soda-topic-selection
Use when deciding whether a result is SODA-shaped (ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms) — concrete algorithmic problems, data structures, and discrete mathematics with quantitative progress — versus routing to STOC/FOCS, ESA, ICALP, ITCS, SOSA, ALENEX, SoCG, or a journal, judged from SODA's algorithms-first identity.
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill soda-topic-selection --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# SODA Topic Selection SODA's identity: the joint ACM-SIAM venue for the design and analysis of efficient algorithms and data structures for discrete problems, including the combinatorics and discrete mathematics that feed them, and admitting experimental validation alongside theory (SIAM SODA conference pages, checked 2026-07-08). The reviewing bench is the deepest *algorithms-specialist* pool of any annual venue — which is precisely the fit test: SODA rewards papers whose value is legible to algorithms experts as progress on concrete problems, not papers needing a general theory-of-computation audience or a systems audience. ## The three-question fit test 1. **Is there a problem with a bound?** SODA papers move a quantitative frontier: running time, space, approximation ratio, query complexity, update time, list size, competitive ratio. If your contribution cannot be stated as a before/after on some measure of some problem, the fit is doubtful. 2. **Does the improvement need an expert to be appreciated?** SODA's specialist bench is an advantage exactly when the answer is yes — a `log` shaved off a bound that experts know is hard earns more at SODA than at a general venue where "o
- The three-question fit test
- Routing map from SODA's seat
- SODA-shaped in practice: verified exemplars
- Borderline cases, adjudicated
- Anti-fit signals
- Framing once fit is established
- Output format
What does the soda-topic-selection skill do?
Use when deciding whether a result is SODA-shaped (ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms) — concrete algorithmic problems, data structures, and discrete mathematics with quantitative progress — versus routing to STOC/FOCS, ESA, ICALP, ITCS, SOSA, ALENEX, SoCG, or a journal, judged from SODA's algorithms-first identity.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill soda-topic-selection --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, a repository with 909 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.