8th ACM Egyptian National Contest 2009

Alexandra University - Faculty of Engineering teams

Dear friends,

How are you all, today is the next day after coming back from the 8th ACM Egyptian National Contest in Cairo (Faculty of Computer and Information Cairo University).

In the train with eng. Bassiouny asking him in some problems

Really yesterday was a very hard day, I have slept for only 1 or 1:30 hours before waking up to go to the contest, then I went to the Railway station to start our traveling  journey. But unfortunately the train was very bad, it come to the station after 20 mins from its original time :S and when we enter to our car some of our friends saw a mouse in running under the chairs (Wow mouse in the train), the train was very slow, and we reached Cairo with a delay not less than 1 or 1:30 hour.

Alex Uni Engineering teams in the Opening session

Then we reached to the FCI after the registration was closed , but we went before the Opening Session, really it was very hot and we are very tired, then we started our practice session to try everything as in the contest environment, then we went to pray and then have a break till the contest start..

AlexCSE 1 during the practice session

In the contest we my colleague Abdel-Rahman have found the easy problem, so I got it to code this problem and I have submitted it in 4 mins only, that it want to get the number of even number and odd numbers in a group of given numbers, I thought that I was the first one to solve this problem in the contest but I found that FCI-CU 1 team have solved it in 2 mins only (ma sha2 Allah)  :D, after solving this problem we went pending for 1:30 to 2:30 hours without solving any other problem, we tried to solve more than one problem but we got time limit or WA :S, then el hamd L Allah we started submitting problem and got other 3 YES mesages , and went to the 10th place but we solved the 4th problem in the blind hour and don’t get its balloon

AlexCSE 1 after the contest before announcing results

Finally, it was very good day el hamd L Allah, and our teams got the 10th, 15th, 18th, 29th, and 31th ranks in the contest. Really the FCI-CU guys were very tired to organize such event, but of course there are some problems but really Good Work. Really all our teams want to thank eng. Mahmoud Bassiouny for his hard work with us, really he is a very good person that rarely you can meet.

On the metro station after the contest (on our way back to Alex)

And one of the comic situations that we have during the contest we have, in the submission system in the contest you can request a Clarification to the judge and he can reply to you only, or reply to all this clarification and publish it all the contestants. The judge has to reply to the important clarifications only and if it is a silly one he have to reply with standard reply which is “No Response, read the problem statement“, but the judge who is responsible for the clarifications in this contest wasn’t a good one as I think, first of all he was publishing all the clarifications even the ones who are replying to them with the standard reply, and also he is answering the silly questions such as “In cpp how can I use method sort, #include <algorithm> or not??“.. so I really bothered from these messages that popup during the contest so I sent to him a clarification asking him “Please don’t publish any clarification except the important ones“, so after a few minutes he replied to my clarification and published it too and said “No Response, read the problem statement” looool, I can’t say anything except looooool

And in our way back we went to abdel men’em riyad and took a bus at 11:00 pm and I have reached my home at the end at 3:00 am, I can’t wake up at the morning to go to the faculty and I waked up at 3:00 pm then after an hour I went to bed again to start my day at 8:30 pm

Thanks to all my friends in this journey, and a great than to eng. Mahmoud Bassiouny. And here are the Results for who want to check it

Salam,

A week ago

Eng. Bassiouny with organizers and AlexCSE teams

Elsalam 3alikom

wow, It long ago since I wrote my last post it was in the summer when I was in eSpace , today I will take about an important event done in our faculty in the last week (Thursday 8th October 2009), we held an ACM contest practicing with other faculties as FCI-CU, AAST, GUC, and AlexCSE

Really, it was a very great day el Hamd L Allah (of course it contains some problems but it is a good day for the first time), we stayed in the college for 2 days before the contest preparing for it, really all of us we very tired before and after the contest all of us were working to finish all the tasks as soon as possible especially eng. Mahmoud Bassiouny, really this man exerted great effort in preparing this contest.

AlexCSE 1 during the Contest

Before the contest I was one of the main organizers in the contest, but during the contest I was a contest in “AlexCSE 1” team with my friends Abdel-Rahman El-sergani and Hussien Nomier, we are very tired in the contest and I want to sleep after two hours and can’t concentrate but we tried to concentrate but we can’t solve more than 5 problems and there are 3 problems we are working but we can’t finish them before the deadline of the contest so el hamd L Allah.

