Computer Programming is an avenue which until very recently has remained largely unexplored in India at the school level. Although it’s easy to find computer departments in almost every school, yet, to find students with a comprehensive understanding of algorithms and coding is extremely rare.
One instance where a student got early exposure is the story of Sidhant Bansal, or sidhant007 (full marks for stylized username) as he’s known on the pages of CodeChef. Like his counterparts with more exposure in Russia or China, and unlike so many Indians, Sidhant received early exposure to the field of competitive programming and began his journey somewhere in 8th grade.
Under the wings of a Mentor
Fortunately for him, Sidhant had access to something that most lack- a mentor. A senior, Yash, at his school agreed to take him under his wing, provided Sidhant first solves the initial 25 questions of Project Euler. Sidhant recalls the experience as a “fun exercise” and evidently enough, there was no looking behind for him after that.
Sidhant recounts how after some time Yash helped him to move onto more proper judges such as CodeChef, Codeforces, and WCIPEG. “In 9th grade, I took my first attempt at Zonal Informatics Olympiad (ZIO) and was lucky enough to be able to clear it,” Sidhant reveals. Unfortunately, though, he couldn’t make it past the next level, the Indian National Olympiad in Informatics (INOI). But quite remarkably, he didn’t let this experience dampen his passion for Competitive Programming, and persistently kept at it throughout his 10th grade.
The sheer fun of problem-solving is what drove Sidhant during this stage and kept him persistently at competitive programming. Not to mention, right around this time he found a group of friends in his school, DPS Dwarka, who matched him in enthusiasm and determination to crack INOI. So, together they prepped for the exam, and incidentally, all of them were able to clear it.
At the Training Camp
And then came the IOI-Training Camp. In some sense, his experience at the camp, which he describes as “revelatory” and “deeply humbling”, is what largely shaped his future endeavors/forays in competitive programming. “You are surrounded by some of the most passionate students in algorithms and mathematics in IOI-TC. I think the Training Camp played a very important role in inspiring me and [it helped me to] see people do great things over there.”
Trying to climb through the ranks of IOI-TC in the next two years was arguably the hardest period for Sidhant. His break came, and that too, at his last possible go, in the 12th grade. He managed to finish in the top 4, and so secured a ticket to IOI. Before this, even though he qualified for the Training Camp two times, he never managed to secure a top 4 rank. He goes on to stress on one’s need to have a good amount of self-confidence no matter how prepared or unprepared one is.
Sidhant, time and again, mentions encountering some truly gifted students along the way that greatly influenced his own personal trajectory. Be it fellow competitive programming enthusiasts at school, or the brilliant students he met at IOI-TC, these encounters widened his worldview and vastly contributed to his learning as an individual.
IOI at Last
Unsurprisingly so then, that it was at IOI finally that he realized that: “Although, competitive programming stands for doing programming as a sport and competitively but I finally understood that it is not all about the competition. It is also about appreciating what others have achieved in terms of skills through immense hard work, intellect and passion.”
And subsequently, Sidhant walked away from the IOI experience, a bronze medal around his neck, but more importantly, as a more humble and respectful person. It was being at the global stage, amidst the best programmers in the world, that made him realise the need for self improvement, and hard work that comes along with it.
Beginning to prepare under a senior in school, to landing a medal at IOI, there is indeed a lot to learn from the transformative journey Sidhant underwent. India’s journey at IOI includes only one gold medal which we won in 2014. We at CodeChef want this number to increase by enabling every school student who is a programming enthusiast to become a part of ICO. We are doing this by enabling school students who are enthusiastic about computer programming to participate in ICO. We invite you to help us in this initiative by spreading awareness among students, their parents and teachers around you.
Cheers,
The Chef
For those of you who missed it, we bring you our recap of the interesting July CookOff. Read on to get our detailed dissection of the contest.
