Codechef April Contest

1 min read

The “actual” Codechef April Contest is now underway. The contest will end on April 12, 2010 at 15:00:00 IST. We are sorry if any of you felt offended in any way. We hope you all take this as what it was meant to be – a joke, and enjoy the contest which is now available at http://www.codechef.com/APRIL10 . We will be updating this blog post with more information shortly πŸ™‚ To all those who got fooled and also to those who didn’t – Happy Fool’s Day once again. To those who thought we wasted your time, we are extremely sorry, it was not our intention. [Please be easy on the admins πŸ™‚ ]

Regards,

Aniruddha.

Exciting Updates for the month of June 2022

Updates in the Practice Section We have launched the Practice skill score. It contains Platform statistics: Where you can see the overall stats of...
surajmsharma
1 min read

We’re Celebrating Our Birthday Month, And There’s Some Exciting…

The Chef turns 13 this month, and as we step into our promising teen years, we’d like to bring you some good news.  Special...
debanjan321
1 min read

Exciting updates for February 2022

A month back we re-designed the practice landing page to improve the user experience. That was just the start of some amazing enhancements that...
surajmsharma
1 min read

62 Replies to “Codechef April Contest”

  1. I wish I could make you realize what everything here feels like. But then, probably its no use anymore. When CodeChef started, I remember speaking about it as, “Finally, there is some Indian contest organizer who will be able to organize good contests. Maybe do something good to the Indian reputation of contests as well down the line.”That was the only reason for giving huge subjective feedback to you. Working hard at times not to solve the problems, but to identify the error in it and then let you know. I used to be enthusiastic about helping you out in any way I could. You have done more than required to let that motivation slip out of the way. The contests don't make any sense any more. Most have errors which make me feel you didn't bother to read the statements even once. And plus, you can carry on posting the 'fools problem set' the way you did this time. I don't think you do much better anyways. I thought that a part of your objective was to help newcomers to learn. I guess that was the reason why you preferred having a 'longer contest'. Well, the good programmers and the winners at your contests realized that the dumb problem set was just that, 'dumb'. But I dont think that those newcomers know how to differentiate between P and NP hard problems. About 50 of them wasted 3-4 hours each on solving those problems. Is that how you want to make them improve? I guess, you forgot the objective you were trying to achieve. Or maybe, that was not the objective at all. Probably, you just said it for the sake of saying it. Moreover, did you notice that many of them thought that this problem set is not a 'fools problem set' because the errors you made in them, are pretty close to the ones you make in most contests. If you would let people create pages on your website, probabably right now there would be a page saying the following:- The 'REAL' objectives behind CodeChef1. Making a fool of oneself. 2. Wasting loads and loads of time on useless stuff. 3. making people realize that some things don't change. By the way, I remember reading that the resources you have are limited. You are wasting your limited resources here. Give it to charity, it will do a lot more good than it does now. Anyways, lets not deviate too much. I'd just like to add, you will not find anymore 'suggestions' or 'long posts' from my side. I don't think they made much difference anyway. So I guess it will save us both some time. Its best to be really professional here. You do your job, I do mine. CodeChef has turned out to be a big disappointment. To say the least. P.S.: Don't delete this post / link. You don't want to read this elsewhere again.

