Lately, there have been 1e6 blogs by hardstuck greys/greens asking questions like "How to reach X rating in Y time", "How to practice", "Why am I stuck in X rating range for so long", "How to become strong in X" etc.
The comments sections of such blogs are filled with more hardstuck greys/greens benevolently giving advice (which is neither helpful, nor followed by their own selves) to their fellow hardstuck grey/green. There would also be some div-1 users who give genuine advice which the author of the blog will respond to with something like "Thanks a lot sir you really helped me" and then promptly proceed to not follow a single word of said advice.
What I cannot understand is, why is no one recommending just GIVING UP.
Unfortunately, it's highly unlikely that someone who has been practising hard for an year and is still stuck in grey/green will ever reach the lofty goal they have set for themselves (often gm). Although there are some people who were hardstuck greys and somehow managed to reach a high rating, remember, these are rare exceptions, and definitely not the norm. To me, it's truly depressing that a lot of these people genuinely believe that they can magically gain +1500 rating some day by just working really really hard.
Isn't it cruel to enforce this false belief?
Should we really be convincing them to continue wasting time in a field that we know they will almost certainly never excel in?
Deleted
Thumbups revealing rating distribution on cf*
They did not ask whether to give up or not. They asked how they could make it happen. Just leave them as is if you don't give a fuck.
I would say, give up if competitive programming is not fun for you.
unfortunately most of the mentioned group of people do it with the intent of getting a high paying job
Thanks a lot sir you really helped me.
Just wanted to play the devil's advocate for a bit, because I feel that not a lot of high-rated people understand how things work for people who do competitive programming for a job and spam blogs in recent actions. To clarify — a lot of people writing blogs like these are just wasting their time when they should be practicing, but a significant fraction of them actually need real advice and are willing to work on it (though it might be indistinguishable over the internet, as is with other things).
I will preface this comment by saying that people have different goals when they start anything (in this context, competitive programming), and appealing to a "moral" high ground and shaming people for not doing that thing for "pure" reasons (here, intellectual gratification derived from problem solving, a sense of curiosity, the pursuit of knowledge etc.) when their circumstances might be different from yours (for example, needing to get better at problem solving to get a job), quite bluntly speaking, points to narrow-minded thinking and coming from a place of privilege where problems arising from these circumstances are non-existent for you.
Sometimes people face situations where they feel like they must do these things even when they are not fun for them. Practically speaking, there is always a tradeoff, and you earn money by doing things that are hard or inconvenient for others to do, so this is not really a novel concept for anyone. You might attribute these situations to bad life decisions in cases like these and brush them off — but can you really blame the majority of tenth graders for not being able to make a completely informed decision for themselves when they're choosing their field of study, which will almost invariably dictate the kinds of things that they will do for the next couple of decades? In other cases, you can also attribute them to life circumstances — in many places, the only practical way to make your standard of living better is to do certain types of jobs, and problem solving helps you get those jobs, which are much fewer in number than the demand for them.
Asking such people to give up will just lead to frustration on their end. Sometimes they write blogs in desperation without having the fundamental common-sense that experienced competitive programmers on CF have — that there is only a small "exhibit" for blogs called recent actions, and flooding them with low-impact blogs will just remove content. They think that blogs are like what real-life common sense dictates — a personal blog that you're allowed to post anything on. I would go far enough to argue that this is an issue with the website itself; CF tried to solve it with the Catalog, but no one adds posts there actively anyway, and it has near-zero visibility on the main page for complete beginners.
Maybe all of this is just me playing the devil's advocate for nothing and being unnecessarily empathetic, and most such people just need a lesson in goal setting and following advice. But a lot of them are just swimming for the first time in a large ocean cluelessly, and I certainly know a few people personally who could have benefited from personalized help a lot. I personally believe that being 2100+ is not something out of reach of anyone who has had a high-school education, consistent and smart hard work can lead most people there. Loftier goals like getting GM are probably out of reach for most people, but for purposes of getting a job, even 1800 is more than good enough.
