Welcome to the February Programmer of the Month edition!

This month we have a young 20 year old Rudradev Basak who is our Programmer of the Month. Rudradev has been part of CodeChef since August and surprisingly, just at the age of 20 he is already considered a great programmer. In the last 5 months, he has been in the winning 4 times already, we hope this is just the start and we have a lot to see from this great mind. On behalf of the CodeChef team, we wish him good luck for the future.  Now let’s see what Rudradev has to tell us about himself.

Name:  Rudradev Basak
Age:  20
Institute:  IIT Delhi
User id:  rudradevbasak

Brief introduction about yourself:

I am a 3rd year student doing my B.Tech. in CSE@IITD. I have always liked to solve puzzles, both mathematical and algorithmic.

How/When did you start programming?

I learnt BASIC in middle school, and a bit of Java and C++ in standards 10 and 12 respectively. I liked to code even then, and of course I did learn a lot in my first couple of year at IITD, but I was introduced to competitive programming only in around April 2010. Also I owe it to my teammates (Nikhil and Pradeep) for getting me interested in ACM ICPC in around August last year, and I have been programming a lot since then.

What do you do when you’re not programming?

Between IITD curriculum and programming, there is not much time for much else. However when I do get time, you would find me playing games, watching movies with my friends, reading fiction or playing with a Rubik’s Cube.

What do you like most about CodeChef?

The fact that the long contests really give you time to learn and try out new things. Also it has been a great platform to boost programming awareness among Indians.

How many hours a day do you program?

Depends. Can vary from zero to ten depending on my mood and how much other work I have.

If you could eat dinner with any famous person (past or present), who would it be and what dish would you have?

Am not sure about the person, but I would probably have a couple of Chicken Rolls

What is the secret to being a good programmer?

A passion for programming, a bit of hard work (but it is not really ‘hard work’ if you really have the passion), and also some inherent math and logical ability.

And sure for success in online contests you need a lot of practice.

What are your plans for the future?

I would like to complete my undergraduate studies, and in the meanwhile, try to perform well at this (and also hopefully the next) ICPC World Finals. After that I may go for higher studies in CS, but I am not very sure.