Competitive Programming
I’ve been coding for over 6 years now, it has become second nature. Learning new languages, new UI’s, easier ways to implement things, that’s what I always look for. As an undergraduate , I was introduced to competitive coding, when I joined the Codechef campus chapter of my college, and took up the role of the Operations manager. Safe to say, I’ve never been able to look at coding the same way ever since. To those who still haven’t looked into competitive coding much, this might sound a bit wild, but coding can truely be a competitive sport. No matter the language, no matter the approach, what matters in this game is the output. The faster you get the perfect output, using the least amount of memory and the least number of lines of code, the better you score. Unlike teaching traditional coding, this branch of coding, forces you to understand the algorithm flow first and then find the language, you are most comfortable in to start implementing the algorithm.
Working with the IEEE chapter of SIESGST as the technical head, I was given an opportunity, to participate in IEEE Xtreme which is a global challenge in which teams of IEEE Student members compete in a 24-hour time span against each other to solve a set of programming problems. This was my first experience in such a coding environment and It is totally different from anything I have had previously been a part of. Heated debates on what the best way to solve a problem could be, Xtreme joy on getting an “answer accepted” screen , casual talks during random self assigned breaks all made the experience great and memorable. Being able to compete at such high ranks, with such strongly built teams, brings a whole new level of excitement as I look forward to leveling up and coming back even stronger and more prepared next year. Until then, let’s keep coding!
