How To Start Competitive Programming From Scratch

People take on programming for several reasons. For instance, you might learn programming to work on an idea that you have been thinking about.

You could also learn to program so that you can be hired into a company or startup. However, others learn to program to take part in contests and competitions.

Learning programming to compete against others is more demanding than the other types of programming, and you have to take your programming skills to a reasonably good level. You have to understand all the concepts of data structures and algorithms and solve problems more effectively.

Learning how to program to participate in competition also means that you will be priming up yourself for rewards and other prizes. It is not difficult to learn to program, and if you have the passion for it, nothing will get in your way.

You will quickly pick up new concepts when you are putting them into practice, and for this reason, you will require a lot of practice to get better at programming. Programming is fun to learn, and since you will be working on real-world problems and coding challenges, the skills you develop will apply to a large set of problem areas.

What is Competitive Programming?

Competitive programming is a type of programming where the participants participate in contests. They compete to solve problems using programs that are simple but effective. At some competitions, the programmers are timed to solve a particular problem, and their solutions are graded to determine the winner.

Competitive programming is quickly gaining popularity as an easier way to recognize your skills from the top technology companies. It can get you hired much faster than other options.

When you learn competitive programming, you will be pitting yourself against the other skilled programmers out there, which means that you have to be good to participate in competitive programming. Following are some of the steps you can undertake to participate in competitive programming.

Step 1: Learn a language

A programming language will be required, which will be the foundation of the rest of the competitive programming.

Choose a programming language that you love and one that supports all the programming features you would like to work with. For instance, the programming language should support your coding style, and it should also enable you to be more efficient while coding.

Additionally, you must learn a programming language that you can practice with for hours without getting tired. Learning the language will also introduce you to the core concepts of programming, which you can build on to become more versatile with the programming language.

Step 2: Get started with data structure and algorithm

You will also need to learn as many data structures as possible to become better at programming. Competitive programming needs you to know as many data structures as possible. There are many scenarios where you will need to use a particular data structure.

Additionally, you will also be required to learn about algorithms, which means going in-depth and learning about as many of them as possible. When you know more algorithms, you will be able to program faster and develop more effective solutions for the challenges and coding problems you will be presented with.

Data Structures

There are a lot of data structures that programmers use, and to cover all of them, we would need to cover a whole series of articles. However, the most basic data structures are arrays, linked lists, hash sets, hash tables, and hash maps.

These are useful for keeping data organized and manipulating it with greater ease. Learning more data structures means that you will define better containers to hold your data when you need to work with it.

Additionally, you will become a better programmer when you can easily decide what data structure to use for your programming challenge. Competitive programming requires an in-depth knowledge of data structures, and you should at least learn about:-

List
Associative array
Set
Stack
Map
Queue
Array List
Skip list
Binary tree
Pagoda
Threaded binary tree
Treap
B-tree
Heap
Binary Heap
Leonardo Heap
Fibonacci heap
Radix tree
Ternary tree
Fusion tree
Segment tree
Interval tree
Octree
Bloom filter
Kode
Rolling hash
MinHash
Graph
Lightmap

Algorithms

Algorithms are the methods and steps you will use to process data in your programming exercises. Learning about several algorithms gives you the arsenal to manipulate vast amounts of information and ensure that your programs are as effective as possible. You must be familiar with at least some of the following:-

Sorting Algorithms

Searching Algorithms

Divide and Conquer

Merge sort
Integer multiplication
Strassen’s algorithm
Maximal subsequence

Backtracking Algorithms

Tower of Hanoi

Greedy Algorithms

Graph Algorithms

Djikstra’s shortest path algorithm
Shortest path in a directed acyclic graph

Mathematical Algorithms

GCD and LCM
Prime factorization and divisors
Catalan numbers
Fibonacci numbers
Modula arithmetic
Euler totient function
Set theory
NCR computations

String-Searching Algorithm

Rabin-Karp algorithm
Knuth-Morris-Pratt algorithm
Boyer-Moore string search algorithm
Bitmap algorithm

Dynamic Programming

Floyd-Warshall algorithm
Bellman-Ford algorithm

Step 3: Practice basic questions on programming sites

Once you have learned all about data structures and algorithms, you should do as much practice as you can using the fundamental questions provided on programming sites. Following are some of the platforms you can use to practice your skills and ensure that you are good with programming.

