Programming is becoming an essential part of nearly every industry. The way it helps to organize and maintain large systems cannot be compared to anything else. If you are interested in learning to code, there are numerous online resources available for you.
Coding is a lot about creativity, your ability to come up with new and interesting ideas. Learning how to code is a critical first step but practicing that coding is an equally essential step towards honing your skill sets. Every programmer needs to practice coding so that he/she can stay in the loop. If you as a programmer don’t practice what you have learned, you might easily forget it.
There are many ways to learn and practice programming. Here are some top sites where you can practice programming and take part in coding contests.
These websites have their sets of practice problems, practice sessions, and competition rounds. These sites also provide you a job if you win the contest. Major of the competitions are sponsored by some big shot companies and they also keep a keen eye on the contests, so who knows you might be a lucky person to be selected for a big internship or for a big job. Some of these competitions are held on a weekly, monthly or yearly basis whereas others have specific dates for competitions.
Most Popular Programming Contest Sites For Coding Practices:
TopCoder
With a million strong community of programmers, TopCoder is one of the first sites that come to mind when talking about coding challenges. Here, you can find a lot of challenging stuff in various categories like algorithms, testing, design, etc and can participate in both daily, and weekly coding challenges. The challenges are known to be tough and require great thinking ability to get through.
They have an applet, where you view the question, attempt them online (C/C++/Java/Python), debug it and submit it. They also have a few test cases with an answer on which you can test your program before submitting.
HackerEarth
Hackerearth is the another great website that offers difficult yet thoughtful challenges to hone your coding skills. It provides a platform for automated assessment of technical and logical skills of candidates. It also helps tech companies to find smart talented people who suit their needs by serving as a developer aggregation and selection platform.
HackerEarth provides a SaaS application to do an automated assessment of technical and logical skills of candidates. They’ve got frequent challenges being added, and you can signup a week before the challenge take place. Therefore, you will be having a week for practicing before the actual contest.
The latest feature of HackerEarth is a challenge series called CodeMonk. With CodeMonk challenges, you can immerse yourself in the world of code from all of its aspects, repeat challenges to really make the particular problem sets sink into your brain. The challenges will be focused on programming problems.
One added-bonus of this site, is for individuals who wish to expand their horizons beyond competing and coding challenges, can take advantage of HackerEarth’s Sprint service which offers them to create their very own hackathon.
CoderByte
The site has been aimed at complete beginners and intermediate programmers alike.
Since its initial launch in 2012, by Daniel Borowski, the company has grown into a decent & dedicated developer community who like to tackle programming problems in their spare time. This website has developed a lot since it got mass public backing via a Kickstarter campaign.
You can also ask questions if there is something you don’t understand, and the community is fairly active; so it is more than likely that you’ll get an answer.
Project Euler
This is one of the most popular coding challenge websites on this list with about a 100, 000 dedicated developer community. You get a new challenge every week that have been built to not be very hard, rather involve critical thinking and problem-solving. This website will aid you in rising up the ranks of your coding abilities and learn more about the language you’re using. It’s all about working your way up, making sure you thoroughly understand what you’re doing.
CodeChef
CodeChef was created with the goal of challenging and engaging the developer community by building a platform for developers to practice, compete and improve. It is a global programming community which hosts online contests, training, and events for programmers from around the world.
It already contains a massive collection of problems to get you started and also lets you access the source codes that other developers used to solve the given coding challenges. You can expect a new coding competition every single week here. Thousands of users participate in their weekly challenges, win gifts and improve their skills.
Codeforces
Codeforces is an online programming platform where you can find a large archive of problems. You can practice a variety of problems and submit competitive ones and compete on problems submitted by other users.
Codeforces has competitions every week. You can host your own groups, attend code gym, and see who the top coders on the site are. There are also frequent coding cups hosted that can help you to get noticed by the right people.
Since 2013, Codeforces has surpassed TopCoder in terms of active contestants.
Sphere online Judge (SPOJ)
Sphere online judge is one of the earliest competitions, with support for more than 40 programming languages and compilers. It is a treasure-trove of thousands of coding challenges which will keep you busy for weeks. The challenges at SPOJ range from simple coding problems to hard algorithmic challenges that require some serious problem-solving skills
SPOJ provides you with feedback on your solution, which may for some challenges contain additional hints. The SPOJ platform has been created around an online judge system, which serves for the automatic assessment of user-submitted programs.
SPOJ allows users to add their own challenges, organize programming contests, and compete for the highest ranks. It is used by both novice and confirmed programmers. For many, it serves as a training platform before large programming contests.
Google Code Jam
Google Code Jam is an annual programming competition sponsored and supported by Google itself. Here, professional and student programmers provide complex algorithmic challenges to solve using the programming language of their choice in a limited amount of time.
Honourable mentions:
Which one of these is among your own favorites?