How I won the programming contest without knowing how to program
He did not quite win, but took second place, although he had all the chances and at first, and he didn’t know how to do it, but more on that with all the details.
In general, the topic is more likely Friday, so nothing terrible will happen if you postpone reading it for the relevant day.
')
So, it is autumn in 1997, I am a student of the 10th (last but one) physical education class of secondary school. I'm in this class and this school is new, and probably the only one who gets to school every day on the bus, because I do not live in this neighborhood.
One day, I was summoned to the computer science class, where, along with the teacher, the school principal was also present. I was solemnly announced that it was decided to hold a regional programming contest in our school in RayONo, since She is in good standing and we have two classes of computer science. And in order to maintain the prestige of the owners of this event, we urgently need a participant from our school, and I am an ideal candidate, in their opinion, and yes, the Olympiad in a week.
Not that I couldn’t program at all, I was able to program, but a little different from the language in which the Olympiad was supposed to be held. And not in the volume, to be honest.
To my timid remark that I only know BASIC, but I need to know Pascal, they gave me a paper self-instruction manual on turbo pascal and assured that no one expects victory from me, you just need not hit the face and it will be enough to take a place somewhere in the middle.
It is probably worth telling here why the choice fell on me, a beginner in this school. Everything is trite, my knowledge of computer science, at that moment, was probably the biggest in the whole school. And the teacher knew this because I spent one summer month in this school, visiting a summer computer camp that they organized. The biggest baggage of knowledge of the school consisted of programming experience in basic in the early 90s on the BC, programming on Logo in grades 6-7, knowledge of how to disable the keyboard using the Fn button on it and the designer courses completed at the Aviation Institute. Not a lot), but I always wanted to learn programming (and even now I don’t leave these attempts), so the challenge was accepted and Iplunged into the study and tried to master this language and development environment in 24x7 hours.
The first difficulty was that in the computer class of the turbo pascal there wasn’t been born and its installation on our machines was planned only on the day X by third-party teachers. The computer science teacher could not help me either, because Had a non-profile education and taught only an office suite at the lessons. It remained to learn the language only on the issued book, but its reading disheartened me and it was abandoned. It was decided to call for help the collective mind, represented byGoogle’s district children's library, where one copy of the book “100 Programming Tasks” was discovered. Especially valuable in her was that the tasks there were dealt with just in Pascal. I continued her reading until the very day X, but again, a dry theory would not bring great benefit without practice. As a result, in a week my skill in programming did not increase, and perhaps even decreased because confusion was introduced by new terms and concepts.
On day X, I gathered all my courage and moved towards my school. I didn’t have any illusions, but there was a plan to hide the books at my disposal in the next room and when specific tasks were known, go to the “toilet” and try to write something remotely similar to programs based on these books. After receiving the task, everyone started programming quite quickly. I, that would not stand out very much, typed something for eye contact, when our teacher came up, I smiled and said that everything was fine, although I understood that everything was worse and if I was allowed to use the books in the open, it would not help me solve any problem of the five. Time gave us about three hours for everything about everything. By the end of the second hour I was on the verge of throwing everything away and slamming the door loudly. But I really wanted to show my new classmates and classmates that I was cool, and the brain began to look for solutions to a way out of the stalemate.
It was just incidentally, I remembered the organization of our computer class, all the computers of the class did not have their hard drives, downloaded over the network and stored their data on the hard drive of the central computer (I don’t remember the details of the entire infrastructure, but this is not necessary for the development of the plot ). Carefully, in order not to attract the attention of neighbors, trying to keep a smile from ear to ear, I began to look through the folders of my opponents, where they had already kept their labors for two hours. Having found the folder where there were already 5 files with the largest amount of code, I decided that most likely these were the most correctly solved tasks and copied them to my folder, renaming them accordingly. I don’t remember any particular moral torment, although now I understand that it wasn’t right, there was only the fear of being caught up with such a hard-hitting affair, but I repeat again that my brain didn’t care how to achieve the desired result and the decision was made. Just in case, I changed the names of variables that were used in the code and at the very last moment I made one mistake, because I realized that the winner of the first place was going to the city Olympiad, and I didn’t want to fail there with a bang (the likelihood that the city Olympiad would be held in our school was minimal).
Somewhere in about a week, the results came, I was solemnly congratulated by the whole class with an honorable second place, they gave me a valuable prize in the form of a package of 3-inch color floppy disks and an honorary diploma. I don’t know if it made an impression on the girls of my class, but after a while I received a note from a secret fan with a declaration of love, but who I didn’t find out, because The Fallout game came into my hands and for the next year and a half I only had one passion that kept me awake, learning and being interested in something else in this life.
In subsequent years, I never mastered programming, although I made attempts from time to time. There was even an attempt to get on the courses of testers in Epam, but the interview did not work because in their opinion, there was no strong desire on my part. Now I have already decided to give up my current activities (a bit of industry, a lot of papers in the quality system, communication with customers on not interesting ever-recurring topics), I will finalize it to NG, I will get 13 wages and go nowhere, study java so that I can get a job junior The accumulated money will be enough for 3-4 months, and the wife is still working and her decree is only in preparation. In general, a good time to look back, look ahead and try yourself in exactly what the soul lies. Therefore, life is being revised, I remember where I turned to the wrong place, where I didn’t put enough effort and how it would be good to act. But we are all strong in hindsight, and determination to act is needed now.
