Programming Challenges: The Programming Contest Training Manual

Steven S Skiena · Miguel A. Revilla

Apr 2006 · Springer Science & Business Media

About this ebook

There are many distinct pleasures associated with computer programming. Craftsm- ship has its quiet rewards, the satisfaction that comes from building a useful object and making it work. Excitement arrives with the ?ash of insight that cracks a previously intractable problem. The spiritual quest for elegance can turn the hacker into an artist. Therearepleasuresinparsimony,insqueezingthelastdropofperformanceoutofclever algorithms and tight coding. Thegames,puzzles,andchallengesofproblemsfrominternationalprogrammingc- petitionsareagreatwaytoexperiencethesepleasureswhileimprovingyouralgorithmic and coding skills. This book contains over 100 problems that have appeared in previous programming contests, along with discussions of the theory and ideas necessary to - tack them. Instant online grading for all of these problems is available from two WWW robot judging sites. Combining this book with a judge gives an exciting new way to challenge and improve your programming skills. This book can be used for self-study, for teaching innovative courses in algorithms and programming, and in training for international competition. To the Reader Theproblemsinthisbookhavebeenselectedfromover1,000programmingproblemsat the Universidad de Valladolid online judge, available athttp://online-judge.uva.es.The judgehasruledonwelloveronemillionsubmissionsfrom27,000registeredusersaround the world to date. We have taken only the best of the best, the most fun, exciting, and interesting problems available.

About the author

Steven S. Skiena is a professor of computer science at SUNY Stony Brook and is the author of many widely used books, including The Algorithm Design Manual. He received the 2001 IEEE Computer Society Undergraduate Teaching Award. Miguel A. Revilla is a professor of applied mathematics at the University of Vallodolid, Spain. He is the official website archivist of the ACM ICPC and creator/maintainer of the primary robot judge and content-hosting website.