Perhaps we only need a very visible FAQ section marked "For Beginners" in large letters, and a site-wide change to avoid spam. Concepts like community wikis from stack exchange seem tailor-made for these purposes, and it would fix a lot of these things. And once these are implemented, a notice (like the one you get when necroposting) can be added whenever someone is writing a blog, linking people to those resources, which will probably reduce the spam a lot.
WeaponizedAutist is a bully.
I agree with you for the most part, especially on the need for an easily navigable blog system, with blogs segregated into meaningful categories.
You are also perhaps correct in stating that I'm assuming a higher moral stance due to being in a place of privilege, but I think it's just a fundamental difference in our beliefs. I unfortunately cannot compromise on what I consider to be to the "right" reasons to pursue intellectual activities like math or cp.
Funnily enough, as a kid who did Olympiads, I used to have similar views too, going as far as to look down on all practical applications of math (reminiscent of GH Hardy's toast: "Here's to pure mathematics — may it never be of any use to anybody."). There will always be people with different views and many people share your views too, but chauvinistic beliefs in a community tend to hurt that community as a whole, more often than not. For instance, this could not have been possible if people were still gatekeeping math as was done in medieval times. In my opinion, blaming/isolating others is often an inferior solution to solving problems faced by a community, when compared to actually stepping up and solving them. I believe that there are ways that make it possible for people with different purposes to coexist peacefully on Codeforces, and I'm looking forward to having them implemented soon.
I think anybody who fetishizes an academic activity to the point where it nigh becomes his only source of dopamine, wouldn't be able to help but fiercely gatekeep it at any sign of the normies "defiling" it.
Perhaps I'll grow out of it, but hopefully not anywhere in the near feature.
It's much lower than that. The vast majority of very competent and successful software developers won't get a high codeforces rating and they won't waste their time trying to achieve that. Hasty coding, gambling with some intuitive/heuristic guesses and being able to cut some corners plays an important role in competitive programming contests. But these particular qualities are actually not desired in professional software developers. Certain topics, such as the Number theory, have very limited use for developing software outside of certain very narrow niches.
Google cancelled Code Jam and I suspect that they had good reasons for that, other than just cost saving. Some years ago, Peter Norvig from Google said that "being a winner at programming contests was a negative factor for performing well on the job".
Also I'm old enough to remember the times when IQ tests were often used in the hiring process, so that the candidates had to solve anagrams or match geometrical shapes as a measure of their skills. Then there were brainbench style quizzes about programming language syntax features. The algorithmic puzzles from competitive programming are a relatively new fad in job interviews, but it will probably also go away or become a much less important factor in the future.
I don't see how your comment is relevant to the discussion. The usefulness of competitive programming on the job was not being discussed here. Their comments concerned its benefits to your chances of getting hired in the present day, particularly in a competitive job market such as India's.
Also, Norvig retracted his claim that success in programming contests correlates negatively with job performance.
I believe it is a case of mixing up precision and recall. Given that you have a rating of > 1800, you are likely to be smart enough to get a reasonable job, but given that you are smart enough to have a reasonable job, it is not necessary that you have a rating of > 1800.
Regarding your link, I agree that people should talk about different types of conditional correlation more carefully, in terms of the conditionals involved. Conditioned on working at a company where the hiring process is a binary decision based on certain performance metrics, it is very possible that there is no (or in fact negative) correlation between performance at work and their performance metric, while the metric shows a good correlation with job performance over the whole set of candidates.
For example, consider a uniform random variable $$$X$$$ which tells us how skilled a person by a certain metric, and its range is $$$[-2, 2]$$$. Let's suppose that the actual performance at a job is $$$Y = f(X)$$$, where $$$f$$$ is a piecewise linear function that looks like this, i.e.,
f(x) = \begin{cases} -3-x & \text{ if } x \lt -1\\ x & \text{ if } -1 \le x \lt 1\\ 3-x & \text{ if } 1 \le x\\ \end{cases}
$$$
Overall, the correlation of $$$Y$$$ and $$$X$$$ is positive. However, if your hiring criteria is $$$X \gt k$$$ where $$$k \ge 0$$$, as $$$k$$$ goes from $$$0$$$ to $$$1$$$, the conditional correlation goes from $$$0$$$ to negative.
