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    Project Euler

    (projecteuler.net)
    180 points swatson741 | 47 comments | 12 Nov 25 17:24 UTC | HN request time: 1.16s | source | bottom
    1. treve ◴[12 Nov 25 18:33 UTC] No.45903951[source]▶
    Nobody is interested in AI commentary.
    2. rhdunn ◴[12 Nov 25 18:43 UTC] No.45904095[source]▶
    I've personally found the opposite. In order to advance you need to know the specific techniques or mathematics and there are no hints or information on how to approach the problem. So it boils down to how much of that mathematics you know. If you don't then the brute force approaches take a long time to find the solution.
    replies(2): >>45904185 #>>45904336 #
    3. leosanchez ◴[12 Nov 25 18:47 UTC] No.45904185{3}[source]▶
    I think with a few math tricks you can solve around 25-50, It gets very tough after that without maths background.
    replies(1): >>45905501 #
    4. josh-stylo ◴[12 Nov 25 18:48 UTC] No.45904189[source]▶
    Completely agree! Google + Project Euler was how I learned to code
    5. thornewolf ◴[12 Nov 25 18:48 UTC] No.45904195[source]▶
    I have done Project Euler very sporadically since high school. To date I've only done problems 1-54. Despite this, I think the website was a big contributor to my love of programming. I found it before knowing about leetcode and I think it prepared me well. I think I owe Project Euler a decent %-age of my eventual entry into Software Engineering as a field.
    replies(1): >>45905829 #
    6. Gormisdomai ◴[12 Nov 25 18:49 UTC] No.45904203[source]▶
    This website was a part of my education as a computer scientist and seeing it here again I'm curious for the full story of how this site was made. Who made it, what do they do now, is it part of a broader project they have?

    There is only very basic info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Euler

    replies(2): >>45904377 #>>45905464 #
    7. btilly ◴[12 Nov 25 18:56 UTC] No.45904336{3}[source]▶
    I disagree.

    Often the techniques that you need for a harder problem, are discussed in a forum for an easier problem. Even more often the techniques that you need for a given problem are possible to work out from scratch. And the more you work out, the easier they get.

    This can be very frustrating for people who are used to being spoon fed techniques, then given problems which use what they have just been taught. But it is a lot of fun for people who enjoy puzzles. If it isn't your cup of tea, that's fine. But don't dismiss it for people who enjoy it.

    Disclaimer. I haven't personally engaged in the last few years, but I've spent a lot of time on it. I solved 598 and contributed a couple of puzzles as well. One of which they immediately saw a way to do that I hadn't, and put it out there with a difficulty level that I didn't know how to do! That was https://projecteuler.net/problem=240.

    8. observationist ◴[12 Nov 25 18:57 UTC] No.45904377[source]▶
    https://archive.is/iEQxy

    This article is excellent. It mentions the creator, Colin Hughes, and the story behind the project, but it boils down to a passion project for him.

    9. Sparkle-san ◴[12 Nov 25 19:09 UTC] No.45904637[source]▶
    Like many others here, Project Euler was foundational in my education and growth as a programmer.

    Leonhard Euler himself is an incredible figure and arguably the most prodigious contributor to mathematics throughout history. So much so that people started naming things discovered by him after the next person to have proved them.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_topics_named_after_Leo...

    10. graycat ◴[12 Nov 25 19:11 UTC] No.45904678[source]▶
    Glanced at the exercises. It appears that two of them have numbers arranged in a triangle and ask for a longest path.

    Hmm. Given such a triangle, let m be the largest number in the triangle. For each x in the triangle, replace it with m - x. For the resulting triangle, solve it to give the shortest path using one of the well known network shortest path algorithms.