  2. I wish I could make you realize what everything here feels like. But then, probably its no use anymore. When CodeChef started, I remember speaking about it as, “Finally, there is some Indian contest organizer who will be able to organize good contests. Maybe do something good to the Indian reputation of contests as well down the line.”That was the only reason for giving huge subjective feedback to you. Working hard at times not to solve the problems, but to identify the error in it and then let you know. I used to be enthusiastic about helping you out in any way I could. You have done more than required to let that motivation slip out of the way. The contests don't make any sense any more. Most have errors which make me feel you didn't bother to read the statements even once. And plus, you can carry on posting the 'fools problem set' the way you did this time. I don't think you do much better anyways. I thought that a part of your objective was to help newcomers to learn. I guess that was the reason why you preferred having a 'longer contest'. Well, the good programmers and the winners at your contests realized that the dumb problem set was just that, 'dumb'. But I dont think that those newcomers know how to differentiate between P and NP hard problems. About 50 of them wasted 3-4 hours each on solving those problems. Is that how you want to make them improve? I guess, you forgot the objective you were trying to achieve. Or maybe, that was not the objective at all. Probably, you just said it for the sake of saying it. Moreover, did you notice that many of them thought that this problem set is not a 'fools problem set' because the errors you made in them, are pretty close to the ones you make in most contests. If you would let people create pages on your website, probabably right now there would be a page saying the following:- The 'REAL' objectives behind CodeChef1. Making a fool of oneself. 2. Wasting loads and loads of time on useless stuff. 3. making people realize that some things don't change. By the way, I remember reading that the resources you have are limited. You are wasting your limited resources here. Give it to charity, it will do a lot more good than it does now. Anyways, lets not deviate too much. I'd just like to add, you will not find anymore 'suggestions' or 'long posts' from my side. I don't think they made much difference anyway. So I guess it will save us both some time. Its best to be really professional here. You do your job, I do mine. CodeChef has turned out to be a big disappointment. To say the least. P.S.: Don't delete this post / link. You don't want to read this elsewhere again.

  3. I wish I could make you realize what everything here feels like. But then, probably its no use anymore. When CodeChef started, I remember speaking about it as, “Finally, there is some Indian contest organizer who will be able to organize good contests. Maybe do something good to the Indian reputation of contests as well down the line.”That was the only reason for giving huge subjective feedback to you. Working hard at times not to solve the problems, but to identify the error in it and then let you know. I used to be enthusiastic about helping you out in any way I could. You have done more than required to let that motivation slip out of the way. The contests don't make any sense any more. Most have errors which make me feel you didn't bother to read the statements even once. And plus, you can carry on posting the 'fools problem set' the way you did this time. I don't think you do much better anyways. I thought that a part of your objective was to help newcomers to learn. I guess that was the reason why you preferred having a 'longer contest'. Well, the good programmers and the winners at your contests realized that the dumb problem set was just that, 'dumb'. But I dont think that those newcomers know how to differentiate between P and NP hard problems. About 50 of them wasted 3-4 hours each on solving those problems. Is that how you want to make them improve? I guess, you forgot the objective you were trying to achieve. Or maybe, that was not the objective at all. Probably, you just said it for the sake of saying it. Moreover, did you notice that many of them thought that this problem set is not a 'fools problem set' because the errors you made in them, are pretty close to the ones you make in most contests. If you would let people create pages on your website, probabably right now there would be a page saying the following:- The 'REAL' objectives behind CodeChef1. Making a fool of oneself. 2. Wasting loads and loads of time on useless stuff. 3. making people realize that some things don't change. By the way, I remember reading that the resources you have are limited. You are wasting your limited resources here. Give it to charity, it will do a lot more good than it does now. Anyways, lets not deviate too much. I'd just like to add, you will not find anymore 'suggestions' or 'long posts' from my side. I don't think they made much difference anyway. So I guess it will save us both some time. Its best to be really professional here. You do your job, I do mine. CodeChef has turned out to be a big disappointment. To say the least. P.S.: Don't delete this post / link. You don't want to read this elsewhere again.

