Hi, I am DivinePunishment but you might know me better as SkibidiPilav.
I started Codeforces roughly 2 years ago, right after I failed to solve a single problem in the regional competitive programming competition in Serbia.
At the time I hadn't written a single line of C++ in my life. (I kinda knew C though so it's a bit of a technicality xd)
Yesterday I placed 2nd at the national competition and with that secured my place at the Serbian National Olympiad as well as being able to get into college in Serbia for free without having to go through any exam. (Also, as a side note, I am in the B category so I am not actually 2nd out of all Serbian high school students. The guys in the A category are absolute beasts)
I would not be able to get a result even remotely close to that if it wasn't for all the amazing contests and problems that all of you made and I really want to thank everyone who contributed to this platform in any way because I genuinely believe it changed my life.
Initially I wanted to write a really long blog that detailed my entire story but halfway through writing I realized that it would be too long and that not many would bother reading it, so I think a shorter version like this is much better and conveys the message just fine.
Once again, thank you, Codeforces.
Congratulations
orz
see you at SIO goat :D
Congratulations, was nice sitting next to you :)
same here :D, cant wait to see you win SIO
I think it would benefit others if you could share how you managed to get better at competitive programming
as sad as it sounds there is really no trick. for the 2 months after I started competitive programming I was either thinking about it or doing competitive programming. I was obsessed because I set a goal for myself to reach expert in 2 months from starting and I didn't stop until I achieved it. If you want to have drastic improvement you need to be obssesed and/or desperate. I was both and that fueled me. After reaching expert I lost a lot of the motivation I had and just slowly reached 1800 and did a few problems here and there so I wasn't completely washed when the actual competitions came. although I am not sure if you were asking me this or if you were asking what I was actually doing while practicing
hey what kind of problems did you tried to push you ? I mean I have seen people stuck at a point for more than 2-3 yrs and you have become a stable expert in just 2 months!! well if you just give me some insights of training routine like how did you choose topic and made yourself comfortable with it . and how did you revise things like doing problems for 6 days and then having a day just to do the problems that bugged me again.
so I solved problems from 3 sites. codeforces, atcoder and codechef. i feel like they all have their strengths and weaknesses
atcoder
the problems at atcoder are usually very standard with very little observations and they mostly check if you know the algorithm or the data structure needed to solve the problem. I am fully self-taught when it comes to competitive programming so I was always pretty frustrated while doing atcoder since I never learned some of the very standard things that I should've known. so atcoder is great when it comes to being able to learn ideas/algorithms that you will use again in countless other problems
codechef
codechef is very weird. i feel like codechef is the opposite of atcoder and usually requires some weird observation/idea that makes the problem trivial. i felt very comfortable doing codechef because of this, since it felt like i wasn't gated due to my lack of knowledge in terms of standard problems. so if you feel like you're lacking in intuition and spotting those little tricks that makes problems trivial then doing codechef can give you practice in those areas. I actually didn't like doing codechef very much since I felt like my intuition and logic skills weren't too bad so it felt like a waste of time to do codechef
codeforces
my absolute favorite out of these 3. codeforces feels like a balance between atcoder and codechef. the problems use a lot of standard ideas while also having a lot of those little tricks and observations that make the problem different. codeforces is the only one out of these 3 that I solved problems on outside of contests, while I only did codechef and atcoder during contests. if you can't be bothered to do codechef and atcoder I feel like codeforces should be just fine when it comes to improvement
Now when it comes to choosing problems based on topic, I never actually did that except when I was learning an absolutely new topic. And that happened only 2 times I believe, when I was learning graph theory and when I was learning dynamic programming. all the other topics I learned slowly just by doing problems and reading editorials of those problems. when it came to learning these 2 topics I watched Shayan and he was a great help to understanding them. I feel like choosing problems based on topic is bad since it already gives you ideas before you even look at the problems. Ideally you would have someone give you problems that they know you should be able to solve and that person should balance the topics out, but since I am self-taught I did not have that privilege and I'm sure that many people don't have that privilege. I also never had a fixed schedule like doing problems for 6 days and then solving whatever is left on the 7th. I just did any problem that I saw and I never hesitated to read editorials when I was stuck for like 15-20 minutes. Keep in mind that this might not work for you since I am sure that having a fixed schedule and not reading editorials is better for some people. I hate being confined to schedules and I hate being stuck on problems so I can just never stop myself from reading editorials when I am stuck. During those 2 months I literally just did any problem/contest I saw and that was basically it.
This is one of those texts that you read somewhere, and it puts the things you can't express into words. I wholeheartedly agree
orz
you're actually the person that showed me codeforces to begin with. thank you immensely as well. I will be cheering you on at SIO this year :D
This is just another story that proves hard work pays off. Orz for the commitment and dedication. Good luck!
congratulations broski
thank you so much. always loved reading your based shitposts during my journey :P
Congratulations bro
sigma
Can I ask why you chose the username SkibidiPilav? Also congrats, see you at sio
So at the time when I was making the account me and my friend had an inside joke related to Pilavs, and the Skibidi brainrot was really popular around that time. When making the name I wanted to make a goofy name that people would remember and so I chose SkibidiPilav. Thank you and see you at SIO :D
I think you did your best. After all, without your own efforts, codeforces would just be another website. Like everyone else, I would like to thank the CodeForces team and the guys who organize the competitions (come up with tasks, write reviews, etc.). It seems to me that the result you got is the work of both you and the efforts of the developers. Congratulations to you!