    11. bre1010 ◴[12 Nov 25 19:17 UTC] No.45904793[source]▶
    I discovered project euler as a novice programmer in high school around 15 years ago. I loved how solving a problem unlocks a secret forum only available to other solvers. I would spend hours reading through everyone's prior solutions and trying to understand them. One guy had tagged his profile as "haskell" but would always provide his solutions in ruby which threw child-me for quite a loop (I actually thought ruby and haskell were the same language for some time)!
    12. zkmon ◴[12 Nov 25 19:31 UTC] No.45905063[source]▶
    A great one of my favorite websites of the past. Wonder how they are coping with the issue of their users using AI to solve problems.
    replies(1): >>45905350 #
    13. unkulunkulu ◴[12 Nov 25 19:37 UTC] No.45905169[source]▶
    The most fun on this site is solving a problem and then having your mind blown by solutions in Apl/j/k and trying to guess what they mean without knowing anything about those languages
    replies(2): >>45906788 #>>45906789 #
    14. matthewaveryusa ◴[12 Nov 25 19:40 UTC] No.45905241[source]▶
    I attribute project euler for instilling the playful enjoyment of writing programs in college while I was studying electrical and computer engineering. I owe my career to it!
    15. Schiphol ◴[12 Nov 25 19:47 UTC] No.45905350[source]▶
    I suppose I wonder how those users are coping with having the robots do all the stuff instead of them doing some of the stuff.
    16. 0x1ch ◴[12 Nov 25 19:48 UTC] No.45905372[source]▶
    I remember visiting Project Euler back in 2013/14 or so. Was really my first introduction to programming exercises as youngin. Probably did fifteen or so of them before ADHD kicked in though. A small gem on the web.
    17. campbel ◴[12 Nov 25 19:54 UTC] No.45905464[source]▶
    Back in early 2000s, before hackerrank and similar coding sites, this is what my professors recommended for training programming skills.
    18. codexb ◴[12 Nov 25 19:55 UTC] No.45905482[source]▶
    Wow, I can't believe this is still around! I'm glad to see artifacts from the past like this are still out there on the internet.

    Makes me miss Google CodeJam though.

    19. rhdunn ◴[12 Nov 25 19:56 UTC] No.45905501{4}[source]▶
    Yeah. I think I got to around 10-15 before I got stuck. It's been several years since I attempted it though.
    20. ketanmaheshwari ◴[12 Nov 25 19:57 UTC] No.45905521[source]▶
    I solved a few using AWK, fun: https://github.com/ketancmaheshwari/projecteuler
    21. nik9000 ◴[12 Nov 25 20:09 UTC] No.45905732[source]▶
    I ranked on that once! I was like the 23rd person to do one of the new problems one time. Just about as low as you can rank. It was a fun puzzle but you had to be awake at a funky time to do it.
    22. sizzzzlerz ◴[12 Nov 25 20:10 UTC] No.45905768[source]▶
    i was a euler fanatic some years ago reaching problems in the 500s albeit, skipping problems along the way. at that point, too many problems required a deeper math background than i possessed so i abandoned it. what amazed me was that others composed solutions that solved problems in mere milliseconds that brute force approaches would still be running when the universe cooled to absolute zero.
    replies(1): >>45905880 #
    23. theoldgreybeard ◴[12 Nov 25 20:14 UTC] No.45905828[source]▶
    I love running euler problems when trying to learn the basics of a new programming language. I have a small collection of programs in like 10 different languages that I keep around as a reference for things because I always try to use language-specific features to solve the problems, and then I reference them as examples.
    replies(1): >>45906045 #
    24. ljlolel ◴[12 Nov 25 20:15 UTC] No.45905829[source]▶
    Ditto!

    Also a great way to learn a new programming language is to try project Euler problems with it.

    25. callc ◴[12 Nov 25 20:16 UTC] No.45905863[source]▶
    I too owe had my love for programming captured through project Euler. I am immensely grateful to my maths prof who introduced me to it.

    I also love looking back at my old PE code and having absolutely no idea what it doing. No comments, no docs, no notes. From a different era.

    26. rbongers ◴[12 Nov 25 20:17 UTC] No.45905880[source]▶
    I only reached the 100s back in the day. What amazed me was that it seemed like every problem had a paper solution, when it would take any computer algorithm thousands or millions of computations to solve the same problem.
    replies(1): >>45907275 #
    27. sbmthakur ◴[12 Nov 25 20:18 UTC] No.45905905[source]▶
    Hackerrank also used to host(still has?) PE problems with additional test cases.
    28. gregdeon ◴[12 Nov 25 20:26 UTC] No.45906045[source]▶
    Wow. You reminded me of a computer engineering class years ago where we wrote assemblers and emulators for a simple architecture. I tested mine by writing a solution for one of the first Project Euler questions!
    29. nurettin ◴[12 Nov 25 20:27 UTC] No.45906058[source]▶
    2007 I remember writing one-liner ruby solutions up to 100.
    30. Imnimo ◴[12 Nov 25 20:33 UTC] No.45906193[source]▶
    These are both a lot more fun, and a lot more educational than leetcode problems. Strongly recommend for anyone looking for practice problems when learning a new language or whatever.
    31. BeetleB ◴[12 Nov 25 20:40 UTC] No.45906315[source]▶
    Ha! I did a lot of these around 2007-2008. I solved the first 100 or so ones. Solving these were more fun than any other programming problems site I've seen. I quit it when I realized I was spending 4+ hours per problem - I couldn't justify the time.

