According to Wikipedia, there were almost 700 + programming languages in the market and Python is one of the most formidable programming languages amongst all those 700 + programming languages.
In fact, at the current time, it is one of the most popular and demandable languages. It can be used in diverse operations such as – Machine learning, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, and Web Development. But one of the common questions that arise in programmers’ minds is Python good for competitive programming?
So, is Python good for competitive programming? the short and simplistic answer is yes it is a very beneficial programming language for competitive programming. There are numerous reasons why to choose this language for competitive programming. This language is uncomplicated to use and we can use the numerous libraries and frameworks within this language besides that Python also offers various ranges of data structures that are useful for competitive programming.
What is Competitive Programming?
Competitive programming is usually a competition of programming units. In these competitions, competitors have to write the codes or computer programs according to given specifications.
You will get some specifications and you will get the types of inputs and based on that input you have to guess the output or you have to find the solutions. And solving those types of problems is called competitive programming.
And the problems can be in the form of logical form or mathematical form. Many organizations organize competitive programming and there are many participants there.
In competitive programming your code will judge by the host’s machine and when you have submitted your code that code will be checked several times and if the code is right then it comes green and your code is accepted or otherwise, your code will be rejected.
In simple words, competitive programming is the writing of programs to resolve a given problem. But competitive programming is not that easy, it is going to be very tuff to acquire competitive programming.
There are lots of distinctive topics which you have to learn as a competitive programmer such as greedy solutions, strings analysis, number theory, graph theory, etc.
Why Learn Competitive Programming?
I have already discussed what is competitive programming, now in this section, I will explain why to learn competitive programming. or the perquisites of learning competitive programming.
- After learning about competitive programming, your data structure concepts will expand to another level.
- It is really helpful for those candidates who are preparing for the coding interviews.
- When you are learning competitive programming, you will be able to resolve complicated programming problems.
- Competitive programming also guides us in new methods and ways to solve programming solutions. And new ideas will arrive in your mind to resolve that problem.
- Competitive programming makes a coder much faster, more efficient, and more focused coder.
- It will also teach you to write error-free code or bug-free codes.
- It also gives the coder the efficiency to solve difficult coding enigmas under pressure.
How to Start Competitive Programming?
As I mention learning about Competitive programming is not a permissive task, and there are some essential steps that you have to follow before starting competitive programming.
Here I suggest some of the essential steps that you have to follow as a new competitive programmer.
Programming fundamentals:
Before starting competitive programming, you have to clear all the fundamentals of the programming languages. Just selects a language like- C++, Java, or Python and learn all the syntax and fundamentals of that language.
Knowledge of Data Structures:
Secondly, you have to acquire knowledge of the data structures. Because data structures are the essential concepts in competitive programming.
Start with Simple Problems:
When you are learning competitive programming follow any appropriate website and solve the simple problems from that website. And practice those problems until you understood the concepts very well.
And if you instantly switch to difficult problems then you will not able to solve those queries and you will get demoralized.
Implementing simple Algorithms:
Now, start implementing simple algorithms like- graph algorithms, pathfinding algorithms, and simple shorting techniques. After these problems, you can move to some critical problems.
These are some of the steps and if you follow these steps then you can easily able to learn competitive programming.
Why is Python Good for Competitive Programming? (Major Factors)
Well, there are several reasons why is python good for competitive programming. Here in this section, I mention some of the major reasons why I choose Python programming for competitive programming.
Easy Language:
The most important feature of using Python in competitive programming is that it’s very easy to implement and learn.
So, if you are a newbie learner then you can go for this language because it’s really easy to understand and easy to use.
A data type definition is not required:
One of the influential factors of using Python within competitive programming is that within Python we don’t want to deal with the data type the syntax becomes much easier for us. So, you can write the code much faster.
And within competitive programming times and accuracy a very crucial part.
Data Structures:
Python also offers us a wide range of data structures such as dictionaries, tuples, etc which are is useful while working with different types of complicated problems in competitive coding. And with the help of these dictionaries, you can solve complicated problems.
Why Python is not good for Competitive Programming?
Now in this segment, I will discuss some of the demerits of using Python in competitive programming.
Runtime:
This is one of the major causes of why Python is not used in competitive programming because its run time is pretty much huge. This is mainly happening because Python is an interpreted language where C ++ used a compiler to compile the codes.
Companies use other languages:
Many times, companies don’t use Python in competitive programming therefore it is always a better choice to learn another programming language except python.
Is Python bad for Competitive Programming?
It is not the fact that Python is not very bad for competitive programming the fact is if you are absolutely a beginner in the programming field and want to do competitive programming then Python might be the best choice for you. However, if you are an experienced programmer then you can choose a better programming language that is most preferable and useful in competitive programming.
Which Language is Best for Competitive Programming?
If you ask any programmer which is the best programming language for competitive programming then most of the programmers will say C ++ or java.
Because these two languages are widely used in competitive programming, however, if you just want to learn machine learning and data science concepts and then want to do competitive programming then Python is a very good choice for you.
But most programmers choose Java and C ++ language because the run time of these languages are very fast while on the other hand being an interpreted language the runtime of python is very slow.
Final Verdict:
In this article, I have mentioned some of the essential causes of whether is python good for competitive programming or not and here we come to know that if you are an absolute beginner then you can go jump into competitive programming through Python.
But there are other languages are available whose performances are much better than Python in the field of competitive programming such as C + + and Java.
I hope you have liked this article and if you have any kind of query then you can ask me in the comment section, and follow our website regularly for this kind of informational article.
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