Learning the hard way

So, now I've decided to push my coding skills to a new level. This week I was solving Div 2 250 problems on Topcoder . On an average I am doing 3-4 problems on it spending around 30-60 minutes on each of them trying to understand them and coding them.If I get stuck at something I am reading the editorials of the problem to further check my solution or to get new ways to do the same problem.This not only improves my coding skills but gives me a different approach to do the same question also.As of now I am not participating in SRMs and Codeforces contests  because I want to first sharpen my axe for a good amount of time and then cut the tree smoothly rather than cutting the tree with the blunt axe .

I am learning C++ these days.Its good to go with C++ when you have C basics with you.

Also this week I participated in Codechef's short contest and  managed to solve 2 problems . This was the first time when I could solve more than 1 problem on their contests and now I am ranked 1226 worldwide and 721 in my country in short contests.

I am certainly improving day by day . I can see that improvement as now I can think much more faster on how to solve a particular solution and I will continue to practice more and more..

A week full of algorithmic coding

Last sunday I participated in the round 1C of Google Code Jam 2014 and secured 4128 position after solving one small input problem ,that means I am out of my first ever GCJ participation . I am quite happy as well as satisfied with my performance in the competition as I am still in the early stages of learning phase I think my performance was good .

My performance in GCJ 14 at a glance -

Qualification Round - ranked 15128(Solved 3 problems)

Round 1A - 3624(without solving a single problem :P )

Round 1B - 6209(solved 1 ques)

Round 1C - 4128(solved 1 ques)

It may not look good but after knowing the fact that this performance was given by a person who learnt his first programming language just 5 months back!! it certainly looks good isn't it ?

I look forward to improve my algorithmic skills and I will make sure that I'll improve my performance in the next GCJ . 

Today my semester result got announced and I scored an 'Ex' 10/10 points in lab section of programming course and 9/10 'A' in Theory course .Good to see those letter grades in the grade sheet. :)

I was practicing binary search and top down approach(Dynamic Programming) these days .

I was amazed to see the power of simple algorithm of binary search thanks to the Topcoder tutorials. 

Algorithmic Coding Rocks!!!

Starting of summer vacation 2014

This week I was very busy in my end semester exams but I still participated in the round 1A of GCJ 2014 its a different story that I couldn't solve a single question but still I was trying for the whole 150 minutes to solve problems.Got a world rank of 3624 I think the problems were of good level that's why even after not solving a single question I landed up with this kind of rank.
 After a long time around 4 months I am again in my hometown ,it feels very nice to be in your home :) .

Participated in round 1B this sunday and I managed to solve 1 small input set problem but rest of them were not in my range(at this point of time).Secured a world rank of 6209.