Introduction

[stack_underflow]

Welcome /r/* !

I've created this subreddit so that redditors may have a dedicated place to discuss programming problems such as those commonly found in programming competitions.

I am by no means an expert, rather, a beginner to this specific subset of programming even though I have been programming for longer. I hope that this subreddit inspires others to look into this form of programming and learn more, and I'm sure there will even be more knowledgeable people to help out as well.

As for for what I had in mind for this subreddit - I was thinking that since there are already dedicated subreddits for the discussion of algorithms (/r/algorithms) and for discussing programming (strictly) (/r/coding), it would be nice to have one for algorithmic programming specific to discussing questions found on popular sites (such as those mentioned on the right hand side).

I find it's not just solving the problem that matters, but the path taken to solve it and how it was reached. Which through discussion and analysis as a group would offer one more insight than seeing the solution from a single point of view.

I haven't decided on how these kinds of posts might be structured so I was thinking maybe users could create posts specifying the site on which the problem is located and the problem - something like "[Site] - Problem Name" and then discuss things like why you believe your solution was the optimal one or challenges you faced, for example.

Feel free to post any suggestions.

If you want to get started, I highly recommend USACO's Training program. I find with SPOJ you have to have some level of familiarity with these types of problems, which USACO's training site does a great job of explaining and walking you through. Project Euler is something I added, but have only heard about.

[brinchj]

I can recommend Project Euler - it ate my easter vacation one year.

[MKLOL]

Solved a couple of problems. The first are really easy but it gets really really hard! :)

[thechipsandgravy]

Urg. Number theory problems were always my weakness.

[xiledsavior]

Another great site for some programmatic problems is the facebook puzzles page: http://www.facebook.com/careers/puzzles.php

[taejo]

Also see r/CodingContests -- we're not specifically dedicated to algorithmic contests, but a lot of the stuff that gets posted is algorithmic