    Beyond a certain point, most required some knowledge of elementary number theory.

    replies(2): >>45906813 #>>45906954 #
    32. pkoird ◴[12 Nov 25 20:50 UTC] No.45906456[source]▶
    I remember it vaguely but there used to be a badge awarded for being among the first 100 people to solve the problem. I was obsessed with getting that badge to the point that I spent obscene amount of time solving the-then recently released problem even when the following day was my final exams. I did manage to get that badge though. This was circa 2013. Fun times!
    33. anthk ◴[12 Nov 25 20:58 UTC] No.45906571[source]▶
    Thanks for reminding me this; I'd try to solve them both in Scheme (s9fes) and JimTCL.
    34. shaunxcode ◴[12 Nov 25 20:58 UTC] No.45906572[source]▶
    this is how you end up getting into APL/array langs for sure.
    35. meken ◴[12 Nov 25 21:07 UTC] No.45906697[source]▶
    One of my best memories was in undergrad there was one semester in 2013 where half a dozen of my CS classmates and I competed to try and solve the most Project Euler problems. We had a leaderboard and everything.

    I saw first hand how much faster my friend’s Java solutions were than my Python solutions.

    Good times.

    36. omegaham ◴[12 Nov 25 21:13 UTC] No.45906788[source]▶
    See also Uiua, a newcomer to the "extremely cool but completely incomprehensible language" family!
    37. taeric ◴[12 Nov 25 21:13 UTC] No.45906789[source]▶
    Even better than the crazy languages, is seeing some fundamental math used to prevent having to do a ridiculously expensive search.

    That said, raw brute force often did far better than you'd like to admit.

    38. coef2 ◴[12 Nov 25 21:14 UTC] No.45906813[source]▶
    I agree with you. About a decade ago, I got really tired of coding interview prep. I somehow ended up getting into Project Euler and worked through the first 100 problems. It was a great way to learn a bit of number theory and regain my interest in programming.
    39. aiahs ◴[12 Nov 25 21:15 UTC] No.45906822[source]▶
    I did a lot of these when I was around 15-16 and it solidified for me my interest in CS but in general abstract thinking and problem solving. Great site.
    40. darylteo ◴[12 Nov 25 21:20 UTC] No.45906886[source]▶
    How I learnt about prime number sieves.

    Good prep for Advent of Code in 2 weeks.

    41. goalieca ◴[12 Nov 25 21:25 UTC] No.45906954[source]▶
    Same timeline for me! This was my great procrastination side quest during grad school. I learned haskell and a bit of ocaml working on these. Functional languages are extremely well suited to these kinds of problems.
    42. davidhariri ◴[12 Nov 25 21:25 UTC] No.45906957[source]▶
    I learned so much from this site- including that so much education comes from being prompted to ask the right questions.
    43. ◴[12 Nov 25 21:27 UTC] No.45906978[source]▶
    44. peterkagey ◴[12 Nov 25 21:27 UTC] No.45906985[source]▶
    I wrote Problem 619 (https://projecteuler.net/problem=619) which was published on 2018-01-27 and solved by 474.

    The problem was based on 2013 Putnam Exam problem A2 (https://kskedlaya.org/putnam-archive/2013.pdf) which I took at the end of undergrad.

    I got an email six years later (in November 2024) telling me they accepted the problem:

    Greetings!

    Please excuse the email. It's quite possible that you are no longer active at Project Euler, but we are currently trying to retrospectively acknowledge contributors of problems.

    You were identified as being involved with Square subsets [619 m] in Sep-17.

    If you would like to be added as a verified contributor, please reply to this email and provide the username you currently use at projecteuler.net. Please note that contributor usernames will not appear publicly, rather they will be used internally to unlock new contributor awards we are introducing.

    Regards,

    Project Euler Team

    45. kekqqq ◴[12 Nov 25 21:33 UTC] No.45907049[source]▶
    No one tells you that they delete inactive accounts. I used to have over 300 solved problems htere. Now it is all gone, all the effort, but the skill remained of course.
    46. rufus_foreman ◴[12 Nov 25 21:51 UTC] No.45907275{3}[source]▶
    I played around with some of the easier problems, my favorite was a couple times when starting with the obvious brute force solution in code and then refactoring and simplifying it iteratively ended up getting me the paper solution.