Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
82 lines (73 loc) · 5.15 KB

readme.md

File metadata and controls

82 lines (73 loc) · 5.15 KB
Raw

Overview

The last CodeJam creates a big enough motivation for me to join despite the awkward timezone.

GL HF!

Final Thought after participating

This has been a fun one 😎

  • Have the most fun attempting problem 2 Illumination Optimisation
  • Running short on time as joining an hour late.
    • Still, with this experience learnt how to analyse a problem better
    • better equiped with common coding patterns to solve problem faster
  • Randomly view a few people that got 100% and noticed that they are all using C++
    • C++ does have an advantage in precise memory management and more performant.
    • However I wonder
      • If this happens partially due to people with C++ skills usually are better with algorithm
      • If I will be able to do better if I chose C++ instead of Python.
        • I doubt I will do better unless I invest significant amount of time practicing.
        • Python has a lot of nice shorthand and even though I am familar with C++ I don't have any experience of using it to solve problem quickly in a time-boxed manner.
  • ==Learnings==
    • [[]] * 5 and [[] for _ in range(5)] defers in that the first approach results in a nested list where all the inner list references the SAME list.
    • Practise and preparation really helps a lot in time-boxed coding challenge.
      • Despite only prepare a rough template that helps with getting inputs into data structures, that already helps speed up significantly.
      • Only after a round of competition, my template is already much better that before I started.
      • Will look for other coding competition to join so that my templates don't go to waste! 🤘

Motivation

  • Aside from the rarity of this will be the final round, the main purpose of joining are to improve my programming skills and add experiences in my portfolio.
  • In my opinion, a great competitor in coding competition such as CodeJam will not gurantee a great programmer.
    • The main reason being a great programmer must also write clean code and able to communicate well among other things.
    • However, being a great competitor will certainly means a better problem solving ability and better in using algorithm. This is certainly an critical part of being a good programmer.

Useful Details for 2023 Farewell Round

  • All info are from the FAQ and Rules page.
  • Contrast to previous years, there will not be next round. This farewell round is the only round.
  • There are 4 rounds within the Farewell round
    • All rounds starts and ends at the same time.
    • There is no limit on how many round one person can join.
    • No prize for any rounds this time.
  • Difficulty of each round
    • Round A is appropriate for beginners.
    • Round B is about the level of a Kick Start round or a Code Jam Round 1.
    • Round C is harder than a Code Jam Round 2 but easier than a Code Jam Round 3.
    • Round D is meant for experienced competitors. It is between a Code Jam Round 3 and Finals difficulty.
  • Some problem might only be possible to solve by using C++ due to performance reason.

CodeJam Platform Specifications

  • https://codingcompetitions.withgoogle.com/codejam/faq#platform
  • 64-bit version of Debian 10.9 (buster)
    • Install package using apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends <package>
  • Linux Kernel
    • Linux version 4.19.0-16-cloud-amd64
    • package: linux-image-cloud-amd64
  • Stack size limit
    • 64 MB per language, defined by ulimit -s 65536
    • JVM-based languages are passed the -Xss64m flag during execution.
  • Languages Specific specs
    • C++
      • gcc 8.3.0 (packages: gcc, g++)
      • g++ Solution.cc -std=c++17 -pthread -O2 -o Solution
      • ./Solution
    • Python 3:
      • 3.7.3 (package: python3.7)
        • numpy 1.19.3 (pip install numpy)
        • scipy 1.5.3 (pip install scipy)
      • python3 Solution.py

Interactive Problem

  • In an interactive problem, our judging system and your code run at the same time.
  • When you send output to your output stream, the judge reads that output and then responds by sending input to your input stream.
    • Then your code reads that input, and determines what output to send next, and so on. Each test set proceeds in this way.
    • Generally, the judge tells your code when a test set has been solved, or when you have failed the test set.
  • Must flush your output buffer every time output data to the judge
    • Else the judge might end up waiting forever for output that never comes
    • Refer to the templates for cpp and python respectively for sample to flush output
  • Others
    • stderr is ignored but need to take care to not overflow it to not affect memory limit
    • Should not send any additional output after processing all test cases. Will result in 'Wrong Answer' judgement if do otherwise.
    • To test solution locally, use CodeJam interactive_runner.py script in conjunction with the judge.
      • The judge will be included at the bottom of an interactive problem statement.