Competitive programming languages

Question

Which are the best languages for competitive programming (pro vs con)?

Answer 1

I participate in high school competitive programming, so I might be able to answer this:

- Java. I see it as an option in almost every contest I compete in, and in some contests it's the only option. Plus, the libraries that Java has gives one a clear advantage in certain problems.
- C++. In my experience, it has proved to be pretty fast, especially considering how many problems require algorithms that, if they're not coded efficiently, will result in stack overflow. It also has a pretty big library. If anything, if all the contests you can find use C++, I'd suggest going straight to C++. It's probably the best choice.
- C is faster, but I don't have much experience in that language.
- Python. It's a lot easier to write, a lot easier to read (which can be an advantage in team contents if your team needs to look over your code) and a lot faster to write. Con is, it's a tad bit... slow sometimes.

Although, I mostly compete in high school contests (for I am a high schooler), but from my research it points to be about the same languages for college level contests. I'm interested to see what others think about this.

Answer 2

Best competitive programming languages in my views: -
Java, Python,C++ and C#.

The efficiency of python programs is often low as compare to others.
Java is a pretty good option, but to enhance the efficiency, you have to write and understand JAVA completely which is a complex language in my views.

C++ is my recommendation. As it is superfast, efficient and powerful. You need to write a bit code in C++ as compare to python, but trust me it is one of the most popular programming languages in the competitive environment and suits that.

C# is a combination of C++ and JAVA and ill prefer it over JAVA..
It is also a powerful but not much that popular that's why students often don't choose it. But in my opinion it is one of the best competitive programming language!!!!!

Answer 3

I would have thought Python for speed of writing code but not for the speed of the resulting program.