  4. I wish I could make you realize what everything here feels like. But then, probably its no use anymore. When CodeChef started, I remember speaking about it as, “Finally, there is some Indian contest organizer who will be able to organize good contests. Maybe do something good to the Indian reputation of contests as well down the line.”That was the only reason for giving huge subjective feedback to you. Working hard at times not to solve the problems, but to identify the error in it and then let you know. I used to be enthusiastic about helping you out in any way I could. You have done more than required to let that motivation slip out of the way. The contests don't make any sense any more. Most have errors which make me feel you didn't bother to read the statements even once. And plus, you can carry on posting the 'fools problem set' the way you did this time. I don't think you do much better anyways. I thought that a part of your objective was to help newcomers to learn. I guess that was the reason why you preferred having a 'longer contest'. Well, the good programmers and the winners at your contests realized that the dumb problem set was just that, 'dumb'. But I dont think that those newcomers know how to differentiate between P and NP hard problems. About 50 of them wasted 3-4 hours each on solving those problems. Is that how you want to make them improve? I guess, you forgot the objective you were trying to achieve. Or maybe, that was not the objective at all. Probably, you just said it for the sake of saying it. Moreover, did you notice that many of them thought that this problem set is not a 'fools problem set' because the errors you made in them, are pretty close to the ones you make in most contests. If you would let people create pages on your website, probabably right now there would be a page saying the following:- The 'REAL' objectives behind CodeChef1. Making a fool of oneself. 2. Wasting loads and loads of time on useless stuff. 3. making people realize that some things don't change. By the way, I remember reading that the resources you have are limited. You are wasting your limited resources here. Give it to charity, it will do a lot more good than it does now. Anyways, lets not deviate too much. I'd just like to add, you will not find anymore 'suggestions' or 'long posts' from my side. I don't think they made much difference anyway. So I guess it will save us both some time. Its best to be really professional here. You do your job, I do mine. CodeChef has turned out to be a big disappointment. To say the least. P.S.: Don't delete this post / link. You don't want to read this elsewhere again.

  5. I wish I could make you realize what everything here feels like. But then, probably its no use anymore. When CodeChef started, I remember speaking about it as, “Finally, there is some Indian contest organizer who will be able to organize good contests. Maybe do something good to the Indian reputation of contests as well down the line.”That was the only reason for giving huge subjective feedback to you. Working hard at times not to solve the problems, but to identify the error in it and then let you know. I used to be enthusiastic about helping you out in any way I could. You have done more than required to let that motivation slip out of the way. The contests don't make any sense any more. Most have errors which make me feel you didn't bother to read the statements even once. And plus, you can carry on posting the 'fools problem set' the way you did this time. I don't think you do much better anyways. I thought that a part of your objective was to help newcomers to learn. I guess that was the reason why you preferred having a 'longer contest'. Well, the good programmers and the winners at your contests realized that the dumb problem set was just that, 'dumb'. But I dont think that those newcomers know how to differentiate between P and NP hard problems. About 50 of them wasted 3-4 hours each on solving those problems. Is that how you want to make them improve? I guess, you forgot the objective you were trying to achieve. Or maybe, that was not the objective at all. Probably, you just said it for the sake of saying it. Moreover, did you notice that many of them thought that this problem set is not a 'fools problem set' because the errors you made in them, are pretty close to the ones you make in most contests. If you would let people create pages on your website, probabably right now there would be a page saying the following:- The 'REAL' objectives behind CodeChef1. Making a fool of oneself. 2. Wasting loads and loads of time on useless stuff. 3. making people realize that some things don't change. By the way, I remember reading that the resources you have are limited. You are wasting your limited resources here. Give it to charity, it will do a lot more good than it does now. Anyways, lets not deviate too much. I'd just like to add, you will not find anymore 'suggestions' or 'long posts' from my side. I don't think they made much difference anyway. So I guess it will save us both some time. Its best to be really professional here. You do your job, I do mine. CodeChef has turned out to be a big disappointment. To say the least. P.S.: Don't delete this post / link. You don't want to read this elsewhere again.

  6. I wish I could make you realize what everything here feels like. But then, probably its no use anymore.

    When CodeChef started, I remember speaking about it as, “Finally, there is some Indian contest organizer who will be able to organize good contests. Maybe do something good to the Indian reputation of contests as well down the line.”
    That was the only reason for giving huge subjective feedback to you. Working hard at times not to solve the problems, but to identify the error in it and then let you know. I used to be enthusiastic about helping you out in any way I could.

    You have done more than required to let that motivation slip out of the way.
    The contests don't make any sense any more. Most have errors which make me feel you didn't bother to read the statements even once.

