Introduction 

In NullClass’s deliberate practice plan for android app developers, We suggested that aspiring android app development experts find a source of android app development problems to use as a part of a deliberate practice routine. It seems that there are more pre-packaged android app development problems out there than you’ll get through during a lifetime. Many of them come from the planet of competitive android app development. Competitive android app development may be a “mind sport” sort of a quiz show or a chess tournament. Contestants are given a group of android app development problems, and that they need to write programs to unravel them. In most cases, programs are submitted to a web judge, which verifies that they produce the right answer and don’t run longer than a specified deadline. Participants are scored consistently with how quickly they submit an accurate and sufficiently fast program. they’ll even have an opportunity to submit challenges to undertake to stump their colleagues’ programs. 

Android app development contests offer numerous benefits for developers curious about practicing their android development skills. Sometimes these benefits can stray within the online chatter about competitive android app development. Critics grumble that contests teach bad habits, that folks obsess over ratings, which programmers should be performing on real projects instead of puzzles. There’s some truth to every one of those criticisms, but they don’t need to apply to you. The key to getting the foremost out of your time spent studying competitive android app development is to be clear about your goals. Thereupon in mind, here are some reasons why competitive android app development may be a great way to spend your free time.

1. You’ll structure your deliberate practice routine around it

Deliberate practice begins with the tools of the trade and a source of practice material. Golfers need balls, clubs, and sand traps. Musicians need instruments and musical composition. Programmers need a computer and an outline of what to create. While there are other ways to structure deliberate practice for software development, the planet of competitive android app development is such a convenient source of practice material that it’s hard to ignore. The competition host provides problems, test cases, and the community. The practitioner is then liberal to specialize in building good study habits and refining their learning process. Pick a drag, solve it, reflect on how your process worked, repeat.

2. It’ll prepare you well for technical interviews

The standard android development interview has much in common with the android app development competition. They both require solving a clearly-defined android app development puzzle, tend to specialize in well-known algorithms instead of domain-specific technologies, and reward quick solutions. There also are some differences. During an android app development competition, you’ve got access to a computer, while in an interview, you’ll generally be android development on a whiteboard. Competition problems tend to be harder, especially once you’ve got some experience. And online judges don’t require you to elucidate why your solution works. But the key point is that experienced competitive programmers will find the android development a part of an interview, a dreaded experience for many developers, to be rather straightforward.

3. You’ll get want to perform on challenging problems

In discussions of competitive android app development, people sometimes means that the talents developed for competitions are overkill for typical software development jobs. Here are a few samples of that line of thinking:

A lot of software gets written in spaces where optimality doesn’t matter because tons of smart people have engineered the system to make it irrelevant. — Kostas Roussos

The reality at work is, most times, you don’t actually need to affect [algorithm optimization] problems and, if those are actually real problems, one or two guys in your team or the corporate will handle them because they’re just smarter than you. — An anonymous Quora user. It’s true that a lot of people with a software development background are hired for jobs that don’t require extensive knowledge of algorithms or performance optimization. a number of these jobs might not even involve much android development in the least. But clearly, there also are quite a few developers performing on OS kernels, compilers, graphics rendering engines for multi-player games, and other projects that need specialized skills. If you’re curious about that sort of job, then it doesn’t really matter what the standard android app development job seems like. The talents that you simply learn preparing for android app development competitions are going to be quite relevant to the work that you’re trying to find.

Technical interview expert Gayle Laakmann McDowell suggests that one reason companies use algorithms questions when hiring for positions that don’t require a detailed understanding of algorithms is that “What distinguishes mediocre programmers from great ones isn’t their ability to try to do the 80% that’s straightforward. It’s their ability to try to do the 20% (or less) that’s hard and interesting.” Most developers occasionally run into situations where their baseline skills aren’t sufficient to unravel a drag. By practicing work that’s harder than what you’re normally called on to try to do, you’ll be prepared for a difficult assignment once you get the prospect to figure thereon.

