Ask HN: Did something happen to TopCoder? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Did something happen to TopCoder?

13 pointssuperuser26 comments

What's the deal with TopCoder?

In lots of comments from around 2010-2012, TopCoder is fairly revered as what sounds like a competitive Project Euler on steroids. I remember going there (or somewhere similar?) a few years ago, and there were programming challenges you could try; you'd code in the browser and they'd score your code with a test harness, and you could build a reputation/rank through your profile.

Looking at TopCoder now, it appears to be a slimy freelancing marketplace. There are a handful of "challenges" and they amount to bottom-of-the-barrel oDesk/Elance-type work