    And plus, you can carry on posting the 'fools problem set' the way you did this time. I don't think you do much better anyways.
    I thought that a part of your objective was to help newcomers to learn. I guess that was the reason why you preferred having a 'longer contest'. Well, the good programmers and the winners at your contests realized that the dumb problem set was just that, 'dumb'. But I dont think that those newcomers know how to differentiate between P and NP hard problems. About 50 of them wasted 3-4 hours each on solving those problems.
    Is that how you want to make them improve? I guess, you forgot the objective you were trying to achieve. Or maybe, that was not the objective at all. Probably, you just said it for the sake of saying it.

    Moreover, did you notice that many of them thought that this problem set is not a 'fools problem set' because the errors you made in them, are pretty close to the ones you make in most contests.
    If you would let people create pages on your website, probabably right now there would be a page saying the following:-
    The 'REAL' objectives behind CodeChef
    1. Making a fool of oneself.
    2. Wasting loads and loads of time on useless stuff.
    3. making people realize that some things don't change.

    By the way, I remember reading that the resources you have are limited. You are wasting your limited resources here. Give it to charity, it will do a lot more good than it does now.

    Anyways, lets not deviate too much. I'd just like to add, you will not find anymore 'suggestions' or 'long posts' from my side. I don't think they made much difference anyway. So I guess it will save us both some time.
    Its best to be really professional here. You do your job, I do mine.

    CodeChef has turned out to be a big disappointment. To say the least.

    P.S.: Don't delete this post / link. You don't want to read this elsewhere again.

  7. Well said πŸ™‚ As mentioned in the forum the codechef site will have to do without my comments for a while as well; I've spent hours replying to people on this site to help Codechef out, but I see no real reason to continue for now when users get treated like this. I shall be back help-wise when Codechef cleans up their act.

  8. Well said πŸ™‚ As mentioned in the forum the codechef site will have to do without my comments for a while as well; I've spent hours replying to people on this site to help Codechef out, but I see no real reason to continue for now when users get treated like this.

    I shall be back help-wise when Codechef cleans up their act.

  9. Hi Keshav, Don't be so hard on the admins. They've tried their best to organize the monthly contests not for any profit. I believe that CodeChef is still the best compared to other relatively low quality contest from India and the quality will get better soon as they are trying to formalize the problem setting activities. The admins only function as organizers. The errors come from the problem setters and testers. We don't have such high qualified problem authors as Topcoders. FYI, the monthly contest problems before April Contest is not done by Codechef. If you think you can help them improve the problem qualities, you can try to help as become as problem setter. See http://www.codechef.com/problemsetting

  10. Hi Keshav,
    Don't be so hard on the admins. They've tried their best to organize the monthly contests not for any profit. I believe that CodeChef is still the best compared to other relatively low quality contest from India and the quality will get better soon as they are trying to formalize the problem setting activities. The admins only function as organizers. The errors come from the problem setters and testers. We don't have such high qualified problem authors as Topcoders. FYI, the monthly contest problems before April Contest is not done by Codechef. If you think you can help them improve the problem qualities, you can try to help as become as problem setter.
    See http://www.codechef.com/problemsetting

  11. For the April Fool sets, I believe that most people will realize that this is a hoax if they read some problems like Turing. If they don't realize that, I don't know what to say…Btw, I'm not an admin.

  12. For the April Fool sets, I believe that most people will realize that this is a hoax if they read some problems like Turing. If they don't realize that, I don't know what to say…
    Btw, I'm not an admin.

