Mastering the Art of Writing Efficient Code: Lessons from a Coding Competition
Introduction The inter-university coding competition started in a huge lab. Many students were confident about winning, and John was also excited about his chances. An alarm indicated that the competition had begun, with a duration of one hour. All supervisors provided initial instructions to start the test, which included three questions that all students had to solve within the hour. The question paper was displayed on all the students' computers. While everyone read the questions and began trying to solve the problems, John took a different approach. He grabbed a rough sheet and jotted down some sequences and algorithms to tackle the problems. He spent the first few minutes reshaping the problems, paying attention to details, and creating the right algorithms. Once he finished his draft, he started coding. John solved all three questions in 50 minutes and completed the task. He was declared the winner, securing the first position. Efficient and well-written code is in ...