Yes, I agree.
>:(
My bad, should have said
Thanks for your efforts towards the Codeforces Catalog btw.
So it means "intellectual fun" can be considered "morally" superior to "feeding the family"? People have different moral standards, but that is a very interesting worldview, so to say.
I do not believe that it is in any way morally superior, hence the double quotes, but a surprising number of people do. For a lot of these people, the morality argument comes in when they feel like their subject of study is being sullied by people who do not have the same reasons for studying it and feel threatened about it going in a direction that doesn't align with their own interests. Such arguments are quite common: "if you are not doing XYZ for the sole purpose of contributing to the knowledge of the subject or you intend to do something materialistic using it, then you should stop bothering with XYZ for its own sake," especially with disciplines like pure math. When certain people on CF are like "we don't want job-seekers doing competitive programming, go to LeetCode or stop doing competitive programming for jobs," I believe it echoes a similar concern. Issues like "these people spam blogs and comments" can almost surely be handled in a better way that allows people with different motivations to coexist on the platform.
I partially agree with you, but I think they shouldn't give up forever (i.e. just PAUSE). Giving up temporarily may make them calm down (e.g. realize that it's time-consuming to become GM), but they should go on again... I have tried this before.
Long comment feel free to skip it since it's more of a rant than anything useful. (and 100% my personal opinion so it can be wrong for a lot of people)
About the process of solving and improving
A lot of greys and greens don't know how to identify their weaknesses, they don't know how to identify and then work on improving them, and even after all this, there is no guarantee of real improvement.
The above process takes time depending on your previous background and experience. I would say most grays and greens are quick to give up without ever doing what I mentioned in the 2nd passage.
About when should one quit
If you are young and haven't got much else to do, then there isn't a reason to give up on CP or any equivalent challenging area. You won't have much to do when you are young anyways.
As you grow up your life gets more and more constrained due to several factors and putting all your time into one thing may be detrimental.
About the consequences of doing something challenging
Personally, I think it's more important to address the issue of how to actually not stop having fun doing CP over what rating you can get finally. Over-emphasis on rating or frequent questioning of your current skills leads you to hate whatever you pursue and let's say in due course of time you end up achieving that rank or rating it still feels very hollow.
You trade joy and fun for skill and rating. (Some of it happens naturally since CP is a challenging task but it can be worse if you overdo it, at least I don't enjoy CP as much as I did during my first or second year)
I spoke from my experience of doing CP for 4 years and being a failure in it. I am due to quit it soon the next year.
Finally, if it becomes a burden then taking a break and returning back later is always an option. My final advice would be don't force yourself to the point that you would end up hating something. That is irreversible at least to me.
Nice comment.
I think identifying your own weaknesses is a skill you can never be too good at. I still feel that I am not good enough at this, and don't know anyone IRL who is either. Sometimes others can identify your weaknesses better than you if you're having tunnel vision, but there is only so much that they can point out; after all, everything is a blackbox at some point unless perhaps it is your own self. Maybe there are limits to that too, but it is mostly a lone battle after a reasonable point.
Wow, personal attack, but true. Over time you end up taking fewer risks, and this is definitely a factor in deciding when to quit putting large chunks of your time in certain things.
This is indeed true, and also why I recommend having non-competitive hobbies. At multiple points in my student life, I realized that everything I was doing up until then was super competitive, so I tried looking for stuff to do that did not involve competing. It was also one of the reasons why I quit doing contests, because I simply found solving problems at leisure much better than solving problems in contests where you're competing against people.
Most of those people practice in a dumb way which doesn't yield results, like "trying" for 30 mins and then reading editorial. They might also have anxiety in contests because most of them give huge importance to rating, which in turn leads to anxiety and worse results.
