Competitive/Collaborative Programming Class

ICPC Computer Programming Contest Prep

Problem Solving in Computer Science

Fall 2025 -- CSC 2700 Section 01
1245 Patrick Taylor Hall, 6:00 PM - 7:50 PM



Class Home




Delivering good software today is often better than perfect software tomorrow, so finish things and ship.
--David Thomas
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
--John Ciardi
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live
--John Woods
What is a university/college when the students lose interest?
--Isaac Traxler
It's got to be the going not the getting there that's good.
--Hary Chapin
There is nothing good or bad about knowledge itself; morality lies in the application of knowledge.
--Jon Erickson
What kind of programmer is so divorced from reality that she thinks she'll get complex software right the first time?
--James Alan Gardner
Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.
--Edsger W. Dijkstra
Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
--Nartin Fowler
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 ain't no rules around here. We are trying to accomplish something.
--Thomas Edison
The personal computer isn't "personal" because it's small and portable and yours to own. It's "personal" because you pour yourself into it - your thoughts, your programming.
--Audrey Watters
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
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
The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else do it wrong without comment.
--Theodore H. White
Managers of programming projects aren’t always aware that certain programming issues are matters of religion. If you’re a manager and you try to require compliance with certain programming practices, you’re inviting your programmers’ ire. Here’s a list of religious issues:
■ Programming language
■ Indentation style
■ Placing of braces
■ Choice of IDE
■ Commenting style
■ Efficiency vs. readability tradeoffs
■ Choice of methodology—for example, Scrum vs. Extreme Programming vs. evolutionary delivery ■ Programming utilities
■ Naming conventions
■ Use of gotos
■ Use of global variables
■ Measurements, especially productivity measures such as lines of code per day
--Steve McConnell
Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen.
--Edward V. Berard
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
Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible.
--Alan Kay
The issue of finding the best possible answer or achieving maximum efficiency usually arises in industry only after serious performance or legal troubles.
--Steven S. Skiena
When in doubt, do something.
--Harry Chapin
If the steps become to big, they become walls...
--Herb Sutter
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
--Donald Knuth