Murk's blog

problem with official tutorials on codeforces
By Murk, history, 6 years ago, In English

I don't know whether many others encountered with this problem or not, but for me at least, I notice that the official tutorials made for the contests aren't clear or easy to understand enough, although they are written to help and improve the beginners in the first place, they do not really stand for that, with all respect to the writers , sometimes I notice that the writer jumps from point n to n+2 and the reader has to guess the missing points on his own, sometimes the tutorials are written in a rigorous mathematical language rather than friendly one, sometimes the statements aren't clear enough, and sometimes the tutorials are written assuming that the reader has the sufficient knowledge to understand the math and logic behind the problem, I'm wondering, how is that supposed to help the beginners or the newcomers ?

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6 years ago, # |
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My suggestion : Always look up into the comments section of (contest announcement+ editorial) pages. And also, ask your doubts there.

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6 years ago, # |
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I really agree that checking the "contest announcement" section will help a lot, since there are many coders talking about different problems, and it is quite likely that you will find what you are seeking for, or at least obtain some inspiration there.

Besides, you could also search on the Internet. Perhaps it is hard to find some "direct" information that tells you how to solve the specific problem, however if some topics or detailed techniques (like segment tree) are mentioned in the tutorials, at least you can find some useful materials.

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6 years ago, # |
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I actually think that editorials which don't spoon feed are good, because they force you to understand and investigate a problem as opposed to just reading the editorial.

And getting good at reading mathematical notation is useful when you hit math-heavy subjects.

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