I think they should just change their real goals (they should realise they wont get anywhere unless they do competitive programming with the intent of having fun) and improve their practice method.
do you speak from experience
Yes, I also read a lot of blogs about practice and blogs written by the hardstuck greys.
Damn dude you really here upvoting your blogs and comments from your alt accounts
I actually downvote from alts to get to #1 negative contribution but cf community bullies me by upvoting :(
le feelings: when your rating decresd by 1 and still getting one upvote makes you happy!
I followed your advice way before you posted this. Given up long ago! Now I just do shitposting in the comment section. It's my part-time fun activity.
Very profound point sir, quite a few people spend two years just lying to themselves. Some people reach the pupils simply through luck and then drop down.
They are convinced that they are working hard every day, but when I ask something like, "How do you calculate LCA?" they don't know anything.
I still believe it's not talent issue. But just burying head in the sand won't help get to GM.
For this type of person, I sincerely recommend abandoning CP and other industries that require thinking, because they can accurately waste their time in completely unnecessary places.
Dammn, you actually know how to roast.
I am a firm believer that hard work can put you far ahead others. I am not sure that absolutely anyone can teach GM, but absolutely anyone can reach master if they work hard(definitely not coping because I am an overrated CM after more than 2 years of practice)
The problem with people that you've talked about here is that they have no idea how much work they actually need. They half ass their practice, and then ask why they're not improving. There's no magic pill, there's no shortcut. You need to think about competitive programming 24/7 in order to get at high level. Same with any other skill to be honest. Radewoosh had a great blog about his mindset, and I think it applies to anything. You need to be OBSESSED(in a healthy way(uhh, at least not very unhealthy)) with what you are doing in order to get truly good.
obsessed over csgo for a couple of years and am still hard-stuck gn help
Read this blog, even though it is about competitive programming, i think it can provide benefits for anyone who is hardstuck at something.
what do you think inspired the author of that blog to write it?
Not everyone can reach Master.
I think this advice should be for the mid tier competitors, cyan or blue coders. Telling a bottom tier to give up before they could even reach mid tier is just plain calling them " you got a monkey brain for a human " " I have been practicing for years and still xyz " posts are mostly spammed by those who's looking for a magical shortcut to grow rating fast.
pls help am hardstuck expert how to practice and reach 3600 in 2 weeks i want to become strong in FFT, convex hull how pls help thanks alot sirs
anyways
I was hardstuck gray/green for a while until something just clicked and I wasn't anymore, I don't think people shouldn't give up unless they have serious cognitive impairment preventing them from understanding basic algebra or something. Anything else is overcomeable. 95% of people can probably reach atleast expert with hard work
you just grew up
what happend to this . WeaponizedAutist stop polluting codeforces blogs. MikeMirzayanov Pls moderate blogs. Like you delete "tourist hate" blogs fast.
I'm sorry that you were triggered by this blog (no sarcasm)
you could never trigger me, just the fact that we (no offense) would rather see an TheScrasse or adamant or nor blog, than see yours. feel free to downvote, I wont get dirty
do you use we/us pronouns?
no ma'am. that represents the voice of almost everyone. yes, those who do cp for jobs should quit, but not those who solve problems with an interest. if that's your motive then i support you. (alt acc btw, expert stuck)
kidding of course, yes sarcasm
this is maybe first time Cm reply to me. so thanks
Im too lazy to read adamant or nor blogs, and they are too hard for my skill level, therefore I prefer WeaponizedAutist blogs. I do not consent to be included in your "we"
Yeah, yeah.....
dude im still waiting for the update to your blog xd
Me too
My mom dropped me on the ground when I was an infant. We went to a licensed psychologist to get my IQ tested. I got a score of 79, yet I'm still doing CP. Never stop doing CP guys. Never give up.
What stops someone from improving? CF is just a bunch of problems solved by a bunch of relevant thoughts. When you do a good amount of good quality practice, by my own judgement I feel that my "bunch of relevant thoughts creating skill" increases.
