On D in competitive programming

[Ivan Kazmenko]

Thanks for the feedback!

On Saturday, 28 July 2018 at 20:33:14 UTC, Cym13 wrote:
> 1. Your real name isn't written in the article so the link 
> "with some successes" won't tell much to someone that doesn't 
> already know you

Hmm, didn't think of it.  I phrased it differently now.

In my experience, the participants' nicknames in competitive 
programming are mostly tightly coupled with real names, and 
otherwise, the blog author's profile is one familiar click away.  
So for a local Codeforces reader, that hopefully wasn't a problem 
anyway.

> 2. When you briefly explain templates I think it's important to 
> mention that empty parentheses may be omitted to allow the 
> reader to make the link between function!(arg1)(arg2) and 
> map!something. Explaining UFCS isn't necessary there though I 
> think since it's obvious that there is some kind of chaining at 
> play (not that you did, just thinking out loud).

Yeah, good point, mentioned it now.

> Also I have a question: I find very nice that some platforms 
> propose D even though not all do, but are they generally 
> keeping it up to date with DMD or stuck at something ancient?

It varies depending on the platform.  A few examples:

codeforces.com just recently upgraded from DMD 2.074 to DMD 2.079 
(so I could show the compile-time writefln in the post);

atcoder.jp is at DMD 2.070 but also has LDC 0.17.0 and GDC 4.9.4;

codechef.com has some ancient GDC, barely usable;

hackerearth.com has DMD 2.074.1;

csacademy.com (Romanian competitive programming website) does not 
yet have D, but I hope they add it in a few months;

hackerrank.com claims to have DMD 2.079, but recently stopped 
supporting it in live contests because of a paradigm shift.  
Namely, they now strive to supply the reading-from-file solution 
template for each problem, and apparently didn't get to writing 
it in all 35 languages they generally have.  I offered my help, 
but the support was kind of unresponsive, so seeking another 
point of contact now.

Generally, it seems to correlate with the health of the 
platform's backend.

In my code in competitions, I tend to now use features around 
2.070 so that they are mostly supported.

Ivan Kazmenko.