I have solved few practice problems…I m very glad as I m feeling I m improving…still I need a better guidance how to use this platform much better way so that I can be better prgrammer…thanks
The best way to use this platform to improve you skill is ,continue solve problem which is present on codechef,
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Hi @chaseme. Welcome to Codechef.
The first and most important thing i would like to suggest is PRACTICE. To practice ,i would suggest you first start with the last (bottom most) problem in easy practice section and move up the ladder depending on how comfortable you are.You might think it as a waste of time attempting very easy questions but each question has a different concept and will offer you a lot to learn.
The main problem with going to medium or even slightly tougher problems of easy straight away is that these problems require not only good logic but in many cases knowledge of some simple or advanced data structures that are not very difficult to learn but you will learn them only after a certain level of practice and experience.
Proceed at the pace you find comfortable but start from the easiest to get a better understanding about the difficulty of problems where you get stuck and your weaknesses.
- Contests: Keep participating in contests and try to solve all questions on your own even if that means you do only 2-3 questions.Try to solve as many questions as possible even if you have to spend 2-3 days learning something new during the contest time. Refer to the graphs of some of the top coders and you will find that even they started with 1 or 2 questions but over 2-3 years of practice has made them into exceptional coders today.
The most important qualities that you require are patience and practice.If you have these, you will be at the top in no time.happy coding
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This is my own answer which i had previously written here : http://discuss.codechef.com/questions/26929/need-direction?page=1#26952
Hello there chaseme!
Programming is fun and I am glad that you want to start learning it 
The first step is to choose a programming language. The programming language that you choose will be the most powerful tool at your disposal and that is what will make you a great coder. Find a language and get comfortable with it. If you want to get into web programming I suggest you look into PHP. If you are not sure which language to choose, learn C++. Seriously, it’s the best thing to learn.
Many people will say that C++ is a very difficult language to learn and it scares away a newbie by teaching him/her too many things at a time like memory allocation and stuff. But once you learn a language as flexible and powerful as C++, you will realize it’s true power. It is really a great first language in my opinion. You can start learning C++ on thenewboston. Bucky will make you understand the hardest of hard things :D.
After you finish the video series, head over to this link and read the tutorials. The next step is obvious, practice. Practice is a really good way to put your knowledge to practice.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.
-Yogi Berra
You can start by creating basic console programs like calculators and then move on to solve the first few problems on the easy section of CodeChef. After you start solving the problems you will encounter some problems at first but don’t feel frustrated and dejected. You can always ask us a question on the forums
After finishing some of the problems, you might not understand the logic behind them. That is where algorithms come in. To learn algorithms head over to the TopCoder Algorithms Section. Those are the best algorithm tutorials I have come across. If you have a doubt in implementation then check out the solutions of other coders of the same problem. Study the logic, don’t just blindly copy paste the code or else you will never learn how to do it. You will slowly start enjoying it. Then solve more problems. If you don’t find it satisfying or fun, then maybe programming is not what you want. Find something else that you truly love and pursue it. If you still feel interested, then congratulations, you are a programmer and you love to solve problems!
Thakyou all…