I feel trying to push yourself to solving problems of a particular rating that is just at the border of your comfort zone increases the "bunch of relevant thoughts creating skill" for most people. If you feel that some practice is not helping you at all, try to see what you miss in problems in contests or virtuals and try to try out various types of practice regimens to improve skills in the general vicinity of what you lack.
Let's say speed is your issue and you can solve problems eventually, then try to force your brain to think faster and faster and faster. Try to combine thoughts together at once. You might make some stupid errors and become worse because of trying to be faster. But eventually you will get good. This can be a component of your regimen.
Maybe someone is destined to a much slower trajectory because of a weaker intelligence or weaker background knowledge, but I surely believe you can get better over time from your own self earlier.
Say you are playing chess and you are stuck at some rating. You don't just say ok I am just stupid; you see your performance in the opening game, middle game and the endgame, and comparatively analyse what you suck at the most. Then you work on it. I see so many people be satisfied with just getting slightly better in chess, seeing a tactic, making a great checkmate without thinking about titles. But for CP, everyone wants to be a master or a GM etc. etc. Why not try to get slightly better and be happy and enjoy the sport!
"Never give up" — Dattebayo Guy
IMO if someone has been practicing hard for over an year and is still stuck in grey/green, they're really just practicing wrong/very inefficiently. Usually doing really easy problems and not reflecting much on what they do. There's nothing inherently wrong with them and I don't think they're incapable of reaching GM by changing their practice.
I agree there's a lot of spam though. A lot of good advice has already been given and there's no need to give it again and again.
They probably can. Most people just end up not working hard or working wrong. I think the tone and point of your blog is wrong and unhelpful.
Unfortunately, the absence of hard data makes it hard for us to back either of our viewpoints.
i will prove you wrong.
we are waiting)))
Plot twist: This was actually a motivational blog to instigate people into not quitting and working harder, to prove WeaponizedAutist wrong.Well done man.
Time to push pass our limits
Rooting for you!
Like pointed out by many other people, the tone and point of your blog is not helpful. People have different environments and reasons due to which they end up where they are and it does not necessarily mean they are incapable.
For instance I would like to talk about my mother. She is around 40 years old and she does not know how to order food using an app or order products from Amazon. She asks me to teach her how to do it and I explain the steps to her many times and yet she consults me the next day. Does that mean she is not capable of ordering from an app? Absolutely not! She can speak 3 languages, cook a million different things and do many other activities which are infinitely more complex than ordering something from an app. The problem with her lies in her mindset and the environment she was brought up in. The education system here is just rote memorization and boring and she never went to a college. She was exposed to technology very late, around when she was 30 years old, when it comes to mobile devices, which is around 2013 and after so many years of not doing mental work she thinks that she is incapable of doing things that require them, even when I tell that ordering food does not require any calculations. In such a situation, some positive words and encouragement can do wonders and recently I just give random tasks to mother that order this or order that and slowly she is learning and becoming confident that mobile phones are not alien things and are just simple button clicks just like the microwave she uses in the kitchen.
That was the case with my mother but everyone is in a different situation which we cannot even imagine so we should always be kind and optimistic towards everyone. If someone is not interested they will leave CP soon but making them leave it by demotivating them will leave their confidence in shatters even for non-CP related things too.
Actually, we already tell people sometimes that they should give up. There is a significant number of blogs asking "how to get more motivation?" and the most upvoted answer is usually a higher-rated user suggesting simply giving up.
Regarding these questions like "how to get rating X in Y time"... I find them simply naive and we shouldn't worry too much about them. Many people asking this question are not really interested in CP (otherwise they would have read some guides and blogs before asking the question) and will eventually give up even if you don't tell them that in the comments section. However, there are some users who are actually interested in CP and are just naive, and we shouldn't discourage these people by telling them "you should give up". Telling newbies "you should give up" will not reduce the number of naive questions asked anyways.
The ones who are spreading this "cruel belief" that you can miraculously reach GM are almost always people as naive as the user posting newbie questions. Relatively successful CP-ers rarely say that, so it's a bit of a stretch to suggest that "we" (the majority of active and knowledgeable CF users) enforce this belief.