In Div A, uwi from Japan secured the 1st spot. Further improving his contest rank from June CookOff, where he stood 2nd, uwi added 124 points to his rating in this month’s contest to finish with 2848 rating. He currently holds the overall country rank 1 and global rank 8 on the platform.
Close behind uwi and occupying the 2nd position was progmatic from Belarus. progmatic (with a username, which one can only assume is an amalgamation of words — programmer and pragmatic) increased his rating by 139 points and made a comeback into the 7-star league, after getting briefly downgraded post July Long Challenge. Both uwi and progmatic managed to score a perfect 5 in the contest. The others to finish in the top 5 were — mrkerim, sam__2 and andrey_efremov — securing ranks 3, 4 and 5, respectively.
Over in Div B, perucmpamypa from Ukraine seized the first position. This was perucmpamypa’s first contest on CodeChef, and he was able to increase his rating by the maximum possible value: 275 points. The 2nd place was snatched by nstyrl. Coincidentally, it was nstyrl’s first contest on the platform, too and even he increased his rating by 275 points.
Despite the otherwise great performance that the contest witnessed in Div B, there wasn’t anybody to manage a perfect 5 score. juckter, eshoru, and godwind were the other contestants to finish within the top 5 in Div B — finishing with the 3rd, 4th and 5th positions, respectively.
Amongst school students, andrey_efremov (rank 5) and tasmeemreza (rank 13) showcased real programming prowess in Div A; while in Div B, some of their equally impressive counterparts were: eshoru (rank 4), godwind (rank 5) and arshiadadras (rank 7). Overall, 96 participants increased their rating significantly enough to jump from Div B to Div A, including 3 school students.
Coming to contest problems: christian_grey from Div B was the first to successfully submit a solution in the contest, solving PLAYSTR within 4 minutes of commencement. Meanwhile, the first scorable problem to be cracked in Div A happened to be BDGFT, successfully submitted by progmatic in the 9th minute. The last problem to be cracked in Div A was MGICMENU, solved by KADR; while for Div B, that problem was WARTLND, solved by arshiadadras.
As we conclude this exciting recap, we’d love to express our enormous gratitude to our July CookOff problem setting panel:
Setters: Anik Sarker (imanik), Hasin Rayhan Dewan Dhruboo (ezio_26)
Tester: Teja Vardhan Reddy (teja349)
Editorialist: Taranpreet Singh (taran_1407)
Statement Verifier: Jakub Safin (xellos0)
Translators:
Russian Translator: Fedor Korobeinikov (gomelfk)
Vietnamese Translator: Team VNOI (songuku95)
Bengali Translator: Mohammad Solaiman (solaimanope)
Hindi Translator: Akash Srivastava (devils_code)
Mandarin Translator: Gedi Zheng (stzgd)
Lastly, a huge shoutout to our admin Hasan Jaddouh (kingofnumbers) without whose assistance we wouldn’t have been able to pull the contest off this effortlessly.
Do let us know your thoughts and opinions on the July CookOff in the comments below. Until next time, keep coding!
After the really interesting and intense June Lunchtime, we returned with the Long Challenge contest of the month. Keep reading to get our detailed breakdown of the contest.
Beginning with Div A: the 7-star ACRush finished at the top of the leaderboard. ACRush, making a Long Challenge appearance after a gap of 3 months, managed to increase his rating by 128 points to ultimately end with a rating of 2985. He currently holds the overall rank 1 in China, and is globally ranked as the third best player. Close on ACRush’s heels was andres96. Even andres96 made a comeback on the platform after a long time, almost a year. And what a great one, indeed! andres96 bumped his rating up by 146 points, and jumped from being a 5-star to now holding the 6-star tag. The contest featured remarkably good performance from China and India in Div A, with 11 participants each in the Top 30.
Another participant to shine out in the Div A was rumblefool, from India, who ranked 4th in the contest and managed to raise his rating by 134 points. The others to finish in the distinguished Top 5 were romawhite and Oleg, ranking 3 and 5, respectively.