Problems are with different levels, one of them is very easy Adhoc problem solved at the beginning of the contest in 7 minutes, then a Prime Generating problem we solved it quickly in less than 25 mins but there is a small bug in the code I discovered it after 50 mins from the contest. Also there is an easy counting techniques problem solved by Hussien and other  2 problems (I think dynamic programming) solved by Abdel-Rahman. And then we can’t accpet any other problem but we were working in  2 tree problems one solved by DFS and the other solved by Backtracking, and the third problem is making a Java Compiler but very simple contains only if, for, while and assignment statements, really I liked this problem and wrote the regex of the assignment statement and boolean expression but it doesn’t work during the contest, and worked after the contest when I went home

Teams after the contest

After the contest I was very sad as there is an easy problem we didn’t finish but el hamd L Allah, after announcing the results we were in the 7th place. The standings “FCI-CU 1, FCI-CU 2, FCI-CU 3, AlexCSE 2, Gold Ace (GUC), IOI, AlexCSE 1“

Really I liked this contest too much especially that it is the first contest to be held in our college, and organized by Alexandria University ACM Student Chapter. I hope that my team get higher rank in the next contest, as there is ACM Egyptian National Contest next Saturday (17th October 2009) will be held in FCI-CU. Pray to us

regard,
Mohammad Kotb

Ruby Kaigi 2009

Dear friends,

Today, I will talk about an important event in espace. It is contribution in Ruby Kaigi 2009 (Annual Ruby world wide conference). This is because in espace they made two projects that they contributed in Ruby language with them, which are NeverBlock and Arabesque.

And here it the video of the presentation from Japan, presented by Ehab El-Badry and Mohammad Ali (Mido ) – CTO of eSpace -

My First Interview

Dear friends,

It was 3 weeks ago since my last post , here I’m back today with a very interesting post to me, which is “My First Interview In eSpace“.

On last Monday 29 June 2009, I have received a phone call from someone, who asked me to get a pen and write this email, and asked me to send my CV to this email as they need me in an interview to take a training in eSpace in this summer. I do so and then they replied to me to go to the company and have an interview with eng. Ali Maher.

When I went to their I met eng. Ali Maher and started the interview, and here is the dialogue of the interview:

I entered I found my CV with him and after welcoming and a small introduction he start asking me some questions
eng. Ali: So, what about programming languages you used till now.
me:
First,I have learned VB6 in senior 1 in the school.
Then, I learned concepts of programming using BASIC in preparatory year in the college.
And in the Mid-Year vacation of preparatory year I took a programming using C course with eng. Mohamed Amir, and continue working with C the whole summer in the Algorithms training.
Also, I read in Python and try to work with it, but I don’t make any project with it.
In the 1st year in the Department I learned JAVA.
And in the end of the 1st year we are asked to make a project in Society course with php, My SQL, HTML, JS

eng. Ali: What is the language you will choose to make a certain project, if you have the ability to choose the language?
me: Really I will choose JAVA, as I worked a long time with JAVA than C or Python for example, but If it was a very important application that I care about efficiency of the application or the project, so I will start thinking in C/C++ or any other language to learn if it is better.

eng. Ali: OK, lets move the the trainings you have taken, can you talk about them please?
me:
February 2009: we took An Introduction to web development training under the auspices of ACM Chatper, as you took Introduction to web development, HTML & XHTML, CSS, JS, and JS using YUI
we took some assignments in this training in HTML, and JS..
February 2009: we took also a group of session in Introduction to undergraduate research, as Ahmad Saeed tried to transfer his experience in this field to us, as he tried to explain what is the meaning of Research, Paper,… and other expressions in this field, and explain the steps of this long journey in this field. But unfortunately we can’t complete these sessions, as he was very busy at the end of the period.

eng. Ali: So, in the Algorithms training what is the meaning of Adhoc problems?
me: Adhoc problems are the problems you can solve with thinking only, and it is not required to study a certain topic to solve these problems like for example the Graph theory or Dynamic programming.

eng. Ali: Can you give me an example?
me: OK, (then I explained to him a famous problem in my college which is called Milk , and then explained the answer).

eng. Ali: But you can solve this problem with Knap Sack, do you know it?
me: Yes, I know Knap Sack problems but I’m not so good in it, and I can’t solve with it.

eng. Ali: For example, A thief want to steal a flat and he has a bag, and you can put only less than 50 Kg in this bag, so he have to choose the things to steal it to have max cost to occupy this bag.
me: yes I know this example in Knap Sack and can solve it, but I don’t know how to solve other problems with it .

eng. Ali: OK, lets go to the activities section, and really it is full of activities ….
me: Thanks

eng. Ali: first one is blogging, so what is your last post in your blog?
me: It was about TopCoder SRMs

eng. Ali: What is TopCoder?
me: (I explained it to him, if you don’t know it you can read the previous post ).

eng. Ali: Second, so explain to me what you made in Imagine Cup, and what is your project?
me: We participated in Imagine Cup ‘08 Paris in “Project Hoshimi Programming Battle”. Simply, do you know strategic games like Red Alert & Generals
eng. Ali: yes
me: When you start a game like it you put a strategy in your mind and put it in cases, in case of .. I will make … and so on.
So, there was a game like these games with different rules and we are asked to make a strategy using programming and give them a .dll file, and then they divide all the files into groups and then all the files in each group with play with them selves and so on till they get the 1st team.
And I participated in this project with a partner, and we faced a lot of problems especially in the last month before the deadline, as we have worked all the time in the wrong track, and we understood this during our Mid-Term exams in April, so after the exams it was just 2 weeks before the deadline we have to learn VB.NET and try to understand OOP concepts and make our strategy and implemented it….
Finally we are from the Top 40 team out of 153 Team..
eng. Ali: nice

eng. Ali: Now, it is your time to ask me two questions.
me: OK, I have prepared a list of questions before the interview, but I don’t remember anything now , but of course the most important question what is your opinion about this interview??
eng. Ali: Really it was one of the interviews I really liked.
me: thanks for this interview, and I hope to be with you in this training in sha2 Allah .
eng. Ali: in sha2 Allah

Finally this was my journey with eSpace interview, and El Hamd L Allah after 2 days they replied to me with a mail to inform me that I will be with them in this training , and I will start the training on Sunday 5th July 2009 in sha2 allah.

Really I’m very happy to work with eSpacians and hope to do something valuable there in sha2 Allah…

Thanks,

Mohammad Kotb

My First SRM on TopCoder (SRM 442)

Hello my friends,

It along ago from my last post, really I was very busy in my academic study and final exams, and now we started our summer .

So, I liked to make this post the first post after this long time away from blogging. 

Today, I have received an email from topcoder.com announcing for their 442 SRM will start at 7:00 pm. So, its along ago since I registered in topcoder and didn’t enter any SRM as I was busy in its time. So, it was a very nice chance for me to enter this SRM this time..

So, what is SRM? what is TopCoder? that’s why I write this post today..

If you interested in solving programming and algorithms problem so you will like it. Simply TopCoder is a site which hold contests in different fields one of them is Algorithms Contests, which are online contests each week for example. And this contest is called SRM (Single Round Match).

Each SRM is divided into two phases:

• 1st Phase: Coding Phase
  which you are allowed to solve 3 problems with points 250, 500, and 1000 point respectively in only 1:15 hr. When you open the problem it will count down the score starting from the score points for example 250 point till you submit the solution of the problem.
• 2nd Phase: Challenge Phase
  As the SRM is divided into several Rooms & each Room contains not more than 20 coder. So, you start challenging with these coders by opening their source code of any of the 3 problems & try to find a test case which make their program fail. So, if you succeeded to get such testcase then you will take 50 points to your score. And if you failed then you will lose 25 points from your score.

So, the most Importan question is: How to start this topcoder?

Simply, you can log onto this page which is topcoder’s  official site.

The steps are:

•  You have to download the topcoder Arena, which is used to meet the coders all over the world & compete & code in it.
• Then, you have to open the Arena and register for a new user, and don’t forget to ask for notifying you with the SRMs
• Now you are allowed to enter the Arena and start coding.

You are allowed to open any old SRM and see the problems and try to code and submit them such as training for you and you will not take any points for it.

Finally, after I finished this SRM my rate was 984 after the first SRM, that I was in the 2nd group (Green Group 900 – 1199)

I hope you liked this post and that it helps you

Mohammad Kotb