freefrag

What's the advantage of using wider trees at every level? Asymptotically wouldn't you get the same behaviour with a binary tree?

Can you recommend any good introductory material or websites?

Yes. They even reference it on their website:

"Raft is a consensus algorithm that is designed to be easy to understand. It's equivalent to Paxos in fault-tolerance and performance. The difference is that it's decomposed into relatively independent subproblems, and it cleanly addresses all major pieces needed for practical systems."

What exactly does the winning submission do?

Yes, it happens once a month

He's not wrong.

To many mathematicians reality is largely irrelevant. For example G. H. Hardy, an extremely prominent British Mathematician, believed that true Mathematics is an art form and is not useful. He dismissed applications of mathematics as dull and boring.

And I can relate to him. It's incredible how complex, beautiful structures arise from a couple of simple axioms. It doesn't matter if what you study will be relevant or not, what matters is that it's fun and stimulating to explore.

This is an awesome idea! As a university student I'm trying to get involved in code club. We need to get kids hooked on programming early; make them realise that it can be a fun, creative activity and a way to express themselves.