Over in Div B, loopfree from China secured the top spot. Having started competing on CodeChef only this year, loopfree increased her rating by 208 points and jumped from Div B to Div A. Snatching the 2nd spot in Div B was marco_l_t. This was marco_l_t’s first contest on CodeChef, and he grew his rating by the maximum possible value: 275 points. The other participants to make it to the Top 5 in Div B were alina_alina, spookywooky, and dbh_, occupying the 3rd, 4th and 5th position, respectively.
The contest bore particularly good fruits for school students: In Div A, 12 out of Top 30 were school students, while the number for Div B within the same bracket was 9. Meanwhile, minamoto from Div A (Rank 19), and loopfree (Rank 1) and alina_alina (Rank 3) from Div B were some of the female programmers that really stood out in the contest.
Overall, 320 participants migrated from Div B to Div A, including 15 school students. While simultaneously, 103 coders slipped down to Div B from Div A.
Finally, coming to problems: the problem to get first overall successful submission in the contest was CHFM from njha1999 in Div A, just 4 minutes into the contest. In Div B, too, CHFM was first problem to receive a successful submission, solved by apower2 in the 5th minute after the start. The problem to be cracked last in both the division was LVMFFN, solved by ACRush on the second day in Div A, while in Div B, it was solved by foreverlasting on the sixth day.
As we conclude this recap, we express our immense gratitude to our July Long Challenge problem setting panel:
Setters:
SNKAPT: Aviroop Pal (aviroop123)
CIRMERGE: Erfan Alimohammadi (erfaniaa)
GUESSPRM: Bohdan Pastuschak (bohdan)
CHFWAR: Sombit Bose (deadshot_sb)
LVMFFN: Kasra Mazaheri (kmaaszraa)
MXMN: Jiang XunCi (nqiiii)
CCC: Abhinav Jain (iamabjain)
PRTAGN: Pranjal Rai (prnjl_rai)
CHFWAR2: Alei Reyes (alei)
MMAX: Mayank Agrawal (mayank1601)
CHFM: Tanay Mishra (mishra_tanay_)
Testers: Alipasha (alipasha132), Kasra Mazaheri (kmaaszraa)
Editorialist: Anand Jaisingh (anand20)
Statement Verifier: Jakub Safin (xellos0)
Translators:
Russian Translator: Fedor Korobeinikov (gomelfk)
Vietnamese Translator: Team VNOI (songuku95)
Bengali Translator: Mohammad Solaiman (solaimanope)
Hindi Translator: Akash Srivastava (devils_code)
Mandarin Translator: Gedi Zheng (stzgd)
Ultimately, a huge thanks to our admin Alei Reyes (alei) whose help ensured that we were able to pull the contest off effortlessly.
Do let us know your thoughts and opinions on the July Long Challenge in the comments below. Plus, don’t forget to practice. There are highly engaging contests scheduled this week and the next. Until next time, keep coding!
Close on the heels of the exciting June CookOff, we bring you our recap of June Lunchtime. Continue reading to get our full in-depth coverage of the contest.
In Div A, a total of 8 participants managed to score a perfect 500. gennady.korotkevich, with overall Global Rank 1, led the charge, securing the first position in this contest. The 7-star from Belarus managed to further solidify his unsurpassed rating by adding another 60 points, finishing at jaw-dropping 3488. This is Gennady’s first contest appearance in months, having undergone a period of dormancy since January this year. The 2nd and 3rd positions were secured by gainullinildar from Russia and uwi from Japan. With this contest, gainullinildar made a re-entry into the elusive 7-star club, improving his rating by 138 points. The others to manage a perfect score were: natsugiri, tautsjasiunsas, andrey_efremov, mohammed200218, and yamunaku.