Advice rejected.
I think in real world being gm doesn't matter(I don't play any sport to be at X player) , Just do CP for fun... Do it if you enjoy, example — anime or sports ,gym etc.If you enjoy it, you will not think of rating(but good ranks will give goosebumps),you will not think cp as work.
I don't think giving up is a good option unless you are not interested in cp or you have a hard wlb at office/college. One of the reasons for grey/green stuck coders failing might be not practicing correct difficulty of questions or reading editorial before giving a hard try and then expecting to solve similar Qs in a contest.
can't disagree
i did that many times in direct messages
we are most wholesome couple on cf
WeaponizedAutist + rotavirus 💕💕
I want to be a food item in your wedding
I agree sir
Let's face it. I'm just not good enough. Thank you for confirmation.
thanks for the blog, i was really thinking of giving up from last few months but guess what after this blog nothing changes , i'm still thinking to give up xD
I will prove you wrong.
I agree to what WeaponizedAutist says, but it could've been worded better. In the past, I also believed that everything is possible if you work hard enough, but recently, I realized that I was most likely wrong.
No, not everyone can get better at competitive programming. Yes, if you have a "minimum" of genetics, I believe you can get at most master with insane hard work and dedication.
What about people that do not have the genetics for this?
Maybe you will say: "you are so wrong, genetics is just a myth for losers who are too lazy to grind".
No, it's actually not. Some people improve way faster than other people; not because "they know how to learn" (even though this can matter a lot if you compare two people that have the same amount of genetics), but because some people have more "competitive programming" intelligence. That's all. I know a handful of cases in which someone had the best competitive programming routine (optimal work), but was completely destroyed by someone who barely solves problems. I might be wrong, but I believe that the second person was more intelligent (related to computer science / competitive programming).
Or maybe I'm just "a coping individual that can't get high rating and now cries". Nope, I do this for fun, I really enjoy learning about competitive programming, it's a really beautiful subject and I've met a lot of cool people, just by participating at contests. So, for me, it's a fun activity.
Another point would be that there exists a genetic component in "becoming better or being good" in other activities, so why would competitive programming be different?
So, the conclusion: you most likely don't have the genetics to become a grandmaster, but it's fine! If you are having fun, that's all that matters. :)
If you have another opinion, I would love to discuss it with you. I'm looking forward to learn new stuff :D
latest research shows that Fluid Intelligence can be improved by training your brain to solve complex problems...
My Personal Opinion
So you are saying that some people learn very slow and some very fast. It also depends on how much time you are giving and improving your brain to learn things faster. It's not about giving more time but how much productive you are in that time? are you being Distracted or you are really immersed into your work.
If you really push your brain toward its limits, it will improve for sure (that's how it works).
It's Not About Giving Up But Knowing How It Works
I'm not saying you will become LGM in 1 year but yeah you can improve your problem solving skills by solving more problems (not ones which are easy for you, and also not giving up too early on a problem) and understanding the main concepts behind the problems, that what was the purpose of the problem and why it was created that way, what can i learn from it so in future I can easly solve these type of problems. Its about connecting the dots, if you are stuck just give a break, come back.
if someone has IQ of below 100 and he follows the right way and the other person has IQ of 100+ but he don't know what to do, then the below average person will excel in CP.
CONSLUSION
its about how you train yourself, how much dedicated you are even if you have bad genetics and non mathematical background you can be a GM. (I was very slow at learning, it took me more time to understand something, but by giving more time, being immersed into it I've learned things and from years of practice, learning and researching I've improved alot.)
if you really know, how you learn fast (do some research and try different things you'll know what is the better way for you to learn things faster), you have deep understanding of your domain, you are putting time into it (productive), you are thinking about it day and night, you have right resources, proper way to train your brain, then you will improve for sure.
