World Finals Warmup Contests

shahriar_manzoor · Post by **shahriar_manzoor** » Tue Mar 12, 2002 5:00 pm

Hello,
As a problem setter and Contest Administrator I would like to ask your frank opinions on how we can improve our contests. I also would like to hear what you liked and what you did not like about the contests. I would like to mention some common dislikes which we already know. Tell us anything other than below

a) In the first Contest the bookshelve problem was wrong.

b) In the second contest "Common Permutation" problem had some problem.

c) The "No input File" Compile Error.

d) Some of the problem statements had grammatical mistakes.

Anything New ???

[ This Message was edited by: shahriar_manzoor on 2002-03-12 16:02 ]

[ This Message was edited by: shahriar_manzoor on 2002-03-12 16:03 ]

Stefan Pochmann · Post by **Stefan Pochmann** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 4:50 am

- Make really really sure nobody shuts down servers during a contest. I think that's what happened in the first of the two contests.

- Keep us informed. If there's a problem and you know about it, then tell us, even if it's not your fault. It's good to know what's going on, so we don't waste our time for no reason. This is probably my most important request.

- Accept "Presentation Errors". I think problem G was not the first time where the test data was corrupted for whatever reason.

- Don't stress the need for big integers too much. I haven't solved all problems yet, but I think several of them need big integers. Some of them for no good reason. This aspect will hopefully change soon, as the UVA guys told me that the reason for not supporting java.math.BigInteger is a technical problem, not a decision. They're going to fix it.

- Maybe it's just me, but I don't quite understand "The Other Two Trees". When is it impossible? Is d=0 ok? Maybe these questions should have been answered in the problem statement. But then again, maybe it's just me...

- Make sure the sample test data is correct and formatted correctly.

- Choose a different time. The first contest started at 1am in the night and the second at 3am. Of course that's not true for everybody

Stefan

shahriar_manzoor · Post by **shahriar_manzoor** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 11:49 am

a) It was an accidents caused during power repair phase. It was not supposed to happen. We cannot prevent accidents.

b) We do make mistakes, and for problem G there was so many accepted solution so I had to think that the mistake was not a big one.

c) I also agree. With automated judge PE is useless.

d) I good contestant must have well written big integer routines

e) Probably it is just you as this problem has 60%+ acceptance rate and has a special judge to avoid precision errors. And no cuch input where d=0. Actually "Impossible." should never be printed

f) I make HTMLs with MSWORD can anyone suggest a better option to make HTMLs. Also is there any good DOC to HTML converter.

g) Someone must stay awake during contest for clarification. So Warmups contests are always in suitable time for me. For example I always have the waterloo contests in odd time for me.

Stefan Pochmann · Post by **Stefan Pochmann** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 12:15 pm

a) Sorry, I remembered somebody telling me that the repair guys shut sth down even though they had promised not to.

e) I'll have to try it again. One reason for a high acceptance rate could be people resubmitting their accepted solutions. So the "impossible" note was to fool people? That's polite...

f) I use emacs to build html files

Just like everybody should do. Yeah, let's crawl on our knees

Stefan Pochmann · Post by **Stefan Pochmann** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 12:32 pm

e) Sorry, my stupid mistake. Had a '-' too much somewhere.

cyfra · Post by **cyfra** » Fri Mar 22, 2002 6:16 pm

Hi!

I had other problems with sending the solutions to the judge...

These problems were not connected with the new tasks but with some old ones...

So I made a program and I sent it...

I got WA so I changed a few things and sent it again...

And it also was WA.

I was angry and decided not to send it again...

But after a week I took the same program and without changing anything it got AC...

I was suprised...

Could you tell me why it happened...

It was (propably

not my fault...

I hope it was only a small bug but very annoying...

shahriar_manzoor · Post by **shahriar_manzoor** » Fri Mar 22, 2002 6:49 pm

Hello,
U must mention, for which problem this incident happened

cyfra · Post by **cyfra** » Fri Mar 22, 2002 8:20 pm

Hi!

The last time it happened with program 386...

I have just used a table and I had no idea why I got WA....

But few days later it got AC

And I am not sure if there is the same problem with task 484....
It is quite simple but I always have WA.

