That’s one reason why they shouldn’t :-)

Alternatively, a more formal statement could be “posts for which over 2% of their contents is Hello World”, but that’s too long and too boring for a joke :-)

…or 12 reasons why posts containing “Hello World” should be prohibited.

Input constraints and limits make sense when you have to submit code which needs to solve some test cases (unknown beforehand) within certain limits on the server. In this case you had to submit only the results of calculations, without any constraints on how you obtained them.

Most test cases were already provided (well, except for interactive problems), so input constraints could be figured out from them. Time limit is defined by the requirement to finish the calculations till the end of submission phase :-) Last year we had a solution which spent about 6 hours processing medium-sized test case, and it was fine since it finished like half an hour before the end of the contest. And memory limit is “as much as your system will handle”, it’s really up to you.

Is it a good contribution or a non-trivial question, really? :-)

On a serious note, the editorial is already published here, it’s just not translated into English yet. Most problem setters on Codeforces are Russian-speaking, so translating editorials takes longer than writing them, and it’s a lot of work. Have patience.

It is treated as an exponent character, and the value after it must be a valid decimal number, so whenever P is followed by some letter, parsing the number fails.

Using base> for radix over 16 is undocumented option, so sometimes it doesn’t work; for possible workarounds see Russian discussion in this topic or passing submissions in the contest.

Over a week, I think:

• a day or two on selecting the language (checking the interpreters, manuals etc. — sometimes I pick a language but drop it because I don’t like the manual or decide that it will be too irritating/hard to learn),
• a couple of days selecting and coding the problems. Here goes updating Progopedia article, if needed (for Factor, for example, I had it ready beforehand but as I started to code the solutions I realized that the examples in the article can be made shorter and more neat, so I had to update them),
• three days or so putting the problems into Polygon (that’s Codeforces’ system for setting rounds) with reference solutions, validators and tests. It’s amazing how long it takes even for simple problems — I can do over three problems per day only if I copy them from my previous rounds. Here goes resolving any problems we might encounter while setting up the testing system for the new language,
• and finally around half a day writing the editorial. I try to do this during the round itself, while I have to follow it anyways, but it usually takes longer than that.

Now that’s the kind of a reaction I was hoping for :-)

Don’t know about the specifics of India, but here in Ukraine t-shirts arrive by plain mail and the postman either puts it into your mailbox or (if it doesn’t fit inside) lets you know that you have to collect it at your local post office. In the first case no documents are required, in the second one we show a passport (to prove that we are the intended recipient for the parcel).

TopCoder doesn’t use tracking numbers or anything more advanced than regular mail, unless it’s a very special occasion.

Rating? It’s unrated contest.

It will be here, working on translation now.

The English version of this post explained the rules very clearly, including the part

Solutions are accepted only in one language, which will be announced at the beginning of the contest. The language really exists, we didn’t invent it for this occasion. No, it’s not Brainfuck :-)

Did you really think that this language will be C++? Please suggest how we could make this even more clear in the future rounds like this.

Nice catch, thanks! I meant hacks, no hacks, but there will be no pretests as well.

There was a discussion of CodeSprint2 in general and of this problem in particular here a couple of months ago, but it’s in Russian. Maybe you can use Google translate or something like that.

A bit later the rules say “In all rounds a competitor must get a positive score to advance to the next round.”

What’s your definition of a lucky number? If it’s “any number that contains only digits 4 and 7”, then I don’t understand how you get the quantity of such numbers of length 24. Every digit can be either 4 or 7, no other restrictions, so it should be 2^24, shouldn’t it?

Use online compiler or install it from repositories.

Use online compiler access.

First, you really, really shouldn’t curse the compilers — trust me, they are not that bad. Second, you will be able to run the code at Codeforces or install the compiler locally. As for the grammar, we will show only the very basic code, and you’ll have to find a place to learn the rest — it’s a research kind of contest.

Of course not — there’s no point giving a language which is familiar to half of the competitors! The intention is to have a language as unfamiliar as possible.

The point of such contests is that you have to find the things you need to write the solutions yourself. You will be given the compiler/interpreter you have to use, and a very basic example of code, maybe a link to some more examples, but that’s all, you’ll have to find and explore any documentation you’ll need on your own. The problems are simple so you need to care only about learning the language, not about figuring out the algorithm.

This depends on the contest you’re going to use the template in. At TopCoder, for example, the rule is that all code you submit must be written by you, so this would violate the rules. Not sure what’s the policy about this at Codeforces.

Yes, I can read that much, I just have no idea why they need this? It doesn’t look like Skype is used for anything else except for “establishing communication”.

Edit. Is this only the way to let me know when it’s my turn? To give sound alert?

Anybody has any idea why I need Skype to participate?