<aside> 📣 Motto: Be honest, not polite.

</aside>

Obviously, you know how to chat in general. And we can do that too. But here I want to lay some ground rules for “study-work chat”. What should you do when you want some input from me, like help on the problem, feedback on your ideas, some hints, general strategy discussion etc.

Basic idea:

<aside> ✅ Give me as much information/context as possible. Preferably in a structured way.

</aside>

• If you want to talk about a specific problem:
  • Give a link to the problem. No exceptions.
  • Say how do you understand a problem (math model).
  • Explain what you did, what you tried to do, why it didn’t work.
  • Clearly state the question.
  • If you want to talk about your code (or my code, or some code), you should send it in a way that’s readable without downloading files. It may be a link to the submission on CF/AC, or link to pastebin or something similar.
  • Basically, describe your Path of Problem Solving up until the point you are stuck in.
• Yeah, that’s a lot of stuff. Due to the nature of async communication, it better be in one message per one question, although it is not critical.
• I generally believe that explaining your ideas and writing down your proof makes you better as a person as a mathematician, helps you to clarify your thought process, and creates logical shortcuts (also known as how the fuck did you understand that you needed to do that in 1 minute?!). So, consider explaining your thought process and reductions, even if you don't need any help.
• Please write only in the specially created for you chat in Discord (not in personal messages). This is (will be) a job for me, and I want to be able to ignore those messages outside of working hours.
• Do not expect instant response. Even if you write a message during the office hours.
• This should be an asynchronous communication. Do not bother with pleasantries. Ask the question when you have it, I will answer when I will. If you already asked some question and have a different one (about a different problem perhaps), don’t wait while I’ll answer the first one, just send the second one. We’ll manage it somehow, if there will be too much stuff, we’ll create threads or something.
• If you have already cleared your doubt before my answer, either just delete the question, or redact the message to mark that you don’t really need an answer right now, maybe I still will be able to say something wise, deep and profound meaningful.
• I will use reactions (emojis) to mark some simple stuff: message read, I need time to think, Yes/No for simple questions, maybe something else.