Thoughts on Hello 2018. For myself.

2018 said a bloody 'Hello' to me when I stuck on problem C and D for almost the whole period of today's contest.

After contest, a fellow told me that I have made a logical mistake on problem C. I got it passed after simply revising the bad code. I spent most of my contest time on C but kept checking those 'syntax error' such as integer overflow instead of the semantics ones. This told me that I need to become more confident to the code I wrote and focus on logic more now.

I later found that D is just a simple binary-search-on-answer problem, while I used the solution 2 on the tutorial, but with a more complex implementation. I guess I have to consider another approach when in those contest: instead of doing it with what comes to mind first, think about it more and do it after consideration.

I once tried to get purple (really purple, not magical) in this round but my rating fell for about 70. I just have to keep practice and wait for the moment that I have become strong enough to get there.

By the way, this problem set is really great. Tourist is a good problem-setter as he is as a problem-solver. The difficulties for the problem are really smooth.

Happy new year!