  13. Hey Keshav (also TripleM and our other dear angry folks),As always I must thank you once again for the effort that you took to write this post. And you know what, this is what makes us feel that somewhere we are doing something right. Not everything is wrong. The belief and hope that people like you have on us is what lets us keep going. And trust me when I say that we never had those intentions. How could we? I completely understand your angst. We get angry when we see hope in something and start caring about that thing and that thing lets us down. And it is only that hope and care that you have for us which is making you and a few others angry. I know there have been problems on codechef faced by you guys in recent past and I also know that my words will do no good to prove that we are really concerned and working on the same.Needless to say it was just a prank. Purely for fun, nothing more. Probably the timing was not correct. Take it in the right spirit. It was only for a day for everyone of us to enjoy. We will be releasing a few fun trivia on the same soon. Relax and please don't be so mad at us.Give us some more time to correct the flaws. Keep letting us know when we falter. Things will change. A new contest has started. We have given more time and effort this time to ensure that we do not repeat our mistakes. But then mistakes makes us realise that we are only human. It is then that we need help, from people like you.I truely believe that you all will like this month's problems. Give it your best shot. And keep letting us know when we go wrong. Do not desert us.And do not worry. Your post is safe here with us. It will keep reminding us a lot of things. :-).Cheer up and give your best.

  14. Hey Keshav (also TripleM and our other dear angry folks),

    As always I must thank you once again for the effort that you took to write this post. And you know what, this is what makes us feel that somewhere we are doing something right. Not everything is wrong. The belief and hope that people like you have on us is what lets us keep going. And trust me when I say that we never had those intentions. How could we?

    I completely understand your angst. We get angry when we see hope in something and start caring about that thing and that thing lets us down. And it is only that hope and care that you have for us which is making you and a few others angry. I know there have been problems on codechef faced by you guys in recent past and I also know that my words will do no good to prove that we are really concerned and working on the same.

    Needless to say it was just a prank. Purely for fun, nothing more. Probably the timing was not correct. Take it in the right spirit. It was only for a day for everyone of us to enjoy. We will be releasing a few fun trivia on the same soon. Relax and please don't be so mad at us.

    Give us some more time to correct the flaws. Keep letting us know when we falter. Things will change. A new contest has started. We have given more time and effort this time to ensure that we do not repeat our mistakes. But then mistakes makes us realise that we are only human. It is then that we need help, from people like you.

    I truely believe that you all will like this month's problems. Give it your best shot. And keep letting us know when we go wrong. Do not desert us.

    And do not worry. Your post is safe here with us. It will keep reminding us a lot of things. :-).

    Cheer up and give your best.

  15. I totally agree with Keshav and TripleM, you really need to clean up your act.
    Otherwise you'll lose whatever competitors you have left.

  16. This is in direct contradiction to what Codechef's alleged purpose is. I guess only some understood it as a joke and the rest bothered because of the prize money.I wonder what kind of sadist pleasures the Codechef team derives by making fools of their users especially the ones least suspecting such a thing. Absolutely no respect for the diligence a user invests in these contests.I guess most of these “hey admins cheers to you, doing great job with the format” idiots are doing that because they cant win anywhere else.Also the cases of cheating are quite evident to anybody other than the Codechef team, how strange that they cannot see through such a clear flaw.Its quite natural that given a long phase as is given, many people would collaborate and a period of 10 days is quite sufficient to make two codes look different.I believe Codechef would never achieve what it intends to ( unless it's eternal damnation ) unless it mends its ways.I dont see the Codechef team taking any of my ( our ) suggestions, rather they are acting very “dogmatic”.

  17. This is in direct contradiction to what Codechef's alleged purpose is. I guess only some understood it as a joke and the rest bothered because of the prize money.

    I wonder what kind of sadist pleasures the Codechef team derives by making fools of their users especially the ones least suspecting such a thing. Absolutely no respect for the diligence a user invests in these contests.
    I guess most of these “hey admins cheers to you, doing great job with the format” idiots are doing that because they cant win anywhere else.
    Also the cases of cheating are quite evident to anybody other than the Codechef team, how strange that they cannot see through such a clear flaw.
    Its quite natural that given a long phase as is given, many people would collaborate and a period of 10 days is quite sufficient to make two codes look different.

    I believe Codechef would never achieve what it intends to ( unless it's eternal damnation ) unless it mends its ways.
    I dont see the Codechef team taking any of my ( our ) suggestions, rather they are acting very “dogmatic”.

