Competitive/Collaborative Programming Class

ICPC Computer Programming Contest Prep

Problem Solving in Computer Science

Spring 2025 -- CSC 2700 Section 01
1212 Patrick Taylor, 6:30 PM - 8:20 PM



Class Home




But while you can always write 'spaghetti code' in a procedural language, object-oriented languages used poorly can add meatballs to your spaghetti.
--Andrew Hunt
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist
--Pablo Picasso
If the steps become to big, they become walls...
--Herb Sutter
The most important property of a program is whether it accomplishes the intention of its user.
--C.A.R. Hoare
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
--Donald Knuth
There ain't no rules around here. We are trying to accomplish something.
--Thomas Edison
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
Einstein repeatedly argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer.
--Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
Along every step of our journey through life, our mind is being programmed. If we are not programming it ourselves, someone else is doing it to us.
--Joseph Rain
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
Think twice, code once.
--Waseem Latif
How do you expect to succeed if you do not know the rules?
--Anonymous
I'm not a great programmer; I'm just a good programmer with great habits.
--Kent Beck
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.
--Alan Perlis
Happiness should be a function without any parameters.
--Pranshu Midha
Programming isn't about what you know; it's about what you can figure out.
--Chris Pine
Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible.
--Alan Kay
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware
--Alan Kay
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
--Rick Cook
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
--John Ciardi