International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET)
e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 08 Issue: 04 | Apr 2021
p-ISSN: 2395-0072
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Survey Paper on Usage of Various Coding and IT Discussion Platforms
Raj Vaibhav1, Alok Tiwari2
1Raj
Vaibhav, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Lovely Professional University, Punjab, India
Tiwari, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Lovely Professional University, Punjab, India
---------------------------------------------------------------------***--------------------------------------------------------------------2Alok
a) CodeChef
b) CodeForces
c) HackerEarth
d) HackerRank
e) Stack Overflow d) GeeksforGeeks
e) StackExchange f) LinkedIn
g) Reddit
Abstract - With the advent of computer, tedious tasks which
required a lot of man power and time became easy and faster
to do. It exponentially improved the productiveness of day-today activities. With the discovery of internet and digital
electronics, the mode of communication became much simpler,
quicker and instant. People started opting and learning it as
their course work to understands how computer works. Which
lead them to learn various coding languages and discuss,
invent and implement various efficient algorithms to solve real
world problems. Coding is one of the most important aspects of
development. Eventually gazing upon the importance of
coding, people in these industries developed various platforms
where one can solve problems via coding. A great everincreasing community got created where people could get
their doubts clear, learn and understands the concepts with
more clarity which came to known as Discussion form. In this
paper we have described about various usage and
productiveness of such platforms in people’s life. For instance,
CodeForces, HackerEarth, HackerRank, GeeksforGeeks, Stack
Overflow are few among many platforms related to coding and
discussion form. In this paper we have discussed about these
such platforms.
2. Coding Platforms
Coding Platforms are interface (basically a dynamic website)
on which people can create an account of their own and can
solve various different types of problems available on the
platforms. They can even check out their personal growth in
their account profile. These platforms update their database
of questions on a regular basis, so that audience are exposed
to different categories of problems ranging from too easy to
too hard. So that everyone could solve a problem at their
own levels and get upgraded in the process of learning.
Below are the few such platforms discussed.
2.1 CodeChef
CodeChef is a competitive programming platform created
as a platform to assist programmers elevate their skills
within the world of algorithms, programming, and contests.
It provides a platform for programmers no matter how apart
they are geographically, they can compete, learn and have
fun in the process. They promote the culture of learning and
friendly programming, with an enormous community of
drawback curators. Problems related to coding are
separated into different categories based on your skill level.
Key Words: Coding Platforms, Discussion forms
1. INTRODUCTION
Features:
Coding is basically a set of instructions or programs written
in a programming language (a language developed in
relation with English for the ease of people) which is
followed by the systems to complete a respective task. As
time passes, people became better and efficient in
developing various effective and fast algorithms (procedure
to solve a problem/task). This is because interested people
started giving much time and practiced and manipulated
various techniques to come across and deduce their own
efficient way to solve different kinds of problems. Practicing
the art of coding is vital for one to become good at it. And to
do this solving various categories of questions and
discussing it with others is the solution of becoming good at
it. With this in mind, online platforms have been created to
promote coding. These platforms helped to create a vast
community across the globe. Anyone with an interest in
coding can practice, learn and increase their skills via
indulging upon platforms like these. To name some,
following are the platforms we have discussed in this paper:
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Practice
Compete
Discuss
Host Contest
Campus Chapter
CodeChef is one in each of the foremost necessary
competitive programming platforms. They open their
platform for anyone to host programming contest and a
feature called field chapter as tool for various programming
clubs across the globe to utilize it. It conducts minimum of 4
contest every month for people across the globe to promote
enthusiasm and curiosity among coders. People on the
platforms are marked with ratings and stars as per their
performance in solving the questions and the timeframe
took to solve it. Rating System is as follows:
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International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET)
e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 08 Issue: 04 | Apr 2021
p-ISSN: 2395-0072
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<= 1399: 1 Star
1400 - 1599: 2 Stars
1600 - 1799: 3 Stars
1800 - 1999: 4 Stars
2000 - 2199: 5 Stars
2200 - 2499: 6 Stars
>= 2500: 7 Stars
categories of topics/concept to practice upon. One can
choose a category and solve/practice questions on it.
