To Eric's team: i could write entire libraries to show how much i wanna win but today i'm being nice.
import java.util.ArrayList;
class Scratch {
static int k = 0;
static ArrayList<String> arg2 = new ArrayList<>();
public static int main(int args) { k++; if (args < 2) return 1; else return args * main(args-1); }
public static void main(String[] args) { k++;
ArrayList<String> arg1 = new ArrayList<>();
int i = 0; boolean j;
for (i = args.length - 1, j = arg2.add(args[i]+(i+i)); i >= 0 && main(arg2.size()) < (args.length); --i) {
main(args);
arg1.add(arg2.add(arg2.removeFirst()) + arg2.removeLast()); arg2.addAll(arg1);
} System.out.println(arg2.removeLast() + " " + k); }}
Assume the function is run as so:
java scratch.java Sreethan is a big fat monkey
What is the output?
monkey10 9
monkey10 15
truemonkey10 18
monkey10 24
truetruemonkey10 27
A number of people asked why I would do something like I did in the previous Jeopardy. Many said "I have issues." Many said "I don't have a life." Many also said "Go ____ yourself", you can use your imagination but literally any word works there. Now the primary question to ask yourself here is: why? why would this be such a problem? Why would these kids show such hatred towards a classmate that makes them do work? I had to dig deeper. I realised, the problem isn't the work. It's the classmate. When your classmate will do anything to win, it angers you. Even though all of you are the exact type of people to do the same thing. All of you are the type of people that when backed into a corner, will break the bloody wall. The hatred has to be from a different reason. And then I realised, why did I do this? What reason would there be for me, just an individual, to come and make an insanely hard Jeopardy? Was I the retrograde, the real carrier in such hatred and bigotry to force classmates to calculate the determinant of a matrix, to trace functions that end in gruesome ways, to separate families of classes from each other in an attempt to perplex these individually smart teenagers?
As a child, I yearned for the internet. But something always got in the way. Whether it would be the depleted battery of my HP Probook 8710w, or the annoying Verizon uplink that would take forever to load, or the "Are you 13 years or older" prompt that came up whenever I tried to make a Google account. There was always something that prevented me from getting full, unfettered access to the internet. But the call of the code was too strong. One day, my dad set up an application on my HP. Back then, I ran Ubuntu 14.04 on the laptop, back then being 3rd grade. My dad used to use that operating system, and when he got a new laptop, I took his old HP. It was from 2007. Back to the story, my dad installed an app called Basic-256. BASIC was a basic programming language, and on the terminal prompt, I entered 19 characters. PRINT "HELLO WORLD". From that moment on, my life changed. Seeing a computer, a calculator that could handle numbers bigger than we could imagine in a lifetime, a navigator that connects us with the next door neighbours and my grandparents in India at the same time, a typewriter that can store thousands upon thousands of essays, schoolwork, and documents, an editor that could display millions of images and let me achieve photorealistic perfection, an entertainer that would never run out of choices for movies to watch, an arcade with unfettered 3D graphics, a tool to contribute to the mad world of open source software, and finally, a portal to a new world I would dedicate my lifetime to exploring and discovering. So one day, I started coding, and coding, and coding, until I found, this.
In 4th grade, I met two individuals in my class. Their names were Vishnu and Amogh. Honestly, I would never have started a real journey in coding were it not for these two dumb-guys. At the beginning of 4th grade, me and Vishnu were enemies. He was kinda annoying and we spited each other a lot. But over time, we became friends. I didn't know Amogh until one day I saw his last name and asked "oh you're indian?" and he said "yea". And so an unlikely trio was born. We learnt how to code in HTML using the one and only W3Schools, the only website that wasn't blocked on the school network. We used a Google-drive native integrated app called Codely or some bull like that. We created HTML files and we competed, not for the best looking website, but for the most functional, the most random, the most personified website that would get everyone jealous. Someone tried outdoing us by making a bloody calculator that they copied from Geeks4Geeks. But between the 3 of us, we had so much fun. Those were the days. From going through all that, you learn that the real life is the friends we made along the way. I lost contact with Vishnu after his mom and his friend's mom got into a fight and my mom didn't want to take any sides, and also he moved to Georgia and I haven't talked to him in like 5 years. Amogh moved like 5 times after COVID and I haven't talked to him either.
Which brings us nicely into the next scene. COVID struck. It was a bad time.... if you were a introvert. I was having the time of my life! It was now socially mandated that you had to stay home, on a laptop, for most of the day, doing nothing but "work" (or whatever could be phrased in that way). So I went and I learnt Python and Java. Two sides of the coin. Python was new to me in 2020, and I learnt it because I heard you could do stuff with it. I also only learnt Java because it was required to work on an Android app, and being on a Chromebook, I could only make Android apps. It's important to note this was a personal Chromebook, an HP Chromebook 14-da0011dx. Throughout virtual school, I had two laptops at my disposal. The Chromebook my parents bought for me (because I saved up the money) and my dad's old Thinkpad (this is the one he was using after he gave me the HP). But then, disaster struck. The Thinkpad broke, the fan had a big error, and the screw on it was so stripped it was impossible to remove. At that point, I could only use my Chromebook. So I started grinding Minecraft. While I was grinding Minecraft, I also made Minecraft mods. Yes, I learnt Java at the age of 8, 10, and 12, and 13.
After I learnt Python and Java, I worked in making two things: my own chatting client and server. I would call this AtomChat: based on Socket.IO and works with Android. The Python server ran the server part and the Android app communicated with the server and logged in to authenticate, allow chatting, singleton instantiation, and a lot of other (nonexistent) features. I mentioned the development of that app during my interview for this school, which I believe my passion for coding is one aspect of why I got in. Definitely not my grades or my exam scores, because those were HORRIBLE.
I also made a couple of other applications in the meanwhile. I made AtomChatJBS: a portable chatting website that could easily be self-hosted in the case of a party. I learnt Pynecone: a way to host React applications in server-based Python. I learnt Django: a Pythonic way to host full-stack applications. I was pretty good at it as well, but as usual, you don't really learn a lot from just being good at something. I would come to learn what I was missing out on after I came to this school.
SvelteKit. I missed out on the world of CSR/SSR javascript frameworks. Stuff like TailwindCSS, Svelte, React, Firebase, Supabase, Serverless Functions, Google Cloud Services. I also missed out on the world of Windows Phone, something that I would develop apps for (well the same app, but I made it twice because the first time the source code got deleted.) So I got to work, really developing everything using SvelteKit.
SvelteKit became my third brain. My website was made originally with Django, until I realised my website didn't have to be everything. It was already 2 years into development, and maybe, the real solution was to make something more simpler. Something that made more sense. Something that represented perfection in design, one of my core principles. This website was meticulously crafted to cost me no money while also looking absolutely as beautiful as it ever could. It specialised as a portfolio, a project page, and a platform for applications like JBS and my blog site. Check it out.
And now, today. Today is the day we take AP Computer Science A. Arguably a easy or hard AP. It's certainly annoying, but we all know what would happen if an actually-hard question would come on there. To answer the question though, I just wanted to have a little bit of fun and honestly what's the harm in having a little fun with a bunch of classmates that I'll probably never see again in like 2-and-a-half years? Spending 8 hours coding is like my freetime personified. Especially when that code is spiteful and brings despair in the faces of those who thought they were better than my team. As such, (switch voice) I am now imposing a 100% tariff on all code produced foreignly. Make America's code Great Again!!!