hello m in b.tech 1st yr cse mnnit allahabad…m new to programming…please tell what should be my approach to be a top coder and which books or videos should i refer…
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If you haven’t done any programming before, my suggestion is to first become fluent in a programming language. You must be comfortable with at least one language to participate in any programming contest. I suggest starting out with Java or Python. Though they might be slow, you can move on to faster languages like C++ as soon as you feel comfortable with programming in general. C++ is a difficult language for beginners since it’s not as intuitive as Python nor as safe as Java.
As soon as you feel comfortable with a programming language, follow the steps I’ve provided in my answer to a similar question: http://discuss.codechef.com/questions/4965/how-can-a-beginner-learn-programming?page=1#4975
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@sujit884 You should start with practice problems first. You would learn how to take input and output here in codechef.
To crack contest always just have two paradigms:
learn
practice
and You will learn when you will try new problems and learn the techniques associated with it it will definitely help you in future.
Furthermore a mathematical background is good for online contest. I can mention a few books.
COncrete Mathematics by Graham,knuth and patashnik
Hacker’s delight(useful for bit manipulation)
as you preferenece you should learn how to take fast input/output in any language of your preference and you should als know various library functions. Best book i can suggest is.
Core Java By Hortsman
C++ by Bjarne stroustoup
C++ Standard library
C by dennis ritchie
further more in online coding contests the programming technique is important rather than language feature. So data structure should be thorough. Codechef has listed many books and techniques here http://www.codechef.com/wiki/tutorials…
By the way welcome to codechef enjoy coding. 
PS: practice and patience is the only key.
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practice and patience make two! 
