monsoon's blog

Looking for a Challenge 2
By monsoon, history, 5 years ago, In English

Hello everyone!

If you follow Codeforces blogs of Polish contestants like Swistakk and kostka, you know that "Looking for a Challenge?" book is once again available to buy, since the second revised edition was published last year.

If you watch "Algorithms Live!" talk show by tehqin, you may also know that there is a Volume Two of this book, containing solutions to 44 problems from the Polish Collegiate Programming Contest (national qualifications for ICPC) that were organized in 2011–2014 by the University of Warsaw. Up to now the book was available in Polish in limited edition only.

But this changes now! After proposing the idea to the University of Warsaw authorities, they agreed to publish the PDF with the full book. Therefore you can download it for free. The book has been edited by the same team as the Volume One, so you know what quality you can expect.

But this is not all! Since the book in Polish wouldn't get so much international attention (yet we all know that automatic translation services can be much of use here), I have decided to start a project of translating it to English. Currently the first part (out of four) of the translation is ready, and I am planning adding remaining parts in the following months. I will be keeping you updated by sharing the progress in the updates to this post. Hopefully the whole book will be ready before World Finals 2020.

Download the English translation of "Looking for a Challenge 2"

Happy reading and coding!

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5 years ago, # |
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thanks thanks thanks

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5 years ago, # |
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Thanks a ton! I always wanted to read this book but couldn't because of money constraints. Thanks for making it available for free!

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +3 Vote: I do not like it

Much thanks for this gift.

On page 19, regarding the explanation of task "Plot", it says "We describe here one such solution, somewhat different than the model solution from the 9th Olympiad".

I want to find that original model solution.

I did find the original task here with some Google translate & searching: https://szkopul.edu.pl/problemset/problem/VZifqMhw2OhTWnQqv7mC5Cge/site/?key=statement

If anyone can point me to the original intended solution, even in Polish, I would appreciate. Thanks!

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    5 years ago, # ^ |
    ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +3 Vote: I do not like it

    The solution description in Polish is available in the "blue book" from the 9th Polish Olympiad in Informatics.

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      5 years ago, # ^ |
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      Perfect, thank you.

      I fully understand the solution in the "Challenge" book, and it is amazing, so I wanted to see if the contestants were expected to come up with that also. Will be interesting to read.

      Also, I learned from your link, that one can hyperlink directly to a specific page in the PDF. Fantastic :-)

      Your help is much appreciated!

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      5 years ago, # ^ |
      ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +20 Vote: I do not like it

      Do you have plans for future “blue books” on recent POI? (more importantly, the test datas)

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        5 years ago, # ^ |
          Vote: I like it +35 Vote: I do not like it

        The tests for these problems will be published. We are working on it :)

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5 years ago, # |
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Will there be a printed English updated version?

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    5 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +8 Vote: I do not like it

    At the moment we are not planning to print the Volume Two.

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4 years ago, # |
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Does the second edition include the contents of the first edition?

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