I am not doing well.

Hey guys
I am a average coder with not so awesome coding skills. It is making me frustrated that I am not able to solve problems in long competitions. I have till now just solved one problem in long competition. Should I quit coding or may be I should do something else?

Hi. You could follow either of these playlists:

https://www.commonlounge.com/discussion/55e14de95aed4baa84f61bcb4c14ca3c

https://www.commonlounge.com/discussion/f6052177ea3543439251079f57f480e0

Both of them are quite good.

One reason for you not being able to solve problems could be that you might not know the algorithms and data structures required to solve them, or you might not have had enough practice.

There are two popular ways to practise: you could learn an algorithm and practise problems based on that, or you could practise random problems of a particular difficulty and when you’re unable to solve a problem that requires an algorithm you don’t know yet, you could learn the algorithm, solve that problem, and go back to practising random problems again.

I’m doing the second playlist above. It teaches you a few algorithms together, and then gives problems based on them, so that you develop the skill of identifying the algorithm that is to be used to solve a particular problem.

Hi

First of all “Give up” is not an option. The only way to become a perfect coder is to practice hard. If you are new in coding then you should follow these steps:

1.) Do practice problem of “Beginner” section in codechef, at beginning stage you should solve the problems which have more submissions (more than 5000) :stuck_out_tongue:

2.) When you are able to solve at least 25 to 30 problems of “Beginner” section then jump to “Easy” section of practice && solve the problems.

3.) You can follow the link https://www.codechef.com/certification/prepare for topic wise preparation.

4.) Also participate in all monthly 3 contests of codechef ie. Long Challenge, Cook-off, Lunchtime and after the contest you should refer the editorials of the problems.

5.) Also you can read this book https://jadi.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/competetive-programmers-handbook.pdf for more information about coding.

PS: ONLY PRACTICE IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS.

I think this will help you.