Hackerrank

This is one of the leading sites for competitive programming and regularly holds competitions, challenges, and contests. It is an effective way to learn programming by working on actual programming challenges.

Here, you will put your skills to work and see how well you have understood the concepts that you learned in data structures and algorithms. It is also an effective way to prepare for coding interviews, and your skills can quickly gain recognition on this website.

Leetcode

This is the best place to enhance your skills, expand your knowledge of programming and work on various coding problems. It also has comprehensive study plants for algorithms and data structures which will help you get better with programming.

The website prides itself on the best learning material on the internet and gives you everything you need to get started with competitive programming.

Topcoder

This is the one website that will give you as many opportunities to compete as possible. It has been designed in an easy and friendly manner which means that you will get easy access to many problems.

Build your skills by working on the challenges available on the website and see how well you can compete with the other programmers working on the website. The prize money for the champions can go as high as $10,000, which means that there is plenty to be won on this website.

Books

Books are another way to prepare yourself for competitive programming, and some of the titles that have been outlined below will give you the best information you need.

With these books, you will be able to prepare yourself better for programming challenges and the typically tested skills during programming interviews.

Cracking the Coding Interview

This book contains more than 180 programming questions usually asked at interviews. It is the best way to get yourself more familiar with what will be tested at interviews and make you better at competitive programming.

You will also be taken through how you can solve each question and some strategies that you can use to solve the algorithm questions. This is quite important for developers and makes them better at solving problems.

Elements of Programming Interviews

Available in a Java and C++ version, this is the one book that you will need to prepare for programming interviews. There are more than 250 problems with clearly explained solutions.

As such, you have more than enough to work with for competitive programming and prepare yourself to participate in interviews. There are many coding problems in the book to ensure that you are ready for the challenges ahead.

Programming Interviews Exposed

Preparing for technical interviews requires that you have what it takes to tackle the problems you are presented with.

There are plenty of online coding contests organized each year, and it is essential to be well prepared for them. This book has everything you will need for these contests and the preparation required to emerge the winner.

Step 4: Start Participating in Coding Challenges or Contests

Once you have picked up the skills and undertaken the practice exercises, you are now ready to take on the competitive challenges. There are plenty of contests and challenges available to programmers on the internet. They include:-

Hackerrank

There are plenty of coding challenges and contests available through this website. These contests and challenges have a reward associated with them, and they are updated regularly.

As such, there is always an opportunity for you to be part of the competitive programming and put your skills to use. Hackerrank boasts a variety of contests and challenges which means that there is always something for you.

Leetcode

Leetcode is another website with over 200 programming challenges. However, frequent challenges are posted on the website to ensure that you have the best opportunity to compete with other programmers.

These contests have a prize associated with them, and as such, you can easily win massive amounts on the website. With the website, you will get as many opportunities as you need to challenge yourself and prove yourself as the coder that everyone can look up to.

Step 5: Practise! Practise! Practise!

Finally, you will need to practice religiously on various programming problems. There are many problems sets that you can work on each day, and when you keep this habit regular, you will benefit significantly from it.

Whenever you have time and your computer close by, you can work on a programming problem which will enable you to become better at programming. Additionally, the practice exercises ensure that you better understand the concepts you have been learning throughout your training.

This will also improve your experience and ensure that you are more suitable to take on actual challenges. The practice will also enhance your skills, and you will find yourself increasingly better at solving programming problems most efficiently.

With more practice comes an improvement of your coding skills, making you better prepared for competitive programming. Remember, the more you practice, the better you will become at programming, which means that you will also compete more effectively. As such, you will have a higher chance of winning the contests and walking home with the prize money and other rewards.

Java and Python are the programming languages that are mostly used by programmers and they are easy to learn. They are also powerful and give you all the tools you need to develop solutions to various problems. You can easily land your dream job when you learn to program as there are many companies looking for talented programmers like you.

FAQ

Q: Where can I practice competitive programming for beginners?

A: There are a number of good websites like TopCoder, HackerRank, and CodeChef which allow you to practice with their challenges and problem sets.

Q: Is HackerRank good for beginners?

A: Yes. HackerRank has levels and all the problems are graded to match the experience level of the programmer. As such, the website is suitable for beginners.

Q: Do Companies hire through HackerRank?

A: Yes. There are a lot of companies that look for talented programmers on the platform.