  18. I wonder how “non-profit” it is. The main codechef page offers internships for student at Directi. The Directi careers site asks you to solve some problems on Codechef if you expect an interview and a consequent job which leads me to the believe that Codechef is somehow intricately involved with Directi hiring.

  19. I wonder how “non-profit” it is. The main codechef page offers internships for student at Directi. The Directi careers site asks you to solve some problems on Codechef if you expect an interview and a consequent job which leads me to the believe that Codechef is somehow intricately involved with Directi hiring.

  20. Just saw your post. Pretty much the same feelings. 'Indefinite break' it is. @admin: The 'hope' you talk of, is now a thing of the past. Everything was acceptable, till the mistakes were genuine. I'm sure I'd help someone if someone needs it. This particular thing, was intentional. So, thats it.

  21. Just saw your post. Pretty much the same feelings.
    'Indefinite break' it is.

    @admin: The 'hope' you talk of, is now a thing of the past.
    Everything was acceptable, till the mistakes were genuine. I'm sure I'd help someone if someone needs it. This particular thing, was intentional. So, thats it.

  22. Why are you crying so much? Codechef is the only place i can learn. I'm very bad on Topcoder and I can never do well over there. The 10day chalelgne helps me, because I can get the solns, sometimes i take small help of friends but i think it help me learn a lot of coding especially during the contest. Dont cry man, why u are complaning. Wid 20 people winning money now, everybody can win!!Codechef ppl plz ignore the above comment, you r doing super great job.

  23. Why are you crying so much? Codechef is the only place i can learn. I'm very bad on Topcoder and I can never do well over there. The 10day chalelgne helps me, because I can get the solns, sometimes i take small help of friends but i think it help me learn a lot of coding especially during the contest. Dont cry man, why u are complaning. Wid 20 people winning money now, everybody can win!!
    Codechef ppl plz ignore the above comment, you r doing super great job.

  24. Thanks Ashish,But as I have said before, we cannot ignore any comments. They are valuable to us as they make us realize the mistakes and the loopholes. Probably the April Fool prank was not taken in the right spirit and it is unfortunately being linked with the previous glitches that codechef faced. But once again, I would request all our dear participants to pacify and start concentrating on the contests. We are dedicated towards improving the quality of the contests for you guys. And keep giving us the feedback. And Pankaj, we have tried communicating (unfortunately failing every time) every time that we understand the need of the shorter format but right now we have been tied up with other issues. Shorter contests are in our long term goals. Till then let us give our best in this version and try and make is a great place for each one of you.Now all you guys, please cheer up πŸ™‚

  25. Thanks Ashish,

    But as I have said before, we cannot ignore any comments. They are valuable to us as they make us realize the mistakes and the loopholes.

    Probably the April Fool prank was not taken in the right spirit and it is unfortunately being linked with the previous glitches that codechef faced.

    But once again, I would request all our dear participants to pacify and start concentrating on the contests. We are dedicated towards improving the quality of the contests for you guys. And keep giving us the feedback.

    And Pankaj, we have tried communicating (unfortunately failing every time) every time that we understand the need of the shorter format but right now we have been tied up with other issues. Shorter contests are in our long term goals. Till then let us give our best in this version and try and make is a great place for each one of you.

    Now all you guys, please cheer up πŸ™‚

  26. When i first went to the April Contest Page and saw ZERO correct submissions for every problem, it wasn't hard to guess that there is something fishy going on. Okay, there was still a doubt somewhere that the problems might be too tough this time, in an effort to make up for the last month's disaster. So i decided to read through all the problems and Boo! Read the Turing problem, and you will find a clearly invalid problem.Well, there is an IT 'G'iant i know who takes the opportunity to fool most of its users every year. And it is warmly taken! So what if Codechef did it?It is understandable that lot of people have put in lot of effort to help this community grow and prosper. But it does not deny the fact that Codechef has too, contributed a lot. When it gives, either by contest, facebook or any other means, everyone's happy. And now every one's furious!I don't think its fair! I'm on Codechef's side.

