This was something that was mentioned in the xkcd talk at Google. If you’ve ever wanted to put your programming skills to the test but don’t like the pressure and competition of joining a programming contest, then Project Euler is for you.
Project Euler is a series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems that will require more than just mathematical insights to solve. Although mathematics will help you arrive at elegant and efficient methods, the use of a computer and programming skills will be required to solve most problems.
The motivation for starting Project Euler, and its continuation, is to provide a platform for the inquiring mind to delve into unfamiliar areas and learn new concepts in a fun and recreational context.
Basically, Project Euler is a collection of interesting programming problems for anyone to work on. New questions come out every week. Currently there are 173 problems and most require the use of creating a program. There are some that you can do with just paper and pencil if you are innovative or creative enough. The problems start off easy (you can probably get through the first 10 or so in a day or two) and they get progressively harder to the point where less than a hundred people have solved the later questions.
Some More Details
- You can use any language or method you like to solve a problem.
- You only submit a single integer as an answer.
- You can attempt a question as many times as you like with no penalty.
- All questions can have a solution computed in less than a minute (although it’s okay if your program takes longer).
- You must register before attempting any of the problems so you can check your answers.
- You are given a rank out of all active users (currently 8000+) and a “genius rating” — the percentage of questions you have successfully completed.
Learning a New Language?
If you’re learning a brand new language, Project Euler is a great way to get practice and have some fun at the same time. Currently, I’ve written all my solutions in Ruby and I consider myself pretty much fluent in it now after just a week!
I joined last week and so far I’ve answered 29 questions correctly giving me a genius rating of 17% and a ranking of 1817 out of 8008 active users. Join up and see how you do! You can see my profile to see which questions I’ve done.