If one of the users of Habr lived in the Soviet district of Samara in 1997 and participated in the district Olympiad and took 3rd or 4th place, forgive and know that you really were worthy of a higher place for your knowledge (I can return diskettes ). If there is one who took 1 place then, I’ve got beer.
In general, the topic is more likely Friday, so nothing terrible will happen if you postpone reading it for the relevant day.
')
So, it is autumn in 1997, I am a student of the 10th (last but one) physical education class of secondary school. I'm in this class and this school is new, and probably the only one who gets to school every day on the bus, because I do not live in this neighborhood.
One day, I was summoned to the computer science class, where, along with the teacher, the school principal was also present. I was solemnly announced that it was decided to hold a regional programming contest in our school in RayONo, since She is in good standing and we have two classes of computer science. And in order to maintain the prestige of the owners of this event, we urgently need a participant from our school, and I am an ideal candidate, in their opinion, and yes, the Olympiad in a week.
Not that I couldn’t program at all, I was able to program, but a little different from the language in which the Olympiad was supposed to be held. And not in the volume, to be honest.
To my timid remark that I only know BASIC, but I need to know Pascal, they gave me a paper self-instruction manual on turbo pascal and assured that no one expects victory from me, you just need not hit the face and it will be enough to take a place somewhere in the middle.
It is probably worth telling here why the choice fell on me, a beginner in this school. Everything is trite, my knowledge of computer science, at that moment, was probably the biggest in the whole school. And the teacher knew this because I spent one summer month in this school, visiting a summer computer camp that they organized. The biggest baggage of knowledge of the school consisted of programming experience in basic in the early 90s on the BC, programming on Logo in grades 6-7, knowledge of how to disable the keyboard using the Fn button on it and the designer courses completed at the Aviation Institute. Not a lot), but I always wanted to learn programming (and even now I don’t leave these attempts), so the challenge was accepted and I
The first difficulty was that in the computer class of the turbo pascal there wasn’t been born and its installation on our machines was planned only on the day X by third-party teachers. The computer science teacher could not help me either, because Had a non-profile education and taught only an office suite at the lessons. It remained to learn the language only on the issued book, but its reading disheartened me and it was abandoned. It was decided to call for help the collective mind, represented by
On day X, I gathered all my courage and moved towards my school. I didn’t have any illusions, but there was a plan to hide the books at my disposal in the next room and when specific tasks were known, go to the “toilet” and try to write something remotely similar to programs based on these books. After receiving the task, everyone started programming quite quickly. I, that would not stand out very much, typed something for eye contact, when our teacher came up, I smiled and said that everything was fine, although I understood that everything was worse and if I was allowed to use the books in the open, it would not help me solve any problem of the five. Time gave us about three hours for everything about everything. By the end of the second hour I was on the verge of throwing everything away and slamming the door loudly. But I really wanted to show my new classmates and classmates that I was cool, and the brain began to look for solutions to a way out of the stalemate.
It was just incidentally, I remembered the organization of our computer class, all the computers of the class did not have their hard drives, downloaded over the network and stored their data on the hard drive of the central computer (I don’t remember the details of the entire infrastructure, but this is not necessary for the development of the plot ). Carefully, in order not to attract the attention of neighbors, trying to keep a smile from ear to ear, I began to look through the folders of my opponents, where they had already kept their labors for two hours. Having found the folder where there were already 5 files with the largest amount of code, I decided that most likely these were the most correctly solved tasks and copied them to my folder, renaming them accordingly. I don’t remember any particular moral torment, although now I understand that it wasn’t right, there was only the fear of being caught up with such a hard-hitting affair, but I repeat again that my brain didn’t care how to achieve the desired result and the decision was made. Just in case, I changed the names of variables that were used in the code and at the very last moment I made one mistake, because I realized that the winner of the first place was going to the city Olympiad, and I didn’t want to fail there with a bang (the likelihood that the city Olympiad would be held in our school was minimal).
Somewhere in about a week, the results came, I was solemnly congratulated by the whole class with an honorable second place, they gave me a valuable prize in the form of a package of 3-inch color floppy disks and an honorary diploma. I don’t know if it made an impression on the girls of my class, but after a while I received a note from a secret fan with a declaration of love, but who I didn’t find out, because The Fallout game came into my hands and for the next year and a half I only had one passion that kept me awake, learning and being interested in something else in this life.
In subsequent years, I never mastered programming, although I made attempts from time to time. There was even an attempt to get on the courses of testers in Epam, but the interview did not work because in their opinion, there was no strong desire on my part. Now I have already decided to give up my current activities (a bit of industry, a lot of papers in the quality system, communication with customers on not interesting ever-recurring topics), I will finalize it to NG, I will get 13 wages and go nowhere, study java so that I can get a job junior The accumulated money will be enough for 3-4 months, and the wife is still working and her decree is only in preparation. In general, a good time to look back, look ahead and try yourself in exactly what the soul lies. Therefore, life is being revised, I remember where I turned to the wrong place, where I didn’t put enough effort and how it would be good to act. But we are all strong in hindsight, and determination to act is needed now.
If one of the users of Habr lived in the Soviet district of Samara in 1997 and participated in the district Olympiad and took 3rd or 4th place, forgive and know that you really were worthy of a higher place for your knowledge (I can return diskettes ). If there is one who took 1 place then, I’ve got beer.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/272363/
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