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Competitive Programmer's Handbook (2017) [pdf]

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Re: Competitive Programmer's Handbook (2017) [pdf]

#71

Post by banachtarski »

bitL wrote: post #52
banachtarski wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, for every person like you, there's a person like me that actually likes those types of challenges and wouldn't actually mind being thrown into that type of gauntlet. My years of experience be damned.

Sure, that might be the case. But for those funny needs I have a "crazy algorithm course" from a top 10 university, ACM ICPC and Kaggle or other paid competitions I can attend. I am not going to go through such an interview doing simple silly things I did dozen times before at FB/Goog/etc., when I know I can use that time to work on something more interesting, or just for relaxing after a hard work/enjoying accomplis…

What was the problem they asked you to solve? Out of curiosity

Re: Competitive Programmer's Handbook (2017) [pdf]

#72

Post by Rarebox »

xor1 wrote: post #34
zerr wrote: post #29

The most irritating thing with these competitive/algo stuff is that no matter how many times you master it - eventually you always forget it, because you don't need it on a daily (or more like yearly) basis in the real world.

This is true for lots of things though, right? Programming languages, spoken languages, mathematics, muscle mass...use it or lose it, but it gets easier to re-learn/re-gain everything each time. Plus you don't necessarily have to forget or lose it if you're able to set aside the time to maintain it.

Exactly. Having the experience of solving difficult algorithmic puzzles under time pressure makes parts of software engineering (writing working code, debugging) easier, so you can focus on the hard parts. Algorithmically, almost anything written in the real world is trivial in comparison.

Re: Competitive Programmer's Handbook (2017) [pdf]

#73

Post by jnordwick »

RockmanX wrote: post #35
zerr wrote: post #29

The most irritating thing with these competitive/algo stuff is that no matter how many times you master it - eventually you always forget it, because you don't need it on a daily (or more like yearly) basis in the real world.

The point is why people have to remember them ? Why not look them up when necessary ?

And if your teams algo and data structure knowledge isn't at the level where you know about these solutions or their applicability?

I have a checklist of possible interview topics and I think I might an esoteric data structure part to it (knowledge not code) and some implementation choice questions - given this situation and data, with these queries what would your data structures look like.

Maybe also a few quotations on the last paper they've read in CS or related topic.

Re: Competitive Programmer's Handbook (2017) [pdf]

#74

Post by dang »

kashyapc wrote: post #56
harshgupta wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its more of aptitude test in a domain common to all programmers.

Give us a frelling break. Please don't willingly invite derison.

It's not ok to comment like this here, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Competitive Programmer's Handbook (2017) [pdf]

#75

Post by svat »

zerr wrote: post #29

The most irritating thing with these competitive/algo stuff is that no matter how many times you master it - eventually you always forget it, because you don't need it on a daily (or more like yearly) basis in the real world.

I'm not sure I understand: the linked book is meant for high-school and college students, or anyone participating regularly in programming contests:

> The book is especially intended for students who want to learn algorithms and possibly participate in the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) or in the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC). Of course, the book is also suitable for anybody else interested in competitive programming.

Anyone in the target audience of the book will encounter most of this frequently enough; I definitely didn't have the experience (when I was in college and doing competitive programming, over a decade ago) that I was forgetting most of it.

Of course, if someone is not interested in competitive programming and never uses any of the knowledge they're likely to eventually forget it; it's just like learning a bit of French or group theory (say) and not touching it again for years — it's possible to forget. But not sure why that's irritating; it's just the nature of learning, at least after a certain age or below a certain threshold of practice.

Re: Competitive Programmer's Handbook (2017) [pdf]

#77

Post by walshemj »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #38
gaius wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the entire point of those kinds of interviews. It’s a strong filter for “recent graduate” while maintaining plausible deniability for ageism. It has a secondary effect of filtering for “willing to do unpaid overtime”.

Maybe it's just a way to provide a fair test that anyone with ability can pass with a little practice?

Rote leaning and getting a piece of paper is not a good way to interview for candidates who can when given a task that wasn't on the test research and implement a solution under their own power.

Re: Competitive Programmer's Handbook (2017) [pdf]

#79

Post by svat »

RockmanX wrote: post #35
zerr wrote: post #29

The most irritating thing with these competitive/algo stuff is that no matter how many times you master it - eventually you always forget it, because you don't need it on a daily (or more like yearly) basis in the real world.

The point is why people have to remember them ? Why not look them up when necessary ?

How will you look it up when necessary during a programming contest (like the IOI/ICPC mentioned in the book)? It's usually not allowed by the contest rules to look up an entire book's worth.

Re: Competitive Programmer's Handbook (2017) [pdf]

#80

Post by tytytytytytytyt »

hkon wrote: post #65
gaius wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the entire point of those kinds of interviews. It’s a strong filter for “recent graduate” while maintaining plausible deniability for ageism. It has a secondary effect of filtering for “willing to do unpaid overtime”.

I think also the interviewer gets to feel smart. Always nice to have the answers.

Yeah, right. Clearly they have nothing better to do and are all egomaniacs.
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