Introduction to

Satyajit Ghana

04 - February - 2019

COmpetitive programming

root@cynergy-ruas:~# whoami

Competitive Programmer
Web Developer
I like C/C++ 😜

C (99), C++ (98, 11, 14), Java, Haskell, JavaScript, TypeScript, R, LaTeX, MATLAB, Python

BUT What is CP ?

A Sport

I mean literally

HOW IS IT DIFFERENT FROM REAL WORLD PROGRAMMING ?

IMAGINE THIS

You are in the jungle. You have a pocket-knife. Someone asks you to kill an animal.
Years of training has taught you well.
You use your knife to sharpen a stick. Maybe you're from a top university, and you've learned to extract poison for your stick.
Convinced that you have an effective and efficient way to kill the lion, you set forth to accomplish your task. Maybe your stick is too short, or your poisons don't work. It's okay - you live to refine your method and try again another day.

NOW IMAGINE THIS

You are in the same jungle. You have the same pocket-knife.
Except that you have to kill a lion.
And you have only 2 minutes to do so.

Why do we even do CP ?

It make you a better programmer ! what else ?

Time limit always makes you write time efficient solutions.
It will prepare you for technical interviews.
Further it makes you great at debugging code.
It's a way to focus on your fundamentals.
exponential gain in knowledge.

“What distinguishes mediocre programmers from great ones isn’t their ability to do the 80% that’s straightforward. It’s their ability to do the 20% that’s hard and interesting.”