If you want to know what competitive programming is, you won’t find the answer in a standard dictionary. Instead, you could look on Wikipedia. It’s not the most hospitable site for competitive programming content, and the main competitive programming article is rudimentary at best. But at least there’s an article, and it hasn’t been deleted (yet).

Alternatively, you could browse the 23 or so answers to the Quora question What is competitive programming? (my answer).

I also wrote a blog post a few years ago that answers the question in a different way: What is Competitive Programming?

Why is this post so short? Find the answer, and links to a blog table of contents, at A Summer 2019 Experiment.

Coding interviews and coding competitions are similar in some ways, but they aren’t interchangeable. For example, they differ in how code is evaluated:

How is the code judged by the companies (during interview) or coding competitions? (answer)

Why is this post so short? Find the answer, and links to a blog table of contents, at A Summer 2019 Experiment.

One of the many complaints that people have about coding interviews is that they are biased towards recent graduates. As the argument goes, recent graduates have just finished studying the algorithm-heavy topics that those interviews favor, so they have an unfair advantage. But the advantage isn’t as strong as one might think, because a typical computer science curriculum isn’t aimed at preparing students for coding interviews or programming contests. Or to put this in the hyperbolic style of Quora questions:

If algorithms are taught in universities, why doesn’t everyone win the ACM-ICPC competition? (answer)

Why is this post so short? Find the answer, and links to a blog table of contents, at A Summer 2019 Experiment.

On June 13, 2012, Quora user Kent Palmer read a post on Cal Newport’s Study Hacks blog, and posted a question: “How do you practice ultra-learning?” It took over seven years, but there’s now a definitive book-length answer to that question, Scott Young’s Ultralearning. I summarized the advice from the book in my answer to the Quora question, and in two blog posts last month:

• Book Review: Ultralearning by Scott Young
• An Ultralearning Approach to Mathematics Practice

Here’s another Quora answer from last week:

Question: Is Cracking the Coding Interview a good read to improve my programming skills for future job interviews and competitive programming? If so, do you have other recommendations like books, projects, websites, etc.? (answer)

Why is this post so short? Find the answer, and links to a blog table of contents, at A Summer 2019 Experiment.