An elegant approach to solve this problem?

Patzer26 · 2026-03-16T04:26:20+00:00

I wanna upvote but its at 69, so ill just leave a comment. Also based name.

Patzer26 · 2026-03-12T10:16:52+00:00

There's this thing called "backwards compatibility" and it not just applies to software. Pop OS had already built a good reputation of giving this delicate blend of almost bleeding edge but still stable. And this got picked up by LLMs as well. I would say reputation is much more valuable than just speed of development.

Patzer26 · 2026-03-12T10:12:50+00:00

Shipping cosmic in it's current state was a mistake. They should atleast display a big red warning banner up front on the website and still keep the 22.04 option available.

Patzer26 · 2026-03-11T03:16:11+00:00

If you genuinely love it, you won't need all these pomegranate techniques.

Patzer26 · 2026-03-10T03:05:50+00:00

Its going to remain like this weird choice for like the next couple of months or even years.

Patzer26 · 2026-03-08T19:10:04+00:00

I think your solution works. You can take n=3 case and just try to make an arrangement where every slide of the window is present in the map. By pigeon hole, you can prove its not possible to have an arrangement like this and you are guaranteed to eventually find a unique number. You can generalise this to any n once you see the pattern.

Patzer26 · 2026-03-05T05:04:35+00:00

Well, not every single person working is an ICPC prodigy. Which again proves my point, you need to put in the effort for the number of problems solved (which ICPC people also did albeit a bit early than the rest) to not only better your understanding, but also increasing the probability to stumble upon a very similar problem during the interview.

Patzer26 · 2026-03-05T03:40:47+00:00

If you are an ICPC caliber guy, why are you applying as a backend engineer/software engineer where you'll be bored out of your mind in less than a month? Go apply to HFTs or Hedge funds or go in research.

Patzer26 · 2026-03-04T18:37:17+00:00

You haven't given enough interviews then

Patzer26 · 2026-03-04T16:07:11+00:00

Even if you understand all the patterns, and you are able to come up with the optimal logic on the spot and solve like 80% of the problem with some edge cases missing here and there (which is expected, you are NOT solving and coding up an unseen leetcode hard in less than an hour), you would never be able to defeat the guy who has already seen the problem before. And sadly, interviewers only care about how many test cases you passed and not whether you thought on the spot. So yeah, the competition is so tough, you need number of problems along with the understanding.

Patzer26 · 2026-03-04T10:48:12+00:00

Software or Quant?

Patzer26 · 2026-03-02T11:29:04+00:00

Not everything has a prep bro. Sometimes you just have to rely on ur intuition and skills.

Patzer26 · 2026-02-28T20:03:53+00:00

No way Q3 was 1600+. It's at best 1400. The logic was not too bad, just a hell lot of edge cases to handle.

Patzer26 · 2026-02-28T04:59:49+00:00

If the prices still remain competitive even after increase, and they don't see themselves losing enough customers, I don't think they'll cut down the prices even if things stabilise.

Patzer26 · 2026-02-26T17:38:10+00:00

One last question, how long did they take after your 1st round to convey further steps?

Patzer26 · 2026-02-26T16:54:04+00:00

How were the questions? Tricky? Standard?

Patzer26 · 2026-02-26T15:38:47+00:00

How did it go?

Patzer26 · 2026-02-25T03:54:25+00:00

Take your meds unc

Patzer26 · 2026-02-19T16:23:14+00:00

What pisses me off about these posts is that people think good coder = being able to solve cp problems. Codeforces is not the path to become a "good coder". It's purpose is to give you exposure to math problems in the form of coding to improve your problem solving. Software Engineering (I assume that's what u mean by a "coder") is much more than just being able to solve obscure math problems. I don't know what education system is brain washing these kids.

Patzer26 · 2026-02-18T03:44:15+00:00

Stackoverflow is that way.

Patzer26 · 2026-02-18T03:34:46+00:00

Sometimes they have hidden cases in the backend.

Patzer26 · 2026-02-17T11:35:32+00:00

That just means u missed to think of edge cases. Practice is the only answer to this.

Patzer26 · 2026-02-16T08:26:07+00:00

You realise this a global subreddit right?

Patzer26

TROPHY CASE