  27. When i first went to the April Contest Page and saw ZERO correct submissions for every problem, it wasn't hard to guess that there is something fishy going on. Okay, there was still a doubt somewhere that the problems might be too tough this time, in an effort to make up for the last month's disaster. So i decided to read through all the problems and Boo! Read the Turing problem, and you will find a clearly invalid problem.
    Well, there is an IT 'G'iant i know who takes the opportunity to fool most of its users every year. And it is warmly taken! So what if Codechef did it?
    It is understandable that lot of people have put in lot of effort to help this community grow and prosper. But it does not deny the fact that Codechef has too, contributed a lot. When it gives, either by contest, facebook or any other means, everyone's happy. And now every one's furious!
    I don't think its fair! I'm on Codechef's side.

  28. My two cents…Smart folks – I am sure it did not take more than two minutes to understand that this was a joke.Not so smart folks – It doesn't hurt spending four (or eight, or sixteen) hours writing a program to get solutions to FLT or turing test or whatever :). at least it will add up (by epsilon may be) to your mathematical skills and programming skills. And who knows? may be Fermat actually had a marvelous proof which some of you (who attempted) might find out :)If your aim of attempting this contest was “learning” – the April-Fool contest surely helped a lot. (Trying to find polynomial time solution to NP complete problem teaches a lot, doesn't it? ) If your aim of attempting this contest was “Money” – well, you still can get a lot more than promised 10K or whatever if you crack turing test or subset-sum or other such challenges :)If your aim of attempting this contest was “Fun” – I am sure you got at least some of it. I was amused to see how people interpreted a^n – b^n = c^n by taking “^” as xor πŸ™‚ So all in all, a nice attempt. Yeah, the syntactic and semantic errors in the problem statement remains an issue but that is not new thing for codechef users :D. -Neelesh

  29. My two cents…

    Smart folks – I am sure it did not take more than two minutes to understand that this was a joke.
    Not so smart folks – It doesn't hurt spending four (or eight, or sixteen) hours writing a program to get solutions to FLT or turing test or whatever :). at least it will add up (by epsilon may be) to your mathematical skills and programming skills. And who knows? may be Fermat actually had a marvelous proof which some of you (who attempted) might find out πŸ™‚

    If your aim of attempting this contest was “learning” – the April-Fool contest surely helped a lot. (Trying to find polynomial time solution to NP complete problem teaches a lot, doesn't it? )
    If your aim of attempting this contest was “Money” – well, you still can get a lot more than promised 10K or whatever if you crack turing test or subset-sum or other such challenges πŸ™‚
    If your aim of attempting this contest was “Fun” – I am sure you got at least some of it. I was amused to see how people interpreted a^n – b^n = c^n by taking “^” as xor πŸ™‚

    So all in all, a nice attempt. Yeah, the syntactic and semantic errors in the problem statement remains an issue but that is not new thing for codechef users :D.

    -Neelesh

  30. The issue here is not that mistakes are being made. Mistakes are to be expected.The issue is the way they are being made. Mistakes are being made in such trivial matters that is demonstrates absolutely no thought goes into anything.Problem statements which have input/output/descriptions that are clearly wrong if you look at the problem for a single minute. Admin clearly did not even think it was worth looking at a problem before posing it to their users.Problems that weren't even solved by the problem setters themselves. You keep mentioning mistakes are inevitable; but then contradict yourself by assuming every single proposed problem is entirely devoid of errors.Each month you then say 'we are working on your feedback'. And then go and make exactly the same mistakes in the next contest, just when we think things cannot get worse.Granted, the recent steps taken towards problem setting + testing are a step towards improving. But this April contest just demonstrates once again a complete lack of thinking.You say wasting our time was not your intention. What exactly was your intention? It should have been completely obvious that there would be some people who would spend a long time on the fake problems and would be extremely annoyed. And it's not just them that were affected. I always set aside time to be around at the time the contest starts because I love seeing new problems. I realised instantly they were all fake; but all of a sudden my night's plans were wasted. So were a lot of my next day as I kept checking the website expecting at least something to be updated.I can't see any reason you could possibly want to do something that would guarantee upsetting a large number of your users. But, you just didn't think.All I ask is that you start demonstrating some actual thought going into these contests. Your messages keep saying 'please be easy on the admins'. I request that you 'please be easy on your users'. They deserve more.