Over in Div B, compiler_101 and oahcc were the only two participants to score 500, ranking 1st and 2nd in the contest, respectively. compiler_101 , student in Cairo, added 191 points, and consequently, made the jump from Div B to Div A. Parallely, oahcc also levelled up from Div B to Div A, increasing his rating by 169 points. Amongst school students, 4 finished in the Top 10 for Div A; while 3 managed to secure a spot in the Top 10 for Div B.
Overall, 93 participants jumped from Div B to Div A. While simultaneously, 30 coders slid down from Div A to Div B. Meanwhile, fly_37, adibov and ultrac emerged as the biggest gainers in Div A, improving their rating by 186, 180, and 179 points, respectively. While in Div B, brayand and conformisto increased the rating by the largest margin, by 233 and 220 points, respectively.
Coming to the problems: PAJAPONG was the first problem to be successfully solved overall, with entry submitted by singhal_coder in Div B, in just 3 minutes after the commencement of the contest. In Div A, BURARRAY was the first scorable problem to receive a successful entry, made by chandler_1729 in the 7th minute. Funnily enough, for both Div A and B, the last scorable problem to be cracked was FUZZYCON.
As we conclude this recap, we express our immense gratitude to our June Lunchtime problem setting panel:
Setters: Mladen Puzić (thesitzr), Raj Khandor (hackslash_123)
Tester: Michael Nematollahi (watcher)
Editorialist: Taranpreet Singh (taran_1407)
Statement Verifier: Jakub Safin (xellos0)
Translators:
Mandarin Translator: Hu Zecong (huzecong)
Vietnamese Translator: Team VNOI (songuku95)
Russian Translator: Fedor Korobeinikov (gomelfk)
Bengali Translator: Mohammad Solaiman (solaimanope)
Hindi Translator: Akash Srivastava (devils_code)
Lastly, a big thank you to our admin Hasan Jaddouh (kingofnumbers) whose hard work allowed us to pull the contest with such ease.
Do let us know your thoughts on the June Lunchtime in the comments below. Plus, don’t forget to practice your problem solving skills and participate in the long form July Long Challenge, which began on 5th July. Until next time, keep practicing!
The June Long Challenge was anything but uneventful! The contest resulted in some big country rank shuffles, particularly for Russia and India. Besides, Div A witnessed an amazing performance by Indian participants, with Indians filling 9 out the Top 20 positions and 2 in the Top 5. Now we recap our Cook-Off, a contest known for being short, yet fierce. Read on to find what went down.
Let’s start with the winners: In Div A, argos, a 7-star coder from Moscow, secured the top position. argos increased his rating by 132 points in this contest, and now holds an overall global rank of 13 with an enviable country rank of 3. Trailing close behind, in the 2nd position, was uwi from Japan. He added 56 to points to his ratings, to finish at 2700 points. Presently, uwi holds overall global rank 24 and country rank 1. Strikingly, both argos and uwi submitted all solutions without a single incorrect answer. The other noteworthy mentions in Div A are: isaf27, karolis_kusas, html_sanek, farhod_farmon, and andrey_efremov, respectively securing ranks 3 to 7 in the contest.
Over in Div B, the top two positions were secured by geothermal and vmaddur, both from the United States. geothermal, earned ended the Cook Off at rank 1, and bumped up his rating by 203 points, leaping from 3-star to 4-star coder status. vmaddur followed a similar trajectory to geothermal, increasing his rating by 185 points and jumping from 3 stars to 4-star level. The rest of Div B’s Top 20 was dominated primarily by Indian participants, with 14 spots occupied by participants from the country.
The school students fared particularly well in June Cookoff; with 4 out of the Top 20 spots in Div A and 5 in the Div B Top 20 being secured by them.
In Div A, zxcv123456 emerged as the biggest gainer, improving his rating by 171 points. While in Div B, amit_neogi and praccoder both managed to boost their rating by 225 points. amit_neogi and praccoder’s rating bump also led to them levelling up from 3-star to 4-star.
