This part contains some tutorials on different aspects that I hope can help us at getting better problem solvers and programmers. It begins easy with simple programming tips mainly intended for beginners and goes on to topics like game theory, algorithm techniques and discussion of algorithms that have proven to be useful every now and then. Each tutorial also provides references to TopCoder problems where the material was or could've been used, so you can directly try to apply what you've just learned.
Note: I'm not really active at TC anymore (only rarely participate). Read "under construction" as "I started to think/write about this but I never finished something worth publishing and right now it's rather unlikely I ever will".
For Starters
TopCoder for Dummies - Things that are good to know when you're new to TopCoder, somehow a basic survival kit.
Basic (programming) tips. If you're a beginner at programming, these tips might save you quite a lot of time during the contest and make your code less errorprone.
TopCoder Survival Kit - Some advice I made up a while ago and mainly for myself because I was so angry that I made the same stupid mistakes over and over again.
General Algorithm Techniques
Dynamic Programming (under construction) - A technique useful for a lot of TopCoder problems.
Brute Force (under construction) - A technique even more useful.
Algorithms
Connected Components and FloodFill - Identify the connected components of a graph. Special case: identify the regions of same color in a matrix.
Permutations (under construction) - What are they, how do I generate all, what are the limits concerning runtime, how do I find the best permutation, how do I recognize that my problem has to do with permutations, ...
Sets, Subsets, ... - What are they, how do I generate all, what are the limits concerning runtime, how do I find the best subset, how do I recognize that my problem has to do with subsets, ...
Specific Topics
Catalan Numbers - A little introduction to Catalan Numbers, motivated by the "Uniscraper" problem of SRM 115.
Game Theory (under construction) - Explains the Nim variants that recently appeared in TopCoder contests.