Stefan Pochmann · Post by **Stefan Pochmann** » Sat Mar 23, 2002 3:11 am

Hmm, sounds strange. Sometimes this happens if they rejudge a problem. But then you should be notified anyway. And this problem (386) is not on the rejudged-problems-list. Or maybe you switched to another (better) mail program between the two submissions? Otherwise I have no idea, I can't remember that this ever happened to me.

I just solved 484 again, there seems to be no bug, so probably your program is wrong or you have a bad mail-client.

[ This Message was edited by: Stefan Pochmann on 2002-03-23 02:25 ]

cyfra · Post by **cyfra** » Sat Mar 23, 2002 11:39 am

Hi!

Oh yes you are right...

First I have used The Bat and later in Linux program mail....

Hm...

But this is very strange because everything was OK when I have used the Bat to send other programs...

Now I will send everything two times

Thanx...

rafay · Post by **rafay** » Tue Apr 16, 2002 7:41 am

Hi
Do we have online contest in English????
i mean 4/5 dayz ago when i came to the site... it said some contest in count down, click here for more information but when i tried to get more information it took me to site full of french (i guess) so i was helpless

I think to maximize the participation English should be used...
what do u think?????

Post by **fpnc** » Tue Apr 16, 2002 8:55 pm

cyfra wrote:First I have used The Bat and later in Linux program mail....
...
But this is very strange because everything was OK when I have used the Bat to send other programs...
...

I don't know The Bat, but I really hate almost every emailer in the world.

For example, look at this code:

[c]printf("Believe me, this very long string can be a good source of problems for a lot of people, because I have seen it before, and it takes a lot of time to find the source of the problem and to warn people...");[/c]

Your mailer should NOT break the lines, so it is only ONE line...

And then, there is the problem: your mailer divides it in two or more lines by inserting a \n instead a blank space:

[c]printf("Believe me, this very long string
can be a good source of problems for a lot
of people, because I have seen it before,
and it takes a lot of time to find the source
of the problem and to warn people...");[/c]

Well, it is NOT a compiler error, but when you run this program, the output is

Code: Select all

Believe me, this very long string
can be a good source of problems for a lot
of people, because I have seen it before,
and it takes a lot of time to find the source
of the problem and to warn people...

which has 5 lines and is not as it should be (one line).

So be aware of this feature of your mailer!!!!

Post by **fpnc** » Tue Apr 16, 2002 9:04 pm

rafay wrote:Hi
Do we have online contest in English????
i mean 4/5 dayz ago when i came to the site... it said some contest in count down, click here for more information but when i tried to get more information it took me to site full of french (i guess) so i was helpless

I think to maximize the participation English should be used...
what do u think?????

If you mean UVA Local Contest - First Round (2002/4/13 8:00 - 12:00) - then I'm glad to tell you that you learned a little of Spanish

Anyway, I know that this is an English-focused-system as we try to reach the most people in the world. But,

1. That contest was our first round of the local contest, and although it was public, we included a link to more specific information - but it was about registering for the private ranking, nothing more! The contest ran as usual, so nothing changed from other contests.

2. We here - Valladolid, Spain - do not speak English as our mother language. We [at least, me

] try to do our best to commit zero grammatical faults, and to write very clear for everyone to understand us. I've only passed the First Certificate (with C calification

) so my English is not very good, but please remember this when you tell us something about our poor English...

rafay · Post by **rafay** » Thu Apr 18, 2002 7:59 am

no no ! i am not saying that u have poor english..
i only want to say that there should be english description for the online contests too!...

most of the people can understand english even if it has grammatical mistakes in it, but few people understand spanish.

Because of maintaining online competetions pages in spanish, you cannot have maximum participation.. and this way you are not allowing some excellent programmers to take part in it...

don't u want ppl from all over the world to participate in these competetions?

Stefan Pochmann · Post by **Stefan Pochmann** » Thu Apr 18, 2002 9:27 am

Oh oh... I would be very careful with statements like that, because Spanish is the fifth most widely spoken language in the world! I wouldn't use the word "few" here.

Fact stolen from http://www.open.org/~coflt/why_learn_fl.htm#spanish, but I've seen similar numbers on other pages, too.

About those destroyed mails: One should be able to detect this by looking at the "we got your program" mail, right? I've asked that several times now, but nobody who I had helped with that problem has ever answered.