usaco-guide/content/0_Intro/Intro_About.md

slug	title	author	order
/intro/about-this	About This Guide	Nathan Wang, Benjamin Qi	1

Goals

• Intended audience: anybody in Bronze - Gold.
  • We are not teaching people how to code (link to other sites instead).
  • "one stop shop": meaning that this is the only site they have to use.
    • We'll link to other sites of course, but the idea is that people will no longer have to go resource hunting as we’ll do all of that for them.
  • No guarantees regarding Platinum.
• Material will be grouped into modules.
  • USACO-Focused: generally avoid covering topics that will not appear on USACO or IOI.
  • Maybe designate "optional" modules.
• "Don’t Reinvent the Wheel"
  • Should set guidelines as to what counts and what doesn’t.
  • Link to online resources that already exist.
• Not just a collection of links
  • There exist plenty of resources out there. While we can link to all of them, we should not expect users to click through all of them to find the information they want. This means in addition to links we need to provide information about what the link talks about, as well as the quality of the link.
  • We don’t want to say something like “learn DP, here are 50 links that can teach you that.” Instead, we want to say “learn DP by first reading this one article, then reading this other article. For reference, here are some other links you can explore as you wish.”

Module Organization

Lesson

• Consists of text, videos, and simple problems.
• Goal is to introduce user to the concept.
• Everything should be completed in order.
• Any problems here should be pure implementation.
• Languages
  • Include C++, Java, Python for Bronze.
  • Include C++, Java for Silver and beyond (C++ takes priority)

Practice

• Link the relevant past USACO problems (and other recommended problems).
• Problems should be sorted in order of how they are recommended be completed.
  • Add comments regarding difficulty and / or solution sketches.
• Possibly include additional problems.