Fredrik won the AFRY Coding Games! Here is the after-game interview!

What technology or programming language did you use in the competition, and why did you choose it?

I wrote my code in Python, partly due to the large toolset it provides in its standard library to solve a large range of problems quickly, but mostly due to the first role when writing code: Write your code in the language you know best!

What challenges did you face during the competition, and how did you overcome them?

The main challenge when participating in competitive coding is always speed. For me the balance between spending time understanding the problem at hand and actually writing code is crucial. This is also a very important skill to have when working with code in general! As always, practice makes perfect!

Can you share some tips or strategies that you believe were crucial to your success in the competition?

Write as much code as you can beforehand. Practice makes perfect! Also, if you have the time, reading through the documentation for the Python standard library will give you a lot of tools that can shorten your code and allow you to be more efficient! In the end coding challenges often come down to solving the problems you face quickly, and my main tip is to go by intuition and just start typing down your code as soon as you can.

How do you view the importance of coding competitions as a platform to challenge and enhance your skills as a developer, as well as to meet and discuss code with other developers?

Meeting other coders and working on the same problems is crucial to developing your skills! Finding a working solution to a given problem is often easy. Finding a solution that is efficient, and most importantly, readable to others is harder! Discussing your code with others makes the second step much easier!

Finally, why do you think one should participate in the next competition?

Coding in your day to day work is almost never competitive, but participating in a competition will still give you an opportunity to practice skills that you will use in the future! From an optimisation point of view, one could say that a competition can bring you out of your local skill maximum and accelerate your development as a developer! However, for me the main motivation to participate is of course that it is fun!