Improve MPSQAS

[ltaravilse]

Nowadays writing problems for an algorithm contest is very hard, MPSQAS is not user friendly, there's no way of automatically generating test data (when I do it I have to copy each test case by hand as the Add from file button doesn't seem to work). Also the solution writing interface is not very good.

[birdofpreyru]

@ltaravilse What is MPSQAS? Is it part of the Arena?

[pizza-and-dog]

@ltaravilse, looking into this.

@birdofpreyru it's a tool we use to setup problems for SRM / MM's.

[JacoCronje]

@ltaravilse Are you sure you use the "Add from file button" correctly ? The text file that you select should have the number of tests (N) in the first line, and then N lines containing the test data (including quotes). A file with 3 tests might look like this: 3 "Data for first test" "Data for second test" "Data for third test"

[hokienick]

CAB MEETING

Would like a web version because currently it is difficult to write problem statements/solutions/test cases.

[pizza-and-dog]

@ltaravilse, can you give me a few concrete bullet points on improvements that can be made? Please also note the clarification above from @JacoCronje regarding the add button.

[ltaravilse]

@rsial2 Having a web version would be nicer, nowadays there's no instructions on how to use that button anywhere, I'll try to see if I can make it work, and you have to write the URL by hand (when I click the button it doesn't allow me to navigate folders, at least from Ubuntu 16.04). It's hard to edit statements with all the XML tags (specially having to use

for a new line). It would be also nice to be able to write more than one solution, so you can write for example an incorrect solution to see if it passes the tests. If you do so (maybe a tester writes an incorrect solution) it's not easy to see if all the other solutions match as you get for each test case "Solutions don't match" and you have to see test case per test case. If you change a solution, unless you submit, you see that your own solution doesn't match with itself. You cannot submit the solution if you don't write 5 test cases (that's very uncomfortable), you cannot start writing a solution until the problem is ready to be used so you have to start coding a few days before the contest (specially because of TopCoder handles IO automatically and the coder doesn't have to deal with it so it's hard to write the solution in your own computer, specially in cases like myself that I'm not a Java proficient coder and I'm forced to write the solutions in Java).

[pizza-and-dog]

Thanks @ltaravilse, I've shared this with our prod dev team.

[ltaravilse]

https://apps.topcoder.com/forums/?module=Thread&threadID=898808&start=15&mc=21

lg5293's comment I think it is that mentions this.