this. But as time marches on, I realize that the real-world problems I have to solve are already so challenging and require enough critical thinking, that I'm best served just focusing on them. Between family life, doing real-world challenges for income, downtime to breathe, diverse hobbies for the spiritual good of my perso…

I couldn't agree more. And yet these kind of puzzles still form the back bone of many technical interviews. Which further grinds out any enthusiasm to get me out of the job I'm in.

Re: Project Euler

#105
post #92

I guess I'm becoming an old fart. I used to like programming puzzles, challenges, things like this. But as time marches on, I realize that the real-world problems I have to solve are already so challenging and require enough critical thinking, that I'm best served just focusing on them. Between family life, doing real-world challenges for income, downtime to breathe, diverse hobbies for the spiritual good of my perso…

I guess I am just the opposite. I used to love solving Euler problems and I was solving it when I was younger and had a job. It was a big escape for me from reality. When I want to solve something in my free time or steal some time when I am at work I like problem preciseness like PE. This helps me focus for hours on end unlike real world problems which I usually have to break down into smaller parts to solve.

Re: Project Euler

#106

After hearing about it for years, I decided to start working through Project Euler about two weeks ago. It really is much more about math than programming, although it's a lot of fun to take on the problems with a language that has tail call optimization because so many of the problems involve recurrence relations. I like that the problems are constructed in a way that usually punishes you for trying to use brute for…

My only real complaint is (according to my experience) unless you happen to understand some mathematical concept/s involved in the question, it's incredibly difficult to get some insight or clue for how to go about solving it. The forums are a fantastic resource once you already know how to solve the problem .

I agree with this for the most part, but I also really like the freedom/creativity that comes from having no idea how to solve a problem or whether there is even an optimal way of solving it. Some of my favorite solutions have come from hacking the brute force method in any way possible and coming up with interesting optimizations which I might not have found had I known the math-fact based optimal solution.

Re: Project Euler

#107
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Euler was a mathematician after all. Now thinking about it I wonder what project Djikstra would look like, or say maybe project Stallman.

Project Stallman: Find the Github project with the most open-source license term violations (then convince them to fix it).

Project Stallman would be finding a project with open-source license and convincing them to adopt copyleft instead.

Re: Project Euler

#108
For anyone looking for some less math-based coding challenges than Project Euler, then I highly recommend looking at AdventOfCode.

It's presented as an advent calendar (so a challenge per day of December) and when you unlock the first half it gives you a second challenge based in the same domain.

There's at least a couple of previous years too, if you just want to crack on and work though something.

[1] http://adventofcode.com/2015

Re: Project Euler

#109
post #73

After hearing about it for years, I decided to start working through Project Euler about two weeks ago. It really is much more about math than programming, although it's a lot of fun to take on the problems with a language that has tail call optimization because so many of the problems involve recurrence relations. I like that the problems are constructed in a way that usually punishes you for trying to use brute for…

I have found that for me, a classical musicians although somewhat mathematically inclined, most problems up to about problem 100 were solvable with my maths book and some helpful pointers. I ended up spending too much time per problem (days to weeks) and then I got a kid, so that time is being spent on better things.

Can you provide a link for this? I'm very interested in it.

Re: Project Euler

#110
post #92

I guess I'm becoming an old fart. I used to like programming puzzles, challenges, things like this. But as time marches on, I realize that the real-world problems I have to solve are already so challenging and require enough critical thinking, that I'm best served just focusing on them. Between family life, doing real-world challenges for income, downtime to breathe, diverse hobbies for the spiritual good of my perso…

Just the opposite here: I'm in my 40's and work as tech lead on a multi-discipline team. Although I manage to keep my code time up close to 50 percent, most of the really challenging stuff is systems level design/architecture where it often takes months to find out if you took the right decision. This December I have been getting up early for the AdventOfCode challenges (release at 6am CET), and have been having a great time with the self-contained challenges.
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