Overall, 132 participants made the transition from Div B to Div A, including 8 school students. While, 29 participants slipped from their position in Div A to Div B, effectively translating to a new addition of 102 new entrants in Div A.
Speaking of problems: the first one to be submitted successfully was EXAM1 by geothermal in Div B — astonishingly, 3 minutes into the contest. In Div A, it was ANTEATER; it was submitted by smelskiy within 8 minutes of contest commencement. Akin to June Long Challenge, the problem to be cracked last was the same for both Divisions: SECRECP.
Congratulations to all the winners! And to the rest, never fear, another chance at coding greatness awaits in the form of the upcoming Lunchtime contest. As we conclude this recap, we express our immense gratitude to our problem setting panel:
Setters: Hasan Jaddouh (kingofnumbers), Erfan Alimohammadi (erfaniaa), Mohammad Solaiman (solaimanope)
Tester and Editorialist: Teja Vardhan Reddy (teja349)
Statement Verifier: Jakub Safin (xellos0)
Translators:
Mandarin Translator: Hu Zecong (huzecong)
Vietnamese Translator: Team VNOI (songuku95)
Russian Translator: Fedor Korobeinikov (gomelfk)
Bengali Translator: Mohammad Solaiman (solaimanope)
Hindi Translator: Akash Srivastava (devils_code)
Lastly, a huge thanks to our problem panel admin Hasan Jaddouh (kingofnumbers) whose hard work allowed us to pull the contest effortlessly and smoothly.
Do let us know in the comments your thoughts on the June CookOff. Until next time, keep practicing!
Post our May Lunchtime contest, we bring you the monthly recap of our highly contended June Long Challenge. Keep reading to get our in-depth coverage of the contest as well as some interesting stats.
In Division A, white2302, a student of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, secured the top spot. This is a significant achievement, and continues a trend of remarkable Long Challenge performances. But, this is the first time that white2302 placed first in Long Challenge, having hovered between Contest Rank 4 and Rank 10 since February this year. white2302, presently a 7-star coder, managed to add another 135 rating points to finish at an admirable 2774, placing him at the top of the Russian charts.
The second spot in Div A was grabbed by vishal4556 from India’s Birla Institute of Technology & Science Pilani. vishal4556 returned to compete after a considerable break, and still managed to increase his rating points by 136 to take it up to 2706. Not just that, this rating bump also led to vishal4556 seizing the overall India Rank 1 post the contest.
Incidentally, India witnessed an incredible representation in the Top 20 of Div A, with 9 Indians altogether and 2 in the Top 5. Apart from white2302 and vishal4556, cheng2014, sinus_070, and zjp_shadow were the other participants occupying the Top 5 rank, respectively.
Over in Division B, he_____he, from China, seized the first position. he_____he (with a rather unusual & funny name, even by CodeChef’s standards) added a sizable 204 rating points to ultimately acquire another star (now a 4-star) and finish at 1965 rating. robbinb1993, heltion, gjaiswal108, and vanbang9710 were the other Top 5 rank holders in Div B for this contest, respectively. Meanwhile, school students continued their ongoing streak of stunning performances, with 5 featuring in the Top 20 for Div A, and 6 in Div B.
The June Long Challenge particularly helped change the Division demographic: More than 320 participants increased their ratings, to jump from Division B to A. The number for school students in this group was a good 13. At the same time, over 100 participants slid down from Div A to Div B. Effectively, there was an addition of 220 new entrants in Div A. It would be interesting to see how this change plays out in the upcoming contests.
Furthermore, akee and megatron10 were the biggest gainers in Div A, respectively adding 184 and 183 rating points. Whereas, in Div B, priyanshu_py and vinu_1998 managed to add a massive 237 and 234 rating points, respectively.
