I am also an ACM ICPC finalist (our team was 2nd in the world, 1st in North America in my final year of eligibility).
I think there are a few very specific skills you learn in programming contests that are useful in the real world:
1) Once you understand the problem to be solved, you can simply sit down and write the code to solve it. The ability to turn ideas into code in minutes instead of hours or days is invaluable. It lets you try lots of ideas, because the implementation step is easy. You can pick the ones that work and throw the rest away, and you don't mind throwing them away because they weren't a big investment. You don't realize how useful this is until you start meeting people who can't do it.
Our coach always told us that there is at least one easy problem, and someone's job the moment the contest starts is to identify it and bang it out. If we hadn't solved one problem in the first 20 minutes, we were already losing.
2) You learn to write code that is simple and correct the first time. Idioms that avoid special cases. Simple data structures ("No pointers!" was common advice, though of course reality was more subtle than that). Understanding when big-O complexity really matters, and when you can use a sub-optimal solution that's easier to code and reason about.
Sure, someone who is smart can write crazy complex code that only they can understand. But crazy complex code doesn't win contests. If you make a mistake you will burn all of your time trying to figure out what you did wrong, and the worse the code is, the worse of a hole you will dig yourself into. Write simple code that doesn't leave much opportunity for mistakes.
There's a scene in Jack Reacher where Tom Cruise's character says, "James Barr is a sniper. He's not
the best. He's not the worst. But he trained non-stop for two years. What does training like that do? What does any training do? Skills become reflex, muscle memory, you do without thinking. It also makes people who aren't necessarily smart seem smart by beating some tactical awareness into them." That's what contest programming does.
3) You learn to identify your limits. There's usually (but not always) at least one problem you should just throw away as "too hard" for the time allotted. You won't solve it, so any time invested in it is a waste. In the real world, where you can't just decide not to do your job, that means you know the difference between when you can go fast and when you need to slow down and reflect. When you need to write a test to really know if the code you just wrote is correct. When it's better to step back and simplify the problem, rather than beat your head against it.
Yes, people like to focus on the "hard algorithms", but really this is not what makes good contest programmers. People aren't deriving Ford-Fulkerson on the fly during a contest. They memorize a set of canned algorithms and apply them when necessary. You learn to recognize and value simple, robust solutions to problems. You carry a toolbox of these wherever you go. This toolbox keeps growing long after you stop competing, and it contains a lot more than fancy algorithms.
Now, there is also plenty you don't learn doing contest programming that you still need to know in a real job. But these are the things I learned that have helped me.
I'm still waiting for the day I need to compute the coefficients of a rook polynomial, though.
I think there are a few very specific skills you learn in programming contests that are useful in the real world:
1) Once you understand the problem to be solved, you can simply sit down and write the code to solve it. The ability to turn ideas into code in minutes instead of hours or days is invaluable. It lets you try lots of ideas, because the implementation step is easy. You can pick the ones that work and throw the rest away, and you don't mind throwing them away because they weren't a big investment. You don't realize how useful this is until you start meeting people who can't do it.
Our coach always told us that there is at least one easy problem, and someone's job the moment the contest starts is to identify it and bang it out. If we hadn't solved one problem in the first 20 minutes, we were already losing.
2) You learn to write code that is simple and correct the first time. Idioms that avoid special cases. Simple data structures ("No pointers!" was common advice, though of course reality was more subtle than that). Understanding when big-O complexity really matters, and when you can use a sub-optimal solution that's easier to code and reason about.
Sure, someone who is smart can write crazy complex code that only they can understand. But crazy complex code doesn't win contests. If you make a mistake you will burn all of your time trying to figure out what you did wrong, and the worse the code is, the worse of a hole you will dig yourself into. Write simple code that doesn't leave much opportunity for mistakes.
There's a scene in Jack Reacher where Tom Cruise's character says, "James Barr is a sniper. He's not the best. He's not the worst. But he trained non-stop for two years. What does training like that do? What does any training do? Skills become reflex, muscle memory, you do without thinking. It also makes people who aren't necessarily smart seem smart by beating some tactical awareness into them." That's what contest programming does.
3) You learn to identify your limits. There's usually (but not always) at least one problem you should just throw away as "too hard" for the time allotted. You won't solve it, so any time invested in it is a waste. In the real world, where you can't just decide not to do your job, that means you know the difference between when you can go fast and when you need to slow down and reflect. When you need to write a test to really know if the code you just wrote is correct. When it's better to step back and simplify the problem, rather than beat your head against it.
Yes, people like to focus on the "hard algorithms", but really this is not what makes good contest programmers. People aren't deriving Ford-Fulkerson on the fly during a contest. They memorize a set of canned algorithms and apply them when necessary. You learn to recognize and value simple, robust solutions to problems. You carry a toolbox of these wherever you go. This toolbox keeps growing long after you stop competing, and it contains a lot more than fancy algorithms.
Now, there is also plenty you don't learn doing contest programming that you still need to know in a real job. But these are the things I learned that have helped me.
I'm still waiting for the day I need to compute the coefficients of a rook polynomial, though.