  31. The issue here is not that mistakes are being made. Mistakes are to be expected.

    The issue is the way they are being made. Mistakes are being made in such trivial matters that is demonstrates absolutely no thought goes into anything.

    Problem statements which have input/output/descriptions that are clearly wrong if you look at the problem for a single minute. Admin clearly did not even think it was worth looking at a problem before posing it to their users.

    Problems that weren't even solved by the problem setters themselves. You keep mentioning mistakes are inevitable; but then contradict yourself by assuming every single proposed problem is entirely devoid of errors.

    Each month you then say 'we are working on your feedback'. And then go and make exactly the same mistakes in the next contest, just when we think things cannot get worse.

    Granted, the recent steps taken towards problem setting + testing are a step towards improving. But this April contest just demonstrates once again a complete lack of thinking.

    You say wasting our time was not your intention. What exactly was your intention? It should have been completely obvious that there would be some people who would spend a long time on the fake problems and would be extremely annoyed. And it's not just them that were affected. I always set aside time to be around at the time the contest starts because I love seeing new problems. I realised instantly they were all fake; but all of a sudden my night's plans were wasted. So were a lot of my next day as I kept checking the website expecting at least something to be updated.

    I can't see any reason you could possibly want to do something that would guarantee upsetting a large number of your users. But, you just didn't think.

    All I ask is that you start demonstrating some actual thought going into these contests. Your messages keep saying 'please be easy on the admins'. I request that you 'please be easy on your users'. They deserve more.

  32. This is really turning into a fiasco! You've managed to mess up on yet another problem – Adding Fractions. I've just passed it with worst case O(n^2) solution and I'm wondering how many of other solutions are the same.

  33. This is really turning into a fiasco! You've managed to mess up on yet another problem – Adding Fractions. I've just passed it with worst case O(n^2) solution and I'm wondering how many of other solutions are the same.

  34. Weak test cases is nothing new. Hopefully in the future having a separate person to test the problems will help with this. I must say, though, despite the usual problems, this probably is the best problem set they've had since I joined (and I for one thought the April fool's thing was hilarious).

  35. Weak test cases is nothing new. Hopefully in the future having a separate person to test the problems will help with this. I must say, though, despite the usual problems, this probably is the best problem set they've had since I joined (and I for one thought the April fool's thing was hilarious).

  36. I agree with pieguy. The problems, this month, are very good and enjoyable to solve. No offense to those who did not like the April fool's prank , but I do think the prank was a nice one :). @thocevar : Codechef does needs to improve on a lot of things. But the current format of the contest certainly seems way above average.

  37. I agree with pieguy. The problems, this month, are very good and enjoyable to solve. No offense to those who did not like the April fool's prank , but I do think the prank was a nice one :).
    @thocevar : Codechef does needs to improve on a lot of things. But the current format of the contest certainly seems way above average.

  38. Congratulations, you have successfully discovered the most productive traffic builder online.In no time at all, you will be generating thousands on thousands of daily hits, that may be directed to any web site, and at anytime.

  39. Congratulations, you have successfully discovered the most productive traffic builder online.

    In no time at all, you will be generating thousands on thousands of daily hits, that may be directed to any web site, and at anytime.

  40. O(n^2) ??I sure don't like it when people come and say that so and so question was very simple, when I'm breaking my head :(I got it accepted, but it took some time.

  41. O(n^2) ??
    I sure don't like it when people come and say that so and so question was very simple, when I'm breaking my head πŸ™
    I got it accepted, but it took some time.

Leave a Reply