5th SRM : SRM 497

One word. DISASTER.

Level 1 : Failed system test
Okay. In my defence, it was not the easiest problem. It wasn't rocket science either. Refreshingly, I did not panic today. Took my time to work out the filter logic. Just had to identify a single series of 'A's. I wasted some time trying to sort a vector and string with the former's elements as the key. Realised later that vector pair would have worked better. Or even my own sorting routine that sorted on the vector with the string as the satellite data. I failed to consider a case of 'AR' which was not in the example resulting in a single 'A' in the series. The golden rule of checking for boundary conditions did not seem important for Level 1 in Div 2. Stupid. To be fair to me, the example inputs usually covered all the boundary cases which never made me think about testing the code with cases beyond the examples.

Level 2 : Failed challenge
Same here. Passed all example inputs. But did not hold up to challenge. The logic seemed too simple to be true for a Level 2. Some sly problem-setter for today I realised later. The fact that I wasted a lot of time on Level 1 also made me rush through this to salvage some pride and rating. I am too simple-minded.

Level 3 : Did not submit.
I thought I had a real shot at this. It was a standard min-distance problem. Or at least that's how I saw it. I finished coding with about a minute to go. Used BFS as I was most comfortable with it even if I ran the risk of exceeding 2 sec time limit. Time ran out while I was testing. Wouldn't have mattered anyway. Did not pass system test in practice room later. 2 second time limit also would have screwed me.

Bottomline : Disaster-ville.
Lesson learnt : Correct late submission > Wrong quick submission.
Post-match rating : 949 (-179)
Match editorial : Later