(if you don't enjoy CP, you are not good at math and don't want to improve at math, you ask questions like how to become LGM in 1 Week than i think even if you have 150+ IQ you'll not excel in this sport)
I KNOW YOU CAN IMPROVE
alecs See Ya Future GM
Thanks for reading!
sir why "if you don't enjoy CP, you are not good at math and don't want to improve at math" ? being good at math doesn't necessarily mean being good at CP.
My opinion is that the reason you got to where you are now is because you believed anything is possible with enough hard-work.
i think this is the ugly truth not everyone can be a gm but we try our best i really felt sad while reading this blog.
you should feel happy because gm's are 69% less likely to get a gf
but i will be a gm in two or three years
you won't, but u will prolly be an inactive user in two or three years
I find it pretty funny that the people in the comments who are at least 3 years away from reaching master say that everyone can be a GM.
I think it's pretty funny that you think they will be master in 3 years (not saying they can't be), just that most of them won't
Yes, I think i should give up.
I don't think human with below avg IQ can reach GM. Any counter arguments on this?
It's true, alinp can't :(
any noob can get to cyan
any cyan can get to purple
any purple can get to red
qed
thanks for coming to my ted talk
Na na na , I won't give up. Let me love coding.
Negative ranting so skip if you dont filthy neg stuff.
people like me should give up. Take a look at my profile I couldn't excel inspite of some good number of tries , I wont say they are great but its enough to see your potential. Still I keep on convincing myself that I can atleast be an expert but now I have left CP. I couldnt even excel in jee(exam for indians on maths and science) but I thought this CP thing could help me prove that I am equally capable in maths and science but now I doubt.
hv a good day everyone.
I think most of them underestimate just how really really hard just working really really hard really is. There's nothing magical about it, it's just really really hard.
I will prove you wrong
CM in one month any one in for sprint?
only 18 days remain, good luck
Yes I know but need more contest :(
One step closer aviralarpan3301 :) will improve further...
abcsumits great, good luck......
looks like one step back
Thanks for motivating me
Wow,you dead?
damn you really made a lot of progress this month, well done!
I will show you
I am hardstuck at life , should I suicide?
Never!
Thanks a lot sir you really helped me
The fact is, they really enjoyed themselves when coding. You should be thankful for that they are asking. Though they never take advice from the gm/igms, they should know they are making progress. They are just worried, instead of flogging a dead horse.
The worst groups are the ones who never care about the rating.
i solved about 188 problems before this summer & still was grey. But hard working give me an expert ( but obviously i lose it )
Is CF more about talent or hard work? There is no way to prove either idea, so why even debate?
If you enjoy solving problems, solve problems and hope for the best. If not, give up.
I fear it might be less likely that it's impossible to prove than that you suck at proofs, my guy.
Take 20 average college programmers with free time who have sufficient motivation to earn $20,000 USD each if they can earn purple in one year. Give them training lessons and courses. If >75% of them get purple, that's pretty good proof the majority of people are held back by hard work. If <25% can make purple, that's pretty good proof imo that talent is the limiting factor.
In my opinion, the issue is not with their underlying intelligence, it’s with how their training goes. If they’re a hard-stuck grey for an year, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not smart enough, what if they haven’t been practising? Not upsolving? Giving up if you can’t solve a problem instead of reading an editorial? Or reading editorials without trying? It’s pretty toxic to imply that they’re simply not ‘good enough’. Of course, if they have been working extremely hard and doing everything right and are still stuck (I don’t think this can ever happen unless you’re mentally challenged in some way) then that’s a different story altogether.
if they were good enough, they would observe other people who achieved their goals and draw some conclusions from that. 70 percent of the people are just stupid.
Sometimes I have to give myself up, but I never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down :3
A lot of people are saying CP needs to be fun, but I think they are missing the point, rating is the point.
Don't do CP for fun, do it to achieve high rating, so you can feel good about yourself.
As a bonus rating is a really nice way to approximate self-worth.
