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I have so far asked 3 questions related to Project Euler questions . The project Euler policy is "to solve by yourself", which I am in favour of. I also know asking hints for ongoing contests is not correct. But Project Euler is not a "contest which runs for a limited time". From how I have learned from programming contest questions is to take hints from someone after the contest is over, only if I have spent a considerable amount of time with a specific problem and am stuck on it. But Project Euler is kind of a contest which goes on indefinitely, the only way I can learn is: try the problem for days ( maybe weeks ) and if I am stuck ask for hints on stackexchange ( in all my questions I mention the problem link and specify that I am looking for some hint regarding my approach that I mention in the question ). I suppose this is better than giving up on the question after days of not making any progress.

As D.W. encouraged me, I am asking the community of whether its wrong/discouraged to ask such questions ?

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  • $\begingroup$ Some kind of resolution is needed, the most important part is to comply with our rules, PE rules are at most the secondary concern. Do you have any proposal how to make such question work? I am not against hints or tasks from PE, but keep in mind also this related topic meta.cs.stackexchange.com/questions/1033/… - whatever the outcome this will be our policy. $\endgroup$
    – Evil
    Jul 20, 2016 at 18:28
  • $\begingroup$ dont see issue, these online contests cover lots of areas & think applicable; tricky part is site policy "what have you tried?" aka "do some work" which is controversial across SE eg see should SE award As for effort. personally think if theres some basic analysis, that is acceptable. anyway most questions are quite different from each other and there is no consistent way/ technique to ask upvoted questions eg take prj eulers exercises & then ask about them here etc $\endgroup$
    – vzn
    Jul 21, 2016 at 16:03

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Asking for help with Project Euler is discouraged by project Euler. However their policies are irrelevant here.

Just because a task appears on Project Euler doesn't mean that they have a monopoly on it. Indeed many tasks are variations along common problems, which existed long before. The fact that a particular website uses a task as an exercise does not and should not prevent other people from discussing this task.

As long as your question is about the computer science side (mainly algorithms, for Project Euler), rather than about the programming side, it's welcome here.

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  • $\begingroup$ I fully agree, but what about hint part? $\endgroup$
    – Evil
    Jul 20, 2016 at 23:06
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    $\begingroup$ @Evil I don't think Project Euler questions would be different from the general case. $\endgroup$
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Jul 20, 2016 at 23:15

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