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Really knowing things - Tanner Hoke

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During undergrad, I got into competitive programming and noticed a strong tendency among contestants progressing quickly to spend almost all of their time actually solving problems. Contestants who progressed more slowly tended to spend a lot of time and energy on trying to memorize algorithms and then apply them to contest problems, rather than learning relevant algorithms “in the field.” One of the top competitive programmers in the world, Um_nik, has a much-discussed tongue-in-cheek post titled Things I don’t know. At the end of the post, he says “if you know at least 3 of these things and you are not red — you are doing it wrong. Stop learning useless algorithms, go and solve some problems, learn how to use binary search.” Something about actually solving problems, thinking deeply about them, and internalizing their lessons helps one really know things. On the other hand, it is very hard to theorize about how one might solve a problem. In the limit, people who spend almost all of t

Really knowing things April 5, 2023 During undergrad, I got into competitive programming and noticed a strong tendency among contestants progressing quickly to spend almost all of their time actually solving problems . Contestants who progressed more slowly tended to spend a lot of time and energy on trying to memorize algorithms and then apply them to contest problems, rather than learning relevant algorithms "in the field." One of the top competitive programmers in the world, Um_nik , has a much-discussed tongue-in-cheek post titled Things I don't know . At the end of the post, he says "if y

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