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I have spent a little time with Project Euler. Is it very popular with those here at HN?

by tocs3 2y ago

n4r9 2y ago
To be honest, I don't see people talking about it that much. But I'm certain that it would appeal to a good chunk of the people here.
- glouwbug 2y ago
  But isn’t it mathematical computing? I feel like leetcode DSA is closer to your average HN user
  - tocs3 2y ago
    Has here been any work done to find out about the average HN user? It seems like it would be a hard thing to do but it might be interesting to see. I do not even know what sort of metrics would be useful to measure.
  - n4r9 2y ago
    There's certainly a strong element of computational mathematics. A lot of the problems deal with things like Mersenne Primes or Collatz sequences. On the other hand, there are problems like "Maximum Path Sum" which definitely make use of DSA-style tricks (https://projecteuler.net/problem=67 https://projecteuler.net/problem=67).
dahart 2y ago
It’s been discussed quite a bit in the past. I love Project Euler, but haven’t been active for a few years. Even then I felt like the social aspect of it wasn’t designed for newcomers; a lot of activity on new problems happens as soon as it becomes available and then it mostly freezes. The problems get pretty hard on average once you’re past the first hundred, one reason I personally found it hard to keep going.
philiplu 2y ago
It’s my game plan for keeping my brain active in retirement. Been heavily involved for the past 7 years. Been at the 100% solved level since summer 2023, though I’m back to one away the past couple weeks - PE910 is _hard_
- procparam 2y ago
  Wow. The idea of getting to 100% on PE is almost incomprehensible to me. I've solved basically none outside the first couple pages. What was your strategy like? How much math background do you have?
  - dankwizard 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - philiplu 2y ago
    I've got a bachelor's in math, but that's 40+ years ago. I had intended to go on for a PhD in math, but fell into computers instead - programming was easier and way more lucrative, even in the early 80s. Once I was retired and found my way to Project Euler, it became an obsession, tickling that desire to go deeper into math that I had in my college days. I attacked roughly the first 250 problems in order. The early problems build on each other to introduce new topics. I also got good at figuring out the right search term to find some random paper in number theory, combinatorics, probability, whatever. Later problems introduced new, more niche areas, like chromatic polynomials and impartial & partisan game theory. But by then, I found it much easier to figure out what part of math a problem was based on and how to find relevant literature. It helps to be really really stubborn, and to have the patience to let a problem stew in my brain, sometimes for weeks at a time. That seems to help lead to that Eureka moment.
    - tocs3 2y ago
      Do you have a favorite?
      - 2y ago
Twirrim 2y ago
I don't know that I'd gauge anything by popularity with the HN crowd. It's also a diverse group. I'm closing in on a hundred problems solved, in a not very completion-ist fashion (I've got a whole bunch of skips and random choices of puzzles). Maths isn't my strongest suit, and I have no academic comp-sci background, so there's been a number of these I sort of brute force and then go read the answers in the thread; or I brute force the first few integers in the sequence and then try and wrap my head around what https://oeis.org/ https://oeis.org/ is attempting to tell me about them. It has challenged me a bit on some of my fundamentals with programming, really making me think about efficiency etc. While I've done most of the problems in rust so far, I've been having to refresh my knowledge of Go recently, so I've started porting answers between the two languages, and it's definitely helping there a bunch.
- coffeemug 2y ago
  https://oeis.org/ https://oeis.org/ is an incredible website! Thanks for sharing.

I have spent a little time with Project Euler. Is it very popular with those here at HN?

by tocs3 2y ago

I have spent a little time with Project Euler. Is it very popular with those here at HN?

n4r9 2y ago

To be honest, I don't see people talking about it that much. But I'm certain that it would appeal to a good chunk of the people here.

glouwbug 2y ago
But isn’t it mathematical computing? I feel like leetcode DSA is closer to your average HN user
- tocs3 2y ago
  Has here been any work done to find out about the average HN user? It seems like it would be a hard thing to do but it might be interesting to see. I do not even know what sort of metrics would be useful to measure.
- n4r9 2y ago
  There's certainly a strong element of computational mathematics. A lot of the problems deal with things like Mersenne Primes or Collatz sequences. On the other hand, there are problems like "Maximum Path Sum" which definitely make use of DSA-style tricks (https://projecteuler.net/problem=67 https://projecteuler.net/problem=67).

dahart 2y ago

It’s been discussed quite a bit in the past. I love Project Euler, but haven’t been active for a few years. Even then I felt like the social aspect of it wasn’t designed for newcomers; a lot of activity on new problems happens as soon as it becomes available and then it mostly freezes. The problems get pretty hard on average once you’re past the first hundred, one reason I personally found it hard to keep going.

philiplu 2y ago

It’s my game plan for keeping my brain active in retirement. Been heavily involved for the past 7 years. Been at the 100% solved level since summer 2023, though I’m back to one away the past couple weeks - PE910 is _hard_

procparam 2y ago
Wow. The idea of getting to 100% on PE is almost incomprehensible to me. I've solved basically none outside the first couple pages. What was your strategy like? How much math background do you have?
- dankwizard 2y ago
  [flagged]
- philiplu 2y ago
  I've got a bachelor's in math, but that's 40+ years ago. I had intended to go on for a PhD in math, but fell into computers instead - programming was easier and way more lucrative, even in the early 80s. Once I was retired and found my way to Project Euler, it became an obsession, tickling that desire to go deeper into math that I had in my college days. I attacked roughly the first 250 problems in order. The early problems build on each other to introduce new topics. I also got good at figuring out the right search term to find some random paper in number theory, combinatorics, probability, whatever. Later problems introduced new, more niche areas, like chromatic polynomials and impartial & partisan game theory. But by then, I found it much easier to figure out what part of math a problem was based on and how to find relevant literature. It helps to be really really stubborn, and to have the patience to let a problem stew in my brain, sometimes for weeks at a time. That seems to help lead to that Eureka moment.
  - tocs3 2y ago
    Do you have a favorite?
    - 2y ago

Twirrim 2y ago

I don't know that I'd gauge anything by popularity with the HN crowd. It's also a diverse group. I'm closing in on a hundred problems solved, in a not very completion-ist fashion (I've got a whole bunch of skips and random choices of puzzles). Maths isn't my strongest suit, and I have no academic comp-sci background, so there's been a number of these I sort of brute force and then go read the answers in the thread; or I brute force the first few integers in the sequence and then try and wrap my head around what https://oeis.org/ https://oeis.org/ is attempting to tell me about them. It has challenged me a bit on some of my fundamentals with programming, really making me think about efficiency etc. While I've done most of the problems in rust so far, I've been having to refresh my knowledge of Go recently, so I've started porting answers between the two languages, and it's definitely helping there a bunch.

coffeemug 2y ago
https://oeis.org/ https://oeis.org/ is an incredible website! Thanks for sharing.