Competitive/Collaborative Programming Class

ICPC Computer Programming Contest Prep

Problem Solving in Computer Science

Spring 2026 -- CSC 2700 Section 01
1218 Patrick Taylor Hall, 6:30 PM - 8:20 PM



Class Home




Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively
--Dalai Lama XIV
The best way to predict the future is to invent it
--Alan Kay
Object-oriented programming offers a sustainable way to write spaghetti code. It lets you accrete programs as a series of patches.
--Paul Graham
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist
--Pablo Picasso
There is nothing good or bad about knowledge itself; morality lies in the application of knowledge.
--Jon Erickson
If the steps become to big, they become walls...
--Herb Sutter
Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible.
--Alan Kay
I'm a programmer. I like programming. And the best way I've found to have a positive impact on code is to write it.
--Robert C. Martin
When in doubt, do something.
--Harry Chapin
Happiness should be a function without any parameters.
--Pranshu Midha
Our consciousness is programmed. We see things a certain way from a young age - we're programmed to keep doing them that way. Then you have to spend adulthood learning how to overcome it, to read out the programs. Try to create. I want to tell people to create. Just start by creating your day. Then create your life.
--Prince
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
Programming isn't about what you know; it's about what you can figure out.
--Chris Pine
Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen.
--Edward V. Berard
I'm not a great programmer; I'm just a good programmer with great habits.
--Kent Beck
What kind of programmer is so divorced from reality that she thinks she'll get complex software right the first time?
--James Alan Gardner
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Nartin Fowler
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Unix Fortune
Perl – The only language that looks the same before and after RSA encryption.
--Keith Bostic
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
--Donald Knuth
A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points
--Alan Kay
With software there are only two possibilites: either the users control the programme or the programme controls the users. If the programme controls the users, and the developer controls the programme, then the programme is an instrument of unjust power.
--Richard Stallman
Learning the art of programming, like most other disciplines, consists of first learning the rules and then learning when to break them.
--Joshua Bloch