As you take part in programming contests, keep in mind that the most important contest is with yourself: to constantly become better than you were before.

The worst programmer in the world would have a perfect formula for winning contests and use it again and again without change.

You should be able to think outside the box for contests and come up with your own algorithms rather then just regurgitate them.

I would disagree with this point. Just because one knows how to do dynamic programing and recognizes that the problem they are doing requires dynamic programing, does not mean they simply regurgitate the algorithm... This may be the case for the easier contests such as DWITE, ECOO and CCC to some extent, but for the more recognized and difficult contests, this is not the case. For these, you require a considerable amount of ingenuity and thinking outside of the box.

Saad, I know that you started this forum as a way to tell me to stop doing contest practice questions.....

but I still say that people don't just memorize algos.

when you do a contest, you DO use (or develop on) the algorithm you memorized.

no one figures out all the algorithms they use by themselves.
what is important is the understanding of algorithm.
you can memorize the algorithm after understanding of it.

Not saying A.J does

IMO While programming contests are not at all similar to real coding, they improve your ability to code by a lot.
While yes, they involve writing what boils down to unmaintainable garbage, I have never brought any of my bad habits into real projects. Programming contests are not focused on testing your ability to write pretty code, they are focusing on your logic skills.
Most of the time you don't know all the algorithms by heart, but enough about how to solve similar problem that you have a pretty good idea of how to solve it.

I know for sure that I became a better programmer by learning about algorithms and problem solving. While it may not be something that comes up in everyday programming, when it does it will help a lot. I also found that it gives you a different perspective when approaching problems.

Computer contests are like so many activities that approximate something else. Boxing is not "real" fighting, debate is not a "real" argument and Computer contests are not "real" programming.

In my own definition, a fresh graduate good/skilled programmer should have the followings:
1. *Strong skill of one or more good languages* like C++, Java and C#.
1. Must have strong skills with control structures. Don?t mess up if you?re asked to print out triangle or other shaped piles of ?x?s with loops.
2. Must have strong skills with recursion. You must know how to transform a looped task into a recursive one and vice versa, for example: multiplication using addition recursively.
3. *If your language is C/C++, you must know how to play with pointers and references.*
4. Understand pass by value and reference.
5. *Clearly understand scopes and memory allocation, de-allocation. Know when a object is destroyed and when to destroy.*
6. *Know the usage of all operators including bit-wise ones.*
2. *In-depth* knowledge of OOP.
1. *Only being able to write classes and doing encapsulation and inheritance is not what you should call good OOP.*
2. *Clearly understand how function overloading, overriding, polymorphism works.*
3. *Clearly understand how constructor/destructor (if any) works with inheritance.*
*4. Clearly know the difference and use of Interfaces and Abstract classes.
5. Know how to overload operators. Why and how copy constructor is defined/used.
3. Know common data structures
1. At least know the common data structures like stack, queue, linked list, doubly linked list (know circular version of all of them) and trees.
2. Be a skilled implementer of any of those, have clear concept of how push, pop, add, delete, peek etc method works on those data structures.
4. Know most common algorithms well
1. You don?t need to memorize pseudo codes line by line but you need to have clear concept of most common algorithms of sorting(bubble, quick, merge, heap, bucket, etc), searching (including DFS, BFS), etc.
2. As a fresher you must know their time and space complexities, pitfalls and improvements (if any).
5. General computing concepts:
1. Know processes and threads, how are they related to each other, how to program them, etc.
2. Understand TCP/IP: Don?t think it?s only the network administrator?s task to understand TCP/IP. All programmers ever doing any network or web programming should have clear TCP/IP concepts and understanding.
6. Be skilled in debugging in IDEs:
1. Be skilled in any or many of Visual Studio/Visual Studio.Net, Eclipse, Netbeans, KDevelop, etc.
2. Know how to debug your code.
7. Have basic knowledge of Software Engineering and SDLC.*

I learn a lot more from independent projects. I'm currently learning openGL and plan to have a game with fully functional AI and physics. Within these few months I have leaned so much about graphics and APIs, and how they work. And what I have learned isn't just limited to computer science and graphics, I also now have a greater understanding of physics that we won't cover (ever) in high school (yea physics! ). Plus with a personal project, I can be as creative as I want (well...within reason). Contests are okay, but I'm not very competitive, I just like learning. I think contests test your quick wit rather than your innovation and creativity.

'Notice how doing contests will only give you a few of the skills you need.

What do you guys think is the best way to become a better programmer? For now, I plan to get into open source or do a personal project while still doing programming contests. I think the skills they teach complement each other well.

However, unlike sports, if programming contests didn't exist, these skills would not be useless.