This document discusses competitive programming and compares several competitive programming websites. It finds that Codeforces has the most programming questions overall and hosts weekly programming contests. Codeforces also uniquely makes all participant code public and uses a rating system similar to chess ratings. While other sites like Hackerrank and Hackerearth have additional topics, Codeforces focuses solely on programming contests and exposes participants to a wide range of languages and problem types. The document shows Codeforces has the most questions in most categories like sorting and dynamic programming. It also finds Python is mostly used for simpler implementation questions while other languages may be better for more complex categories.

1. Visualising the world of
Competitive Programming
Anuj Menta

2. –<random_senior>
“Learn something other than Python. It won’t fetch
you a job”

3. • more commonly known as algorithmic programming.
• Popular among Computer Science graduates across all
universities (:P)
• Optimizing different operations using complex data
structures and algorithms like Binary Trees, Dynamic
Programming etc
• Common websites to practice: Codechef, Hackerrank,
Codeforces, Hackerearth, SPOJ etc.

4. Then why Codeforces?
• Only has programming contests hosted on a weekly basis.
• The most important thing : Every participants code is
public
• A unique user rating system(A bit similar to the elo rating
system)
• Very diverse in terms of programming languages and
types of problems.

5. –Anuj Menta
“All the numbers depicted might have a confidence
interval of about 90%. The study does not mean to
undermine or promote any website”

6. Number of questions
Just to start off with a small comparison
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
Codeforces Hackerrank Codechef Hackerearth

7. Hackerrank and Hackerearth have
problem sets on other topics like
Artificial Intelligence, Math etc (+10
points :P)

8. Number of questions | Category-wise
Categories: Sorting - Dynamic Programming
0
1
Codeforces Hackerrank Codechef Hackerearth

9. Number of submissions
Total number of submissions made for existing
problem sets
0
1
Codeforces Hackerrank Codechef Hackerearth

10. And finally….
(drumroll)

11. Comparison of Programming Languages
A comparison on all the four websites on 10
languages
0
1

12. –Some C++ stud
“Competitive programming is independent of
programming language”

13. But still..
How far can you possibly go if you
only know Python?

14. Broad Categories of Questions
• Simple Implementation
• Sorting
• Search
• Trees
• Linked Lists/Heaps/Queues/Stacks/Heaps
• Graph Theory
• Greedy algorithms
• Dynamic Programming
• Recursion
• NP Complete
• Advanced Data Structures

15. Proportion of Python submissions
The percentage of python submissions for different
categories of questions
0
0.25
0.5
0.75
1
Implementation
Sorting
Search
Trees

16. Comparisons to be added:
• Performance : Python vs. others
• Computation time: Python vs. others
• Number of chars/lines of code : Python vs. others
• Programming style : High rated coders vs. Low rated
coders
• Users churn rate( classified by programming language)