2.4. HackerRank
HackerRank is also one of the leading competitive
programming websites where one can practice and learn
coding. It also has vast databases of problems. It has also a
feature to host contest. Which is very helpful at academics’
front as teachers or clubs can host various competition for
their academic purpose. Companies also put up their contest
for hiring purpose. Many companies collaborate with it for
their hiring process.
2.2 CodeForces
CodeForces is a competitive platform where coders from
all over the world can participate in various competitions
having time limit conducted on the platforms. CodeForces
has a vast huge databases of coding question where people
can practice and solve questions. People can create groups of
their own and can enjoy it as a sport known as sports
programming. Competitive coding enthusiasts from all
across the world participate in these contests. It also gives
rating for each user as measure of how one performed in the
contest.
Features:
Practice
Certifications
Compete
Jobs (For hiring and securing)
Leaderboard
Features:
Contests
Gym
Problem sets
Host contests
Groups
Leaderboard shows the ranking globally as well as in
particular contest.
3. Discussion Forms
Discussion forms are one of the great learning platforms
ever created. People could ask about their doubts and get
answer from eminent persons. Making discission form online
make the reach globally. One can get answers from people
across the globe which isn’t possible in offline. One can reach
out to a desired person who is much more experienced to
clarify his/her doubts. Wide range of opportunities presents
itself on platforms like these. One can understand concepts
with different individual’s perspective. Few platforms have
been discussed in this paper.
CodeForces is one of the great programming platforms to
practice, learn and solve programming languages and have
fun in the process. Moreover, it provides a platform where
people can participate in contest to solve special categories
of problems and are ranked based upon their performance
and later on can introspect their strategies. It’s contest which
is approximately ranges from 2 to 5 hrs on average helps
people in their time management and increase their solving
power. When people take part in the contest they lower or
increase their rating as per their problem-solving skill.
Below are the few discussion platforms discussed:
2.3. HackerEarth
3.1. Stack Overflow
HackerEarth is a popular coding platform that features
over 10,000+ programming challenges and 1000+
hackathons. It is also trusted by hiring managers across many
companies. It has vast community of developers over 3
million across the globe.
Stack Overflow is a question answer platform for IT
enthusiast. It is visited by more than 120 million people each
month. One can create an account of its own to ask and
answer questions. Based upon the involvement, level, other’s
reaction to the question and answer, points and are given to
them. People can upvote and downvote the answer based
upon their level of understanding. It has helped a lot of
people to get their doubts clear as well as more conceptual
clarity occurs via discussion.
Features:
Practice
Discuss
Compete
Participate on hiring challenges
Stack Overflow's users can earn reputation points and
"badges". Users can unlock new privileges with a rise in
reputation like the ability to vote, comment, and even edit
alternative people's posts. Stack Overflow has Jobs section to
provide assistance to developers in finding their next
Various companies put up their hiring challenges to hire
people across the globe. In this platform one can find
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e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 08 Issue: 04 | Apr 2021
p-ISSN: 2395-0072
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professional opportunity. Stack Overflow assist companies to
promote their business via advertisement and connecting
employer to employee. It helps companies to hire candidate
which are open to such opportunities.
3.4. Reddit
Reddit is the massive set of various categories of
communities. People can create a community for their
communication and promotion and discussion. One, after
creating an account, can join communities known as
subreddits. So various communities of IT and coding is
present on the website. One can become a member of it and
post their thoughts and doubts. Post are upvoted and
downvoted as per individual’s perception. With net vote
(Total upvotes – total downvotes) points/rating is allocated
to it known as karma points.
Stack Overflow is helping developers and technologist for
the upcoming digitalized world. It is one of the 50 most
visited website in the world.
3.2. GeeksforGeeks
GeeksforGeeks provides multi-services to the audience
concerned. It has helped and guided a lot of people in coding
and interview experience. Many topics related to IT have
been explained nicely. People share about their interview
experience in various companies which assist other
applicants going through the process. One can also practice
coding. Various practice problems in different
categories/topic have been provided on the website. A lot of
topics are explained in their discussion portal.
Various communities comprise thousands and millions of
people. It has a massive community across the globe. One
can create a subreddit if they meet certain criteria like
having minimum number of karma point, should be quite
active etc.
People can present rewards to other users by buying
reddit coin, a gesture of supporting such large community.