But i think hard work can bit every thing.
it's maybe a long process.
i saw some people became expert with solving less 500 problem in CF and with 60 less contest.
and i also saw some people became expert after solving 2000+ problem and 200+ contest.
so why you are demotivating someone??
if a person realize.."CP/CF is not for him/her"...then he will leave it by ownself.
Bro, don't take it seriously. He is just a troll.
Give up
I think nobody can reach a high rating without any teacher or coach. because a teacher can show you the path and even if you learn all algorithms in correct order from Youtube or GeeksforGeeks many of your questions remain unanswered.
Intelligence and IQ may make the path of progress easier for you, but it cannot be said that it makes you GM. Anyone can achieve strong problem-solving power with effort but with the right path and good teachers.
Dominater069 reached IGM without any coach
i reached pupil to prove you, WeaponizedAutist, wrong, specialist is next :)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Should I give up as well?
This is a great blog. I think there are 4 types of people
The hardstuck grey/greens themselves
The people who enable them, essentially providing what I like to call "newbie welfare", these people are the ones that feed them the sugarcoated delusions and make them believe anything is possible if they work hard enough or do the right thing.
The realists, essentially people who are realistic, understand that deviation between expectation and reality can cause bad mindset, and is seen "negatively" by the people in group 1, for speaking the truth.
the people who just don't care, but most likely anyone reading this isn't in group 4
The biggest problem is group 2. I think if more people switch from 2 to 3, the delusion that newbies can become cm+ can be weakened and newbies will understand that there are talent gaps, and while working hard may let them do a bit better, there are clear talent gaps, especially cm+ which they will just never be able to reach due to a lack of talent.
the reason group 1 feels this is negative is because they want to be in control, but when they're not in control, its quite upsetting. My advice to group 1 is to just accept that you will never make it, enjoy CP for what its worth, solve problems, enjoy the observations, have some fun, yes perhaps its upsetting to hear it but if you cant change anything, what's the point in crying about it?
To people in group 2, I implore you to think — the way people value their self worth can roughly be correlated to expectation — reality where expectation >= reality. By enabling people who are clearly capable of never actually enjoying CP or being decent, all you are doing is artificially inflating how little they value themselves, which as OP said, is cruel and is nothing more than a delusion. Let them experience reality, understand where they stand and how they just don't have enough talent for CP.
TLDR: I think this blog explains this idea perfectly, and now more than ever, despite the age of this blog, this situation is prevalent as a problem.
Idk man, this blog hasn't been relevant since the introduction of LLMs
It seems like this blog's irrelevance and your rating have had a similarly constant nature since the release of LLMs
No, of course, there's still lots of room for impovement. But, hey, at least we both agree on something, that's some progress.
aw man it's like a sliver of $$$2023$$$ has resurfaced. fun times, right guys?
Hahaha....sure. Its not like you are stuck at cyan at all.You are clearly a superior being.
On a serious note, you are also hardstuck at cyan, just follow your own advice atleast. Same goes for OP, he is not LGM either, just listen to what um_nik says about it, heck, see what Richard Feynman thinks about intelligence. I see you post quite a few comments to ask newbies and pupils to give up, if they actually ended leaving the platform, you will become newbie yourself, ever thought of that?
who the fuck doesn't know who richard feynman is
Now back to the topic, If you see yourself as a newbie, what makes you an expert on this matter? What makes you so confident to suggest other people what to do in this field? You certainly can't prove your claims. Why not just shut up rather than playing with people's insecurities? Everyone is fighting the same battle on this site, just at different rating levels(stuck at their current level and trying to level up). Why not empathize with them on common grounds and help them if you have found an efficient way to get out from certain rating levels. If you understand something very well, teach them. Or if you can't, just ignore them.
And please don't box yourself with this IQ number. I am sure there are some people who are newbie but they have higher IQ than you, but you are still higher rated then them. And definitely read about Feynman or see his videos on YouTube.
Bro only solved 62 questions on codeforces and became a candidate master He may be a genius/legend But many people make it via hardwork see all the people at top they have atleast solved 2000-3000 questions to get there
He may have practiced on different platforms
its an alt
-is-this-fft- orz