a failed SRM234

Today's SRM at Topcoder, left me grasping for breath. I think I was more pysched out by the context in which I viewed the problems than anything else. The 500 point problem - splitting fractions into unit fractions - I racked my brains on it for quite a while, then finally gave into the desperate measure to look up something on the net. And found something called Egyptian fractions. Though I noticed the first line of the page later on, after the match finished, I chided myself for being so stupid. It simply said: "The most natural and obvious method of finding an Egyptian fraction representation for a given number is to approximate the number as closely as possible by a single unit fraction, and then to use the same method to represent the remainder. For instance, the largest unit fraction less than 5/6 is 1/2, and removing 1/2 from 5/6 leaves 1/3, so this idea leads to the representation 1/2+1/3 mentioned above. There are several ways of translating this idea into a specific algorithm." How dumb could I be to not think of this myself? The 1000 pt problem completely bowled me over with context free grammars, and I started thinking around Finite Automata's and regular languages - an overkill. When a guy from China, finished the damn problem with simple case by case solution. Dude ! I need more practice.