Lastly, coming to the problems: SUMAGCD was the first problem to be solved overall, and it was successfully submitted by ashmelev (a 7-star) from Div A, 6 minutes into the contest on 7th June. The first problem to be submitted in Div B was PROXYC by chandler_1729, towards the end of the 9th minute. Interestingly, the problem to be cracked the least, in both Divisions, was FGTREE. It was successfully submitted by mcfx1 in Div A, 7 hours into the contest, while in the Div B, it was eventually solved on the 4th day, by diamond_duke.
With almost half of 2019 already behind us, and many more contests scheduled ahead, it will be fascinating to see how the rest of the year unfolds for our active community of programmers.
As we conclude this recap, we express our immense gratitude to our problem setting panel:
Setters: Alei Reyes (alei), Danylo Mocherniuk (daniel_1999), Andrey Filimonov (filyan), Reshab Gupta (coolreshab), Roman Derkach (roman_derkach), Ritesh Gupta (rishup_nitdgp), Abhishek Vanjani (ucntstopme), Saurabh Yadav (saurabhshadow), Kartik Singhal (kartik_354), Aman Kumar Singh (aman_robotics), and Lewin Gan (lg5293)
Tester: Radoslav Dimitrov (radoslav192)
Editorialist: Teja Vardhan Reddy (teja349)
Statement Verifier: Jakub Safin (xellos0)
Translators:
Russian Translator: Fedor Korobeinikov (gomelfk)
Mandarin Translator: Hu Zecong (huzecong)
Vietnamese Translator: Team VNOI (songuku95)
Bengali Translator: Mohammad Solaiman (solaimanope)
Hindi Translator: Akash Srivastava (devils_code)
Lastly, a huge thanks to our problem panel admin Alexey Zayakin (alex_2oo8) whose hard work allowed us to pull the contest effortlessly and smoothly.
Do let us know in the comments your thoughts on the June Long Challenge. Until next time, keep practicing!
After our heated and long-drawn May Challenge, we’re back with our highly contested May CookOff. So, without further ado let’s just dive right into it.
In Div A, the top spot was secured by the 7-star progmatic from Belarus. Presently ranked 21 globally, Progmatic has shown an awe-inspiring improvement over time. In the past 3 months alone, he has increased his overall rating by over 250 points and jumped from the orange to the red band. A huge accomplishment by any metric, and not to mention, a motivation for many. Further, progmatic is only 6 points behind the globally ranked 20, hzhz.
Apart from progmatic, there were 4 other participants in Div A who managed to score a perfect 5 in the CookOff — sam__2, mnbvmar, tautsjasiunsas, and farhod_farmon. For sam__2 and mnbvmar, the top 5 rank should hold greater importance since it was their first ever CookOff. Hats-off to them! Unfortunately, one of CodeChef’s regulars and a 7-star, uwi, didn’t fare as well as one would have hoped. Nevertheless, he ranked 8 in May’s CookOff; and overall holds the CodeChef’s global rank of 32 at the moment.
Now, over in Div B: A surprising 12 participants managed to attain a perfect 5, with CodeChef debutant geothermal leading the pack. geothermal is a student from the United States studying in Pennsylvania and is currently a 3-star. Closer home, one_more_fake, another debutant (although, with a slightly unusual handle), was the only Indian who got a score of 5 in Div B.
Moreover, school students have gradually upped the game, and have begun to pose a serious competition to our experienced coders. And this CookOff was no different. Though Div A featured only one school student in top 20, Div B had a whopping 7 school contenders listed in top 20. A great feat! We’re eagerly looking forward to the next few months to see whether the scale of balance tilts towards our young programmers.
As with all our contests, May CookOff, too, was an opportunity for many to increase their ratings. A startlingly 89 participants seized that chance, having climbed from Div B to the elusive Div A. Five of these participants happened to be school students. This follows the past trend: May Challenge saw over 150 participants graduate from Div B to Div A. These figures suggest that the stage in Div A is set for fiery battles, even more than they already are.
