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Oh hey, I've been in two of FMWC's live competitions (though not this one) and their regular offline almost-monthly competitions. VBA is allowed - I've used it
by lianna-vba 4y ago
Oh hey, I've been in two of FMWC's live competitions (though not this one) and their regular offline almost-monthly competitions.
VBA is allowed - I've used it but no one else seems too. Power Query and LET/LAMBDA is a little more common and named ranges (variables) even more common.
It's fun but going into the challenge blind is so stressful. What if your brain goes blank and you can't figure out where to begin? But there should be another Open live tournament this November or so with cash prizes, check it out.
- snthpy 4y agoOne question I have is whether you can use your own Excel setup and stuff like custom toolbars etc...?
- mnsc 4y agoASAP Utilities was my weapon of choice when I was deep in excel data extraction work. But I think that should count as "auto aim" in a sport setting...
- lianna-vba 4y agoYou can customize your quick access toolbar. I've never seen a rule against 3rd party add-ins so I'm not sure about those. Keyboard shortcuts and lookup/logic/date/math/dynamic array functions are key along with data tables if you want to try and solve the challenge in one go.
- KronisLV 4y ago> What if your brain goes blank and you can't figure out where to begin? Hah, this is me with many interview questions, because you rarely ever get something like: "How would make a RESTful API to allow retrieving and changing some data from a PostgreSQL DB", instead it's just Leetcode problems that have (comparatively) little to do with the day to day, especially when you're expected to know, not look up the solution like you would normally. So there's not a lot that you can do, but just familiarize yourself with algorithms and ways to solve common problems and write plenty of code. :) I imagine it's quite a lot like that in most specialized domains, be it solving physics or maths problems, or even using Excel for interesting use cases.
- zepolen 4y ago> So there's not a lot that you can do, but just familiarize yourself with algorithms and ways to solve common problems and write plenty of code. :) I'd prefer someone that can infer the algorithm without knowing it before hand than someone who just memorized a bunch of them.
- KronisLV 4y agoAfter solving problems like that for years, eventually almost anyone will develop such an ability, like one also would in regards to DB schema design, system design and picking architectures/design patterns. The problem is that the majority of people simply don't spend time on issues like that, either in their day jobs or weekends/evenings. The closest you can get to things like that if you work in pretty boring domains, is having to pick between a Set or a Map for some data structure in the app. Or avoiding things like N+1 issues which have relatively little to do with algorithms and more in regards to how frameworks implement things.
- CorrectHorseBat 4y ago>I'd prefer someone that can infer the algorithm without knowing it before hand than someone who just memorized a bunch of them. Can someone do the latter without the former?
- tomcam 4y agoHow did he do? Offhand it seems like using VBA would be a super power