Why is Competitive Programming needed?
The internship phase during engineering promises to be one of the most difficult and pressurizing moments in the life of an engineer. The placements rather resemble a do-or-die situation, but the scarcity of firms in the internships makes it even more uncertain. The majority of the firms belong to the profiles like analyst, SDE, IT, etc., which involves extensive coding. Thus, it becomes a necessity to maintain a healthy relationship with coding and deriving concepts. With the fierce competition in the picture, one needs to have a head start which necessitates the inception of competitive programming.
What is Competitive Programming?
A preliminary question that arises in the minds of coding enthusiasts is - "what is competitive coding and why should it be pursued in the long run." In layman's terms, CP is a mental sport that enables a coder to code a given problem under certain constraints. Amazingly, CP inculcates the art of thinking because coders are extremely hooked up, once they get a hang of it. This is evident as coders still keep thinking about codes and projects after shutting down their computers. Being a mental sport, it is a useful exercise for the brain which further invokes logic-based creativity to solve problems in the most fascinating and efficient ways.
The Modus Operandi behind Competitive Programming?
Explicitly speaking, there are online platforms in the form of websites that enable coders to practice this art of competitive programming. It is a place, where coders all around the country and world compete through live online coding contests-
- Essentially these contests have five to six coding problems in increasing order of difficulty with time limitations.
- At the end of the contest, points are awarded for accurate and efficient codes through which coders are placed on a global leaderboard.
- Once a coder surpasses a certain benchmark in terms of the number of points, the rating automatically increases indicating the competence and versatility of the coder.
This is a long-drawn process that requires intensive hours for understanding concepts and then practicing problems on these platforms themselves-
- Coders have no time constraints and have the liberty to choose the difficulty while practicing coding problems.
- The coders have to compile and run their codes to eradicate the errors and improve the efficiency of the code for large test cases.
- Frustration becomes normal after getting used to the prompt of the wrong answer. After all the hard work and corrections in multiple iterations, it feels ecstatic to be able to crack even one problem.
- "Ambition is everything", which motivates coders to further analyze more efficient codes even after getting their part correct.
Why Competitive Programming?
The field of programming is extremely challenging and requires a lot of endurance to solve problems that never have been solved before. Procuring a solution is not the ultimate motive, the motive is to procure the most efficient and robust solution in the least possible time. This is where competitive programming creates a miniature of a difficult situation where coders are forced to apply their logical and problem-solving abilities. Both these aspects must grow over time to tackle and deliver even more challenging situations. Last but not the least, firms like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. hire based on CP skills.
Guide to entering the world of Competitive Programming -
Read all about the 10+ topics you need to prepare for competitive programming here. Beginning competitive programming is a daunting task because it resembles a sea of unknowns initially. A lot of pre-work has to be done before stepping into proper CP-
The Basic Topics -
The most basic task is to understand a coding language in and out. This is the beauty of competitive coding as it does not discriminate against any language. It wholeheartedly welcomes any coding language used to communicate with computers. C, C++, Python, and Java are fairly more common, whereas Python is recommended for beginners because of its user-friendly syntax. The next step revolves around understanding the storage and processing time of the codes. It becomes essential to deeply familiarise with Space and time complexity as there exist multiple solutions to a problem but a coder is expected to come up with the most optimal one.
The Advanced Topics-
The central dogma of competitive programming involves the co-existence of Data Structures and Algorithms. Without them, competitive programming falls apart like a spineless body. To start with, we have arrays, stacks, queues, hash tables, linked lists, trees, and some disjoint plus advanced data structures. On the other hand, algorithms include searching, sorting, greedy algorithms, graphs, string algorithms, and dynamic programming.
The most essential part is to develop an ability to use the jargon according to the type and demand of the question. These constitute to be the heart and soul of competitive programming and are essential for becoming a holistic programmer. Stay tuned as these constituents would be intricately explained in our next blog.
Conclusion-
To conclude, once we have gathered all the armory, we can take down the bull by the horns. This would require an active level of participation in multiple contests across different platforms. Programming demands a lot of patience. Often coders start losing interest and exit. The mantra is to keep trying and be consistent until and unless the feeling of discouragement goes away and the want for more kicks in. At the end of the day, it is the approach that matters rather than just the final answer.
We look forward to hearing your intriguing instances and suggestions in your journey to conquer the world of competitive programming. Keep coding come what and put the real fire in the contests and internship tests :P
All the best with your preparation! Tell us all about your next competition on Twitter :)