A lot of that message, especially the end, sounds like it's directed more towards other review sites than their to their general readers. Maybe they're hoping others will follow their precedent.
They're a large enough review site that they could hold out by themselves, but I doubt it will make any real difference unless some of the others adopt a similar position.
While speed is an important factor, actually being able to solve the problems is far more important. The easy problems are easy, as they're supposed to be. The hard ones are complex enough that the vast majority of coders participating cannot solve them within the time limit.
For anyone who wants an actual example of what complexity level the solutions to these problems are, take a look at the editorial for the last TCO finals: http://www.topcoder.com/tc?module=Static&d1=tourna ments&d2=tco03&d3=summary&d4=final_analysi s
As for the security certificate, well, yeah, they should update that.
Classes don't make a program object-oriented. You could write your entire program in the class's single method, and it certainly wouldn't be OO.
As for the languages, well, it's pretty standard. The ACM ICPC and IOI also both heavily restrict language usage to these languages or fewer (although I think you can use PASCAL if you really want). Perhaps the idea is that 'good programmers' aren't language dependant, and can carry over their skills to at least one of those languages.
"It's a few nested loops every time. It's either process this number using this formula, or sort this data."
At the lower levels, perhaps. Their single-round matches are designed so that a large range of skill levels can compete. I suggest you take a look at some of the problems from the later rounds in the last TCO - they're all available online - and you'll see they're more complex than you describe.
From the second link:
"At its most distant, Sedna is 130 billion km (84 billion miles) from the Sun, which is 900 times Earth's solar distance (149 million km or 93 million miles)."
Watch out for the miles / kilmetres distinction.
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A lot of that message, especially the end, sounds like it's directed more towards other review sites than their to their general readers. Maybe they're hoping others will follow their precedent.
They're a large enough review site that they could hold out by themselves, but I doubt it will make any real difference unless some of the others adopt a similar position.
Unforunately you have to log-in to be able to read problem statements (registration is free).
p m=1315&rd=4711 p m=1972&rd=4711 p m=1986&rd=4711
For those willing to register and log-in to see them, the problem statements are at:
http://www.topcoder.com/stat?c=problem_statement&
http://www.topcoder.com/stat?c=problem_statement&
http://www.topcoder.com/stat?c=problem_statement&
While speed is an important factor, actually being able to solve the problems is far more important. The easy problems are easy, as they're supposed to be. The hard ones are complex enough that the vast majority of coders participating cannot solve them within the time limit.a ments&d2=tco03&d3=summary&d4=final_analysi s
As for the security certificate, well, yeah, they should update that.
For anyone who wants an actual example of what complexity level the solutions to these problems are, take a look at the editorial for the last TCO finals: http://www.topcoder.com/tc?module=Static&d1=tourn
Classes don't make a program object-oriented. You could write your entire program in the class's single method, and it certainly wouldn't be OO. As for the languages, well, it's pretty standard. The ACM ICPC and IOI also both heavily restrict language usage to these languages or fewer (although I think you can use PASCAL if you really want). Perhaps the idea is that 'good programmers' aren't language dependant, and can carry over their skills to at least one of those languages.
"It's a few nested loops every time. It's either process this number using this formula, or sort this data." At the lower levels, perhaps. Their single-round matches are designed so that a large range of skill levels can compete. I suggest you take a look at some of the problems from the later rounds in the last TCO - they're all available online - and you'll see they're more complex than you describe.
From the second link: "At its most distant, Sedna is 130 billion km (84 billion miles) from the Sun, which is 900 times Earth's solar distance (149 million km or 93 million miles)." Watch out for the miles / kilmetres distinction.