Features:
Course
Jobs
Student discussion
Tutorials
It is a self-regulating market place of ideas. People widen
their perspective by joining such huge community. They are
able understand better and it changes the perspective of
looking into the things. Reddit is seventh most popular
website in US and 18th across the world.
Courses are offered by them for assistance in placements
and campus jobs and interview have been proved very
beneficial for many people.
One can become an editor and can also share their
experience and knowledge on the platforms.
4. Profesional Social Network
3.3. Stack Exchange
LinkedIn is one such platform. Below it has been discussed:
Stack Exchange platform is one amongst the reputed
active question and answer communities on the internet. It
allows people having account to ask and answer questions
on various topics ranging from computer programming,
music, gaming, mathematics, writing, graphic design to
photography. Stack Exchange has a vast community of users
worldwide. A lot active users post question and answer on a
daily basis.
4.1 LinkedIn
A professional social network dedicated to professionals.
Where people can increase their global connectivity and help
each other out.
LinkedIn is a social network for professionals. One has to
crate account and fill up their details such as education, skills
etc. People need to send connection request to each other.
More the connections, more is global outreach. It helps to
display resume, search for jobs, and enhance one’s
professional reputation by posting updates and interacting
with other people. LinkedIn is free, but a subscription
version called LinkedIn Premium offers features like online
classes and seminars, as well as insights into who’s searching
for and viewing your profile.
People can use it in a simple manner. User need to create
an account where he needs to fill up certain basic details like
name, password etc. then after successful creation of an
account, one can post questions and answer other questions
and can upvote or downvote as per their perspective.
However, while posting up question’s user need to check if
their questions is already present or not. If it is present
question will be deleted automatically from the website and
gets downvoted. Additionally, if user post questions in a
wrong community, one can get his/her account banned.
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It is a social media which is owned by one of the elite and
biggest software company in the world i.e., Microsoft.
People need maintain their own profile account such as
their current job status, what skills they acquire etc. which
helps them to meet the right people at right time.
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International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET)
e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 08 Issue: 04 | Apr 2021
p-ISSN: 2395-0072
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have connected people with various backgrounds to each
other. The presence of such platforms has ensured the
increment in the participation of people and helped them to
gain the right skill and attitude required in the field of IT.
People after spending time on such platforms, have
increased and improved their skills and thinking ability. We
asked question to various students in the college and most of
them agreed that discussion and practicing coding on such
platforms have improved their problem-solving skills as well
as time management. Also, participation in discussion form
have broaden their perspective due to the occurrence of
global interaction.
Companies have started their recruiting process with the
help of LinkedIn. Various settings and option are given,
which is extremely helpful for hiring process, by a LinkedIn if
one needs to hire people. Candidates are now shortlisted via
their profile (all the things they mentioned in the profile)
and are save with long tiring process of Initial shortlisting
process. It proves to be beneficial to both job seeker as well
as job giver. Job giver now can shortlist those people only
which are having skill for the required position and no
unnecessary candidate. It saves a lot of time and energy on
both sides.
With the help of LinkedIn, people can recommend the
companies the right candidates required. Due to the global
outreach, people get insights about the market and what
technologies are trending and what all is required in the
market. It also gives insights into the future technologies and
trends.
Providing warehouse of different categories of question to
practice in numerous language (for instance C++, C, Java,
Python etc.) online promote the community across the
globe. Without spending hefty money, one can easily practice
and learn via these platforms.
Communication and know- how of the world is one of the
vital aspects of people’s life. It is an interface which assist in
joining the pieces in the right place and where required.
Since few years Europe has been experiencing steady growth
in number of IT professionals. According to State of
European Tech report 2019, this surge is due to nearshoring
model which allows companies to find IT partners in both
geographical and cultural proximity.
5. RESULTS
Chart 1 -Developer in Europe year-wise
M- Million
These platforms have been created to empower the
communities of IT. Digital devices have become an extension
of an individual. It has increased the ability of humans. Be it
instant communication, storing large warehouse of
information, IT devices has made it possible.
Evans’s data corporation recently published a data about
number of developers across the world and estimated the
number it will be in 2030. Below is the table.