As we conclude this recap, we express our immense gratitude to our problem setting panel:
Setters: Mohammad Solaiman (solaimanope), Pritom Kundu (anchor)
Tester and Editorialist: Teja Vardhan Reddy (teja349)
Statement Verifier: Jakub Safin (xellos0)
Translators:
Mandarin Translator: Hu Zecong (huzecong)
Vietnamese Translator: Team VNOI (songuku95)
Russian Translator: Fedor Korobeinikov (gomelfk)
Bengali Translator: Mohammad Solaiman (solaimanope)
Hindi Translator: Akash Srivastava (devils_code)
And as always, many thanks to our problem panel admin Hasan Jaddouh (kingofnumbers) whose hard work helped us execute the contest effortlessly.
Do let us know in the comments your thoughts on the May CookOff. Until next time, keep practicing!
When professor Dr. Jayakrishnan needed an intern to join the NPTEL Data analytics team, he struggled to find the right candidate – one with the skillset and knowledge needed to succeed in the role. He received a number of applications, however, the applicants were not well versed in Data structures and Algorithms. Moreover; screening out the unqualified applicants proved to be a time-consuming process. Dr. Jayakrishnan decided to turn to CodeChef in order to get a reliable candidate pool, a pool that was sure to have the basic Data Structures and Algorithms knowledge that he was looking for.
Through the help of the CodeChef team, Dr. Jayakrishnan was able to access a list of students who were already CodeChef Certified in Data Structures and Algorithms. Since every candidate met these criteria, the need for independent DSA testing was eliminated which saved both time and effort for Dr. Jayakrishnan.
“My primary goal was looking for a Data Analytics intern. In that, data structures are pretty important. If you are a good programmer, you should be very clear of your data structures, it’s as simple as that. The better you are at it, the easier it will be for you to code and solve problems,” said Dr. Jayakrishnan, “Knowing that candidates have scored certain marks in an exam or a particular assessment test it definitely is an advantage when it comes to hiring. It is also advantageous to the candidates.”
Ultimately, Dr. Jayakrishnan selected three outstanding candidates who each had their own story.
Want to learn Data Structures and Algorithms? Get all the learning resources you need on our Prepare page. To know more about the CodeChef certification or enrol, visit our website or write to us at ccdsap@codechef.com
In our recent annual recap, we talked about what a huge year this has been for us. Not only did we embark on a number of short projects like workshops and summer camps, but we also successfully completed our 5th SnackDown contest. All-in-all it’s been a busy year for us, full of twists and turns but the ride isn’t over yet!
Every year, during our birthday month, we try to bring our community one big launch or feature that you’ve all been craving, and we can proudly announce that the Birthday present you’re all getting this year is a brand spanking new discussion forum! Everyone say hello and welcome to the new CodeChef discussion forum.
While our existing forum has served us well, we knew it was too slow to keep up with our growing community. So this year, we finally made the call to retire old faithful and move on to a newer and faster Discourse-based forum. Our new and improved forum will have a clean, new look and will boast a number of improvements. You’ll now get convenient single line conversations (with the option to expand replies), informative link previews, and a mobile-friendly format. CC Discourse will be a seamless extension of your CodeChef account which means you’ll have the same username.
Over the years each of our team members, as well as our 1 million strong community, had thousands of conversations on discuss and we certainly couldn’t wipe all those stories away. All your treasured conversations will be imported to the new forum. So what are some of the changes you’ll find? Let’s start with a difficult one: unfortunately, we can no longer accommodate karma points. Our new forum does not support this feature, so we took the call to scrap it in favour of many other benefits.
You’ll also notice that posts on the new forum cannot be upvoted or downvoted. However that doesn’t mean that you can’t show your appreciation for a great post, you can always use the like buttons. The new forum will also have Single Sign-On, which means that your CodeChef account will be used to sign you into the forum. You do not need to create a separate profile or account to use this forum. This is only limited to authentication. After getting user authentication from the CodeChef website, the session is independently maintained on the new forum.
