Hi, I'm a high school senior, and I've noticed that Codeforces is a really good way to get people passionate about competitive programming. There is something about the thrill of working and competing to improve one's rating in an online community, that helps motivate all of us to improve.

I'm wondering if, theoretically, it could be possible to recreate this experience in the high-school classroom. Currently, students see schoolwork as a burden; one funny quote I've heard is to "not let school get in the way of learning". If somehow students could learn subjects such as math, physics, or anything else in an online community through training for competitions and rating, perhaps this could make learning more fun and exciting?

Obviously I think it would be a bad idea to grade based on rating; that would only create unhealthy competition. Perhaps something such as this could replace traditional homework? I'm curious as to what you all think.

Do most of you guys use templates for coding things such as Segment Trees that are hard to code? If so, did you write them yourself or are there any good implementations or templates available online? (Is this even allowed?)

Also, what other data structures are useful to have templates for?

Topcoder SRM 647 will be held tomorrow (Saturday) at 12:00 Noon EST; details here. Discuss the problems here after the contest!

Topcoder SRM 645 will be held tomorrow (Monday) at 11:00 AM EST (see below for your time zone). Official announcement here.

So, see here for the time of Monday's round. This thread can be used for pre/post-contest discussion.