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Comment by btilly | Hacker News Reader

One good reason to hesitate is that Project Euler is supposed to be a set of problems that people solve for themselves. Therefore the admins request that people not post solutions, and occasionally will tweak parameters if certain problems are too easy to find with a Google search.

It is a losing battle to be sure, but they put a lot of work into it and I prefer it when people respect their request to not facilitate cheating.

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People who are going through Project Euler to practice will never search for those and would likely forget the fine details quickly, so having the answers out there somewhere won't matter to them. People who want to cheat at Project Euler already have plenty of ways (and besides, what would they gain? At least from my minimal participication, it does not really look like a contest and there are no prizes).

On the other hand, people who want to learn Arc might be very greatful to have a good set of code out there.

and besides, what would they gain?

Some companies in the financial industry use PE problems for interviews. People memorize brainteasers for these interviews, so I imagine people might also want to memorize PE solutions.

I couldn't disagree with you more. People solving the problems have a choice. If they don't want to look it up, more power to them. Otherwise, leave the decision to the learner.

I always hated it when teachers would hold on to the solutions to the exercises in the textbook.

You can share the solutions in the Project Euler forums --- after you have solved the problems on your own.

... unless the discussion for that question's already gotten 100 comments, in which case the discussion's read-only.

Oh, I did not know that. I usually concentrate on the newer problems.

They have places to talk about solutions where only people who already solved the question can see them - it's just that they close the discussions relatively quickly - 100 comments or some time limit? And you can't really discuss solutions on their regular forum, because that's likely a (deletable) spoiler. So to openly discuss & share, you really have to go elsewhere.

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