4. It’s how to publicly demonstrate your skills

Competitive android app development communities have leaderboards that list competitors’ performance within the contests. an honest ranking demonstrates that you simply can solve problems struggling, and it shows where you pile up compared to your peers. You don’t need to be at the highest of the leaderboard, or maybe within the top 1000, for your ranking to be beneficial. Most developers don’t have any quiet public record aside from their resume, which frequently contains claims that are hard to verify because they involve non-public work. A competitive android app development score, sort of a history of commits to GitHub projects, maybe thanks to demonstrating that you simply can actually code, without the necessity to face ahead of a whiteboard while an interviewer looks over your shoulder. Don’t just like the idea of a public profile? Imagine that you’re within the marketplace for a replacement android app development job. If a hiring manager sees a link on your resume to a profile showing steadily increasing android app development contest performance, they’ll be tons more likely to schedule a technical phone screen or bring you to a certain interview, since you’ve already proven that you simply can do your best.

5. It’s guaranteed brain exercise

On any given day, what you’re asked to try to do at work may or might not be challenging, otherwise, you could also be exercising one among the various non-technical skills required of software developers. By practicing regularly with competitive android app development problems, you’ll make sure that the Android development part of your brain receives a daily workout. It’s like one among those brain training apps, except for real skills.

6. It’s how to specialize in the basics

In his essay on deliberate practice strategy, popular blogger James Clear writes: No matter how advanced they become, experts never lose sight of the basics. In some ways, they’re advanced for that very reason: they understand the basics better than anyone else. Developers who get a standard computing education take classes that cover the elemental concepts of the field: algorithms, data structures, discrete math. Most of them then diversify into other computing topics and eventually apply their education to writing software systems. Since traditional android app development competitions use problems that need math and algorithms skills, a competitive android app development hobby may be a way for programmers to take care of attention on computing fundamentals, even while they still apply their skills in other areas. Furthermore, it encourages a deep understanding of these topics, since algorithms must be repeatedly applied to different problems. whenever you modify an algorithm to use it to a special problem, you reinforce your knowledge of that algorithm.

7. It’s fun

Like joining an amateur sports league to urge exercise, participating in android app development competitions to urge better at android app development provides built-in motivation. Keeping an eye fixed on the leaderboards and searching forward to facing off against your peers maybe thanks to encouraging consistent practice. Some people take the position that programmers should participate in competitions just for entertainment.

8. It’s how to practice fast android development

Most commercial software development work features a deadline, but it’s usually measured in weeks or months. In competitive android app development, the deadlines are measured in minutes. This provides a singular perspective on problem-solving and implementation. There isn’t time during a contest to look online for answers. you want to have language syntax and algorithm knowledge at your fingertips (literally).

There’s a faculty of thought that practicing competitive android app development will cause bad habits that programmers will then carry over into their regular work. Writing a brief program in half-hour to unravel a puzzle is different enough from writing an entire application that it shouldn’t be hard to recollect to require more look after code that’s getting to be maintained over time. And even for work that has got to last, there’s a benefit to having the ability to code quickly. 

Assuming good code quality, a developer who can finish a specific task during a day is more valuable than one who takes two days. In Joel Spolsky’s classic The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing, he recommends starting the android app development as a part of an interview with a really easy question, while listening to how long the candidate takes to unravel it. The rationale for this test is that “If the essential concepts aren’t very easy that you simply don’t even need to believe them, you’re not getting to get the large concepts.” Competitive android app development can assist you to learn the essential concepts tolerably that you simply don’t need to believe, which frees you up to believe more complex issues within the system you’re building.

 

9. You’ll really learn your chosen language

It’s public knowledge among learners of human (natural) languages that the simplest thanks to getting to intermediate level during a new language is immersion: once you recognize the bare minimum, put yourself during a situation where you’ve got no choice but to use the language. Visit a rustic where the language is spoken, and hang around with the locals. The analogous plan for really learning a programming language is to use it during a contest. There won’t be any time to consult your book or dictionary, so you’ll determine in time if you’re actually fluent. If you’re not, then contests will push you to urge there, whether by making you employ the right fingers to hit those special characters, learning the syntax for common library methods, or simply writing tons more code.