Another Contest 6 Problem 9 - Obligatory Wood IV Problem
View as PDFA frequent complaint about programming contests is that the problems are too hard. This makes competitors upset.
It is the goal of this problem to make a problem which hopefully anyone can solve.
How do you produce a problem which anyone can solve? The way to do so is to make the problem as accessible as possible. If we look at the solved.ac ranking model, we can see that all topics have a lower bound on their difficulty. For example, problems which require knowledge of strings must be rated at least bronze II, problems which require knowledge of loops must be rated at least bronze III, and problems which require knowledge of conditional statements must be rated at least bronze IV.
The easiest problems are rated bronze V, but generally assume knowledge of I/O. However, they also have some other implicit assumptions, such as the ability to write programs that compile or the ability to read and comprehend a problem statement.
This problem has been designed in a way that it should be solvable by anyone who is capable of making a submission to this problem, which we lower bound at Wood IV.
The problem author would like to thank for providing assistance in making this problem a reality.
Comments
WARNING: This problem is not for the faint of heart. If you have not trained for at least 10,000 hours in a secluded mountain dojo under the guidance of a legendary grandmaster, turn back now.
This is the Dark Souls of programming problems. It makes NP-hard problems look like kindergarten riddles. Mathematicians have debated its existence for centuries. Legends say Euler himself looked at this problem and immediately retired.
First, the problem statement is a labyrinth of riddles, designed to test not only your coding skills but your ability to decipher ancient cryptic texts. Before you even THINK about solving this, you'll need to master every programming language ever created, including ones that haven’t been invented yet. You’ll also need to understand the intricacies of quantum computing, because who knows, maybe you need to entangle some bits to get the correct output.
The constraints? Oh, you thought there were constraints? Cute. The input space spans all known numbers, letters, and possibly intergalactic signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. The output must be so perfect that it makes a mathematician cry tears of joy.
The test cases? There are none. Or maybe there are. The only way to know if your solution is correct is if the problem itself nods in approval. But you will never know.
Competitive programmers from all over the world have attempted to solve this problem and vanished without a trace. Some say they’re still debugging their code to this day.
So if you have the courage to attempt this beast, go ahead. But just know—once you enter, there’s no coming back.
You can get an error by aborting the program
Wait actually how did you do that... the question judges so fast the Abort button doesn't even show up for me
Genuinely took me so much brain power
hello
hiiiiiii
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ez
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does aborting a submission even work here
Yes. Because of how fast this problem judges, what you need to do is have other submissions to other problems hold up the DMOJ judging queue (might need some friends to help since you can only have 2 submissions running in the queue at one time and there are 3 judges). That will give you enough time to click the abort button while the submission is still in the queue.
Edit: it was now rejudged to AC :(
time to grind for temporary DMOJ flex
edit: ez I broke the question
edit 2: never mind
Umm.... I don't see an actual question. Just a goal statement about the accessability of computer problems. What am I missing? -- Later edit: OK, I got it solved now :-)
The hardest problem