CodeChef was designed and created to help programmers acquire the tools to improve their own skills and abilities. Discussion and debate are a huge component of learning and our aim has always been to provide a platform that lets you do just that. Whether you’re in Russia or Rajasthan, China or Chile, you can always visit the CodeChef discussion to have your own doubts clarified, to post a solution, or to connect with other programmers on the platform.
Now let’s take this discussion over to our new forum!
As always, if you face any issues feel free to send a description of the problem you’re facing, to bugs@codechef.com.
CodeChef has completed 10 years of being India’s most popular competitive programming platform, but we’re only getting bigger and better with time! 2018 was a huge year for us, we kicked things off with the launch of rating divisions in March of 2018. The new divisions allow for fair competition among our users, with Division 2 users now able to compete against each other for prizes and ranks in our contests for the first time. We also focused on promoting competitive programming among women through a dedicated Women’s Day campaign.
Through March and April, our team lead Anup Kalbalia, was jetting from one college to another to spread the word about CodeChef and encourage participation in the ICPC. Several universities had the benefit of this orientation session and this year we hope to reach even more. At the end of the month, Anup also represented CodeChef at the ICPC where he spoke at the ICPC CLIS 2018 about competitive programming & sustainability. Anup was also invited to offer live commentary on ICPC’s global online channels. A proud moment for CodeChef!
May was a jam-packed month for us! We held a special workshop for School Teachers at ABV-IIITM Gwalior, we felicitated the young Indian programmers who represented the nation at the prestigious IOI competition, we held our first ever open programming workshop in Hyderabad, as well as our summer school programming workshops.
Through June and July, our workshops continued, with a special focus on teacher training. CodeChef offers a series of workshops for different groups, including DSA training for college students and professionals, pedagogy training for teachers and professors and Python training for school teachers in Pune in collaboration with CSPathshala. 2018 saw us administer every kind of workshop in our repertoire with tremendous success.
In August, we had a trio of achievements to our credit. Our Alibaba Hackathon represented not only our very first partnership with a major international company but also our very first Hackathon as well as the public launch of our API. This was a huge feat for us, and we were heartened by the community’s amazing response to our API. You can check out some of the interesting app ideas that we received from you all here. September saw the launch of SnackDown 2019 registrations which kept the team busy.
There was no slowing down in the last quarter as this period saw the launch of online qualifying rounds for both SnackDown and ICPC 2019. We powered through three rounds of elimination for SnackDown and finally by December, we had our top teams.
December also found our team traveling to all ends of the country for the much anticipated ICPC Regionals in Kharagpur, Kolkata, Kanpur, Gwalior, Pune, Amritapuri and Coimbatore. Meeting competitive programmers from every corner of the country was an exciting and exhilarating moment for us. Our T-shirts had a new and rather bold statement, and they were once again a huge hit with the participants.
In January, there wasn’t a moment to breathe as SnackDown preparations were in full swing by the new year. But our Schools team found a couple of days to dedicate to ICO related activities. CodeChef is the community and platform partner of IARCS for the ICO, as part of this partnership we not only conducted the ZCO and INOI exams, we also conducted our first ever completely volunteer-driven INOI workshops in 10 cities. These workshops were created to introduce school students to some of the more advanced topics that were essential to compete at the INOI. Not only did our attendees love them, our intern Abhishek enjoyed teaching them too!
SnackDown 2019 in February turned out to be a fabulous experience. Though hosting in a foreign city meant that we were in for a few surprises, CodeChef took everything in their stride and worked hard to make the contest and the trip to Bengaluru, memorable for all the teams who attended (that includes Team CodeChef!)
Now on our 10th birthday, we’re going right back to the beginning of the roller-coaster for another year full of coding excitement and magic as we embark on ever more new projects, and work together to deliver more experiences to our growing community.
Cheers,
The Chef