Table -1: Number of software developer
Online platforms like discussed above and others have
assisted people to connect with each other whenever
required. As world is becoming digitalized day by day it
requires people to have some basic understanding of how it
works moreover large number of people will be required to
work, maintain, update and watch if the infrastructure of
various services is in alignment or not. Demand of workers
will provide employments.
It suggests that in 2020 there were 26.9 million developers
and expected to reach 45 million till 2030.
IT (Information technology) industry’s contribution to
India’s GDP has increased from 1.2% in 1998 to 7.7% in
2017. It is one of the top industries that is blooming across
the world especially in India.
With this data we can easily infer that the coding has become
much popular and still its community is increasing
exponentially.
We can say that this popularity is one of the results of the
presence of such coding and discussion platforms which
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e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 08 Issue: 04 | Apr 2021
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Chart 2 – Year wise India’s IT market
from 2 to 3 years. Most of these websites produce their
annual report about programming languages, market etc.
which really helps looking and understanding the insights
about industry. It helps in the estimation and prediction of
path where industry is heading towards.
For instance, In Stack Overflow developer survey report
2020 suggest the most beloved programming languages used
by the developers as per their report. Below are the stats.
Chart 4 – Beloved languages by Stack Overflow 2020
survey
And coding is one of the building blocks of this industry. In
fact, without coding efficient algorithms, it would not have
been at peaks.
Platforms mentioned above like LinkedIn and others have
enhanced the process of hiring in a positive direction. People
from across the globe can know when and where the job
openings are taking place. Such platforms also provide the
ability to conduct various coding test or hackathon which
helps them to filter out the right person as per their
requirement in the company. It has removed the tedious
process of hiring which used to take place. Around 40 million
users search for jobs every week in LinkedIn. 3 people are
hired every minute through LinkedIn. It made the process of
job seeker and job provider much simpler and direct.
Chart 3 - LinkedIn Usage by US marketers
These platforms shred light upon various aspects going on in
the industry which really become helpful to learn and
increase one’s knowledge and skills. Joining such
communities broaden our horizon of thoughts which guide
us in a right pathway in professional as well as personal life.
6. CONCLUSIONS
IT infrastructure has become an extentention of humans.
Various platforms are now being created and had been
created to make the life easier for people as well as
developers. Coding platforms and discussion forms are such
few among many platforms which aid students and
developers to learn a lot of technical stuff and gain
experience in the process. Various contest held on such
platforms boost up the competitive environment in a
positive manner. One can learn various techniques to solve
problem by having discussion and understanding the
approach they took which help oneself to re-evaluate their
technique and compare. A problem is solved by various
people by numerous techniques which lead to broaden
perspective and invent something new sometimes.
With the use of such coding and discussion platforms market
comes to know about the popularity of various computer
languages. Due to the continuous participation, one can
know the stats about which programming language people
are more comfortable and are preferring which changes
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As the market as a whole is shifting towards more
digitalization, learning code at a basic level, is becoming
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International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET)
e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 08 Issue: 04 | Apr 2021
p-ISSN: 2395-0072
www.irjet.net
more important. Technology is ubiquitous in today’s society.
Understanding computers and learning the fundamentals of
coding helps students to develop an appreciation of how
things work. It shows a new aspect of applied mathematics
which is used to solve problem in a creative and logical
manner. Student can eliminate the fear to code as they
would start cultivating the habit of coding right from the
beginning. Integrating the features in one single platform
brings in a uniformity rather than installing multiple
languages to code and learn. Solving different types of
challenges and puzzles on such platforms can help the
students to become a better problem solver. Such Platforms
have really helped to push the world in the correct forward
direction.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We would like to express our deep, sincere and heartfelt
gratitude to our mentor, Mrs. Harjeet Kaur Ma’am, Assistant
Professor,Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
Lovely Professional University, Punjab,India for providing
her invaluable guidance us throughout the paper and helping
us in the challenges we faced through. Her insights really
helped us and taught us how to make things better. We are
extremely grateful for what she has offered us.
We would also like to thank our parents for their love and
care and being there throughout our journey.
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stackoverflow.com,Linkedin.com,geeksforgeeks.com,
stackexchange.com, reddit.com
Wikipedia and Medium article on Stack Overflow, Stack
Exchange
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