Solving a Programming Challenge in Four Easy Steps

1. Reading the problem statement

Start by reading the problem statement, which contains the description of a computational task, time and memory limits, and a few sample tests. Make sure to understand how an output matches an input in each sample case.

If time limits are not specified explicitly in the problem statement, the following default values are used.

2. Designing an algorithm

After designing an algorithm, prove that it’s correct and try to estimate its expected running time on the most complex inputs specified in the constraints section. If your computer performs roughly $10^8-10^9$ operations per second, and the maximum size of a dataset in the problem description is $n = 10^5$, then an algorithm with quadratic running time is unlikely to fit into the time limit (since $n^2 = 10^{10}$ ...