OLYMPIADS IN INFORMATICS, 2008, Vol. 2, 149-162
© Institute of Mathematics and Informatics,

ISSN 1822-7732

Early Introduction of Competitive Programming

Pedro RIBEIROa, Pedro GUERREIROb

aDepartamento de Ciência de Computadores, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto Rua do Campo Alegre, 1021/1055, 4169-007 PORTO, Portugal E-mail: pribeiro@dcc.fc.up.pt

bUniversidade do Algarve Gambelas, 8005-139 FARO, Portugal E-mail: pjguerreiro@ualg.pt

Abstract

Those who enjoy programming enjoy programming competitions, either as contestants or as coaches. Often coaches are teachers, who, aiming at better results in the future, would like to have more and more students participating, from earlier stages. Learning all the basic algorithms takes some time, of course; on the other hand, competition environments can be introduced right from the beginning as a pedagogical tool. If handled correctly, this can be very effective in helping to reach the goals of the course and, as a side-effect, in bringing larger crowds of students into the programming competition arena.

Keywords:

programming contests, computer science education, automatic evaluation systems, competitive programming, introductory programming, IOI, International Olympiads in Informatics


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