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An Introduction to Competitive Programming
What is it — and why should you consider doing it?
What’s Competitive Programming?
Competitive programming is an art form. It’s creative problem-solving at its finest, a combination of hard analytical thinking and creativity.
Competitive programmers use their knowledge of algorithms and data structures and logical reasoning skills to solve challenging algorithmic problems in a limited time frame.
Java and C++ are extremely popular due to their relative run-time efficiency compared to a language like Python. C++ is my preferred competitive programming language, as I love its Standard Template Library (STL) which allows for quick write ups of solutions.
Without further ado, lets get right into it.
How to Get Started
Learn C++
I know most people might not want to hear this, but as I mentioned already, Python will be hard to succeed with in competitions. C++ as a language for competitive programming is fairly easy to pick up, but like any language, understanding the nuances takes a little bit more time. Here are a couple of resources I found helpful (including a youtube video made by me):
