Competitive programming improves your problem-solving skills (applies to any topic, not just algorithms), gives you persistence and gives you a lot of confidence in yourself, as well as you can find enough good people who are on your way will help.
There are a few things you can do to get started in competitive programming. I’m assuming you’re a complete beginner.
Here are a few things you’ve learned about doing competitive programming:
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- You don’t have to and you really shouldn’t overwhelm yourself
- Never wait to get motivated
- Don’t try to completely change your schedule
- Don’t let other people’s success demotivate you
- Practice, practice, practice. A lot.
Why C++ is Competitive programming language-
It’s fast, it has a standard template library that has a lot of content. For example, if you need a good sorting algorithm, you can include the algorithm library and use a function.
This is really helpful because you don’t want to waste your time on competition to implement basic things like data structures and basic algorithms.
Be proficient in one of the programming languages. C++, Java, Python are recommendations.
Additionally: Java sometimes leads to very complex and inefficient programs, and Python is not allowed in ICPC, so our recommendation is c++. But Java and C will also do.
Way to improve skills in C++ competitive programming language in 2-3 months:
“Best” way to practice competitive programming, because different approaches work for different people. Our experts can explain a lot of phenomenon in the competitive programming world:
Some guys learn programming very fast, Only after like a couple of weeks since he started programming.
Some people are born with the high problem-solving skill. They can solve small problems easily.
The more you train, the better you become: Of course, if you solve programming difficulties all day, you must be somewhat better, and thus being able to solve more difficult problems in less time.
Since you don’t need lots of mental preparation or warm-up exercise before programming difficulty.
But it also means that, if you just solve too easy problems, you can still only solve the small difficulty. You may solve big problems, but you are still unable to solve.
So yes, the best strategy to improve your competitive programming skills is to practice a lot, but you have to solve not only easy but gradually difficult problems. Exit your comfort zone and challenge yourself.
For example, if you resolve competitive programming problems:
CodeChef:
Is one of the best sites to practice coding. It holds three challenges monthly.
The long challenge is a 10-day long challenge that consists mostly of 10 questions.
The short challenge is a 2.5-hour contest and it mainly focuses on your speed and your accuracy.
Lunchtime which mainly focuses on schoolchildren (a big initiative by code chefs) and it’s an IOI style competition.
Codeforces:
Is a Russian website dedicated to competitive programming.
Codeforces provides to all users following main services:
Participate in small (2-hour) competitions, so-called “Codeforces Rounds” “, is held once a week;
Ability to solve problems from previous competitions for training purposes;
For building and testing problems “Polygons”
Like social-networking by using internal public blogs.
Topcoder:
Is a company that conducts the competition in competitive programming. TopCoder hosts fortnightly online competitive programming competitions – SRM or “Single Round Match” Known as-as well as weekly competitions in design and development.
The work in design and development is licensed for profit by TopCoder which produces useful software. Royalty is paid on the basis of these sales to the competitors involved in the manufacture of these components.
This is probably the oldest out there and has an amazing group of problems from previous competitions.
The top coder area and the way to code the problem is slightly different from conventional sites.
If you have to start competitive programming now, you will do it this way-
- Resolve the 200 most resolved issues on SPOJ, the problem. In 2 months.
(It will teach all standard problems, algorithms and implementation skills)
- Resolve issues with CodeChef and CodeForces for 2 months.
(It will teach variations, we can read solutions from others and learn better ways.) Skip easy problems)
- Resolve problems with TopCoder for 2 months.
(It will teach dynamic programming.) Div 1 500p)
- Check the previous ACM ICPC regional issues
(Great quality problems)
If you learn a new Algorithm now, you would do it this way-
- Read it from at least 3-4 different sources.
- Understand correctness proof and run-time analysis.
- (This is very very important, you will know it only when you deal with non-standard and hard problems)
- Question yourself on every step for correctness. Try to tweak the implementation.
- Check other implementations
For Competitive Programming:
You need to mention external links, tutorials, books, research papers, etc. on various topics like data structure and algorithms, you need to refer to greedy perspectives, divide and win, creative/win, etc.
Passive algorithms, graphs, trees, and other data structures need to be studied. And some of the hardest things like ropes, segmentation trees, etc., that you will eventually learn after your efforts.
Also, you need to use your abilities to make your mathematical basics the best, series including (Fibonacci, Catalan, AP, GP, HP, etc), formula, probability, permutation, combination, etc.
Sometimes some other subjects (such as physics) are required, but most relevant information is provided.
Also read…
The best way to learn Artificial Intelligence for a Beginner
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How to score higher in data structure assignment & algorithm assignment?
How to find trusted Statistics Assignment Help?
Conclusion:
For your purpose of being a “Good programmers.” Never try to copy the code. Whether you’re looking at some editorials or research papers. Try to study logic and then write the code.
If you try to study the code of other coders. And can’t understand them. So try to print the intermediate results to understand the logic behind each line.
One thing that can affect you. To overcome this you can print out the related resources and try to solve things by hand.
Use discussion forums to solve your problems for more purposes, there are a lot of awesome coders and top experts are available to CodeAvail to solve your doubts or to provide the best solution with the programming assignment Help.