«Yesterday John downloaded a new game on his cell phone…» — this text looks like a task from a book of problems for elementary school. But not every student could solve this problem. This is the beginning of the one of the Russian Code Cup — 2016 final tasks. RCC is the biggest international competitive programming championship.
Members of the contest should understand the rules of the mysterious game, that Jack has downloaded. They need to create the algorithm of perfect play and turn it to the code. Here the real sport begins: members have limits of time and memory for their programs. Every time they send a wrong solution, they get a fine. Programmer, who solve max number of problems faster than other, become the best.
On competitive programming contest finals there are a lot of great coders, meanwhile the first steps of championships are open for everybody. It is a good way to make your brain work faster.
Who needs to use the competitive programming skills?
There are a lot of disputes about this question. On the one hand, real developers make their project in teams. They must write code in the clear way, so that the other members of the team could understand it. In Competitive programming there is a lack of time, so you need to code fast. It is harmfull for perspicuity of your code.
On the other hand, you need to sacrifice the efficiency of your code to make it clear. In Competitive programming this is impossible. The ability to code with max efficiency is useful in developing highload systems. Even the small bug in one module of this system can make a big trouble because of using this part million times.
Anyway, the competitive can be helpful. This is a good way to study algorithms — the basic part of competitive programming task solutions. If you can make the decisions fast in a stressful situation — you will be great both in competitive and developing programming.
Why taking part in championship is a good idea?
For students who haven`t any work experience, championships like Russian Code Cup are a good chance to see, what they are. They can find weak sides of their knowledge and study hard. Partaking in events like this are good recommendation for the employer too.
The most powerful coders can take a money prize in final. RCC is the only championship, that has such big amount of prizes. TOP-25 programmers can get them! For the first place there is a 150 000 rubles reward (about 2500 dollars), for the second place — 100 000 rubles, for the third — 65 000. Every programmer from 4th to 10th position can get 30 000 rub, and every coder from 11 to 25 position can get 15 000 rub.
Every member of championship can get a memorable prize. Every user of the Elimination round will take a special certificate and TOP-200 of them will take a cool T-shirt from RCC.
How to train and try your skills?
If you want to have a great result on the championship, you need to prepare yourself. The best way to train competitive programming skills is solving the real problems from previous championships. You can find a lot of tasks from real competitions on the codeforces.com. There are a special rounds, where you can try to code in limited time.
Registration
The first qualification round will be on the 2nd of April. If you won`t be online that day, try yourself in the 16th or 29th of April. Find more on russiancodecup.ru/en. Good luck!