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Comment by gsaines | Hacker News Reader

Hey pj, sorry you feel that way. I can assure that our intent here is not to get cheap labor, the code that people write won't be usable to use in any way by us or third parties, so as pdenya mentioned you should only enter the contest if you think it's fun!

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The part about "let us help you find a job" sounds condescending, as if the industry wasn't begging for developers that can actually write code.

I would argue any developer that understands the Traveling Salesman Problem is turning down job opportunities left and right. Call me a skeptic but if you don't care about the code, then sounds like the ulterior motive is to screen/recruit young developers and get some publicity.

In any case, I'm glad you're concerned about my feelings. I'm not attacking you, I'm attacking the trend. The only type of contest I believe in is a contest for charity. Anyway, you knew the contest would be a risk when you came up with the idea, right?

http://www.quora.com/What-legal-issues-come-up-when-running-...

Ah, didn't mean to condescend to people, we've actually met with quite a few great developers who just aren't good at marketing themselves or who aren't aware of the opportunities in the field. People on HN might not fall into that category for sure, but we feel really good about matching good developers with great companies.

Screening is definitely a motive for us, but it's entirely opt in and we don't bother people who don't respond (or ask us to remove them entirely). We're developers and understand the issue with LinkedIn spam.

Contests are risky for sure, which is why we spoke with some friends/advisers/lawyers about it before launching. There is a critical difference between randomly won prizes and games of contest (legal term). After discussing it, we thought it was worth the risk.

One thing I believe is that artificial limitations sometimes bring the most out of us -- contests are unique in this sense, if well designed. You deal with problems you wouldn't deal with otherwise, and more than make you good at solving those specific problems, they entice your creativity and tact for principles.

Just noting that I'm thoroughly codecombat (just started), amazing work.

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