katana_handler's blog

Is every competitive programmer self made? Help!
By katana_handler, history, 5 years ago, In English

I'm sorry for the long paragraph but please read before down voting.

Somebody told me that every competitive programmer is self made and that made me feel bad because I always got help when ever I got stuck. When I started CP I was very bad at implementation and algorithms and at every point someone always told me what to do with my code, it could be my friend, teacher, trainer etc. Only after a year I was at a position where I was doing okay.

And when this person said that "every competitive programmer is self made" it made me feel bad because if every competitive programmer is self made then even though I am doing okay now, my first year was not self made at all and it makes me think that I am not good/meant for CP.

So I need to know how correct or incorrect is the statement "every competitive programmer is self made" because this is really affecting me. I really hope I get some clarity from here because this is one of the best platform I can get help.

So my question is, Is every competitive programmer self made? If yes, how do you define "self made". Please be honest while answering.

Thank you and

Sorry again to waste your time on a non-technical query.

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Comments Comments (16)
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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +17 Vote: I do not like it

I didn't understand what do you mean by self made. It's okay to ask you learn by asking.

Anyway, why it's affecting you? It's not your friend, teacher or trainer to reach such level, it's you. You become purple in one year, I'm sure that you can do more in the future, good luck!

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +1 Vote: I do not like it

I learned some c++ stl, bfs/dfs from one my friends. Rest of few things that I know I learned from youtube channels/bolgs. I had opportunity to learn from my seniors but I didn’t because of shyness and that time I also used to think that they will laugh at me for not understanding them. Also I thought there is nothing learning besides dfs and bfs !!!! and good programmers can solve hard problems because they get idea automatically. I think you shouldn’t feel bad. I regret for wasting my opportunity.

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +37 Vote: I do not like it

There are no rules on how someone can become a good competitive programmer, whatever resources you have available, you must use them.

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +6 Vote: I do not like it

I definitely wasn't a self-made competitive programmer.

There's a lot of stuff I've learned from teachers / russian cp school (LKSH). But after all this pretty much comes down to how much effort you put in this. If you really put a lot of effort to it, you will be able to excel at any specific theme (e.g. Data structures / Graphs) at some point, so the bump-start from teaching might be a big deal, but it isn't as important long-term. There are many examples of people who invest all of their free time into CP and pretty much become self-made competitive programmers, but that's up to you and your willpower to decide whether you are going to invest much time into it.

On the other hand, there are people like me, who never went all-in CP, thus being hard stuck lower ranks, but I've made my choice to quit CP pretty soon and I don't regret it.

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +1 Vote: I do not like it

You better focus on your Pune Regionals bro.

regionals_is_coming

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +30 Vote: I do not like it

Learning from others is valuable. You get to see things from a new perspective and draw from other people's experience.

Individual pursuits are important too: digesting new information on your own, debugging your own implementations, and coming up with original ideas are all valuable skills. If you reach for help too quickly, you don't get to develop them as much.

Part of the journey is developing those abilities. Don't feel bad that you haven't done it already. Feel good that you've identified a new area for improvement, and start working on it.

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +30 Vote: I do not like it

Petr attended 11 national training camps for the IOI at a very young age, which almost certainly significantly contributed to his success. I don't think anyone views what he's achieved in CP as any less impressive because of that.

So no, not every CPer is self-made. In fact, the best will tend to have had more help and resources along the way. I would just be grateful for any help that you receive and make the most of it.

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +58 Vote: I do not like it

every sentence that starts with "every" is suspicious!

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +21 Vote: I do not like it

Yes, we are selfmade. Just like the Ouroboros, or like the question: what is first chicken or the egg?

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +13 Vote: I do not like it

No, but at some point you should try to seek independence from your coach. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean you should isolate, but try to solve problems on your own and then you can see other's solutions, or ask once you've tried it yourself and failed. Also, it feels good to solve problems with your own resources! :)

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    5 years ago, # ^ |
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    No such thing as cp coach here in India.

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      5 years ago, # ^ |
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      By coach, I mean a knowledgeable friend who is willing to help you make progress. I've had some and I've been some friends' coach too.

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +3 Vote: I do not like it

Getting help and discussion with others are important. That's how you learn more and increase your clearity and it will also help you to have a learger vision. I learnt almost everything by myself. Every algorithms I know, I learnt them by reading. Whenever I got stuck in somewhere, I solved this by continuos trying. I was a arrogant in this way. Only very few times I've taken help. I didn't attended classes of my trainer regularly. Didn't get advices of others. But I always tried to help others. Now, you can see my result. A bad rating and low growth. I intended to change myself now. Discussing with my trainer and friends. Finally, only you can understand what good for you. Don't let others opinion cloud your judgement.

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5 years ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +20 Vote: I do not like it

They aren't self made as "they never get any help from others". Typical strong contestant regularly interacts with other contestants, likely attends some training camps etc., probably has ICPC teammates to learn from, and so on.

They are self made as "they have to work on building their skills". From this perspective the statement is right, as you aren't going to get far with the approach like "Please give me exact list of problems to solve, ordered, and also exact list of algorithms to learn, and also explain all that stuff to me as well since figuring it out by myself is hard".

I don't think you necessarily did something wrong or bad, and what you did during your first year shouldn't be the main motivation for your choices on what to do later on.

And "I am not good/meant for CP" stuff is just harmful attitude in general.

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +5 Vote: I do not like it

Hi :) Well, I think asking for help by itself is self-help? More people are afraid to reach out and ask for help than you think. The fact that you didn't give up each time you got stuck, took help and guidance from friends, teachers, and anyone else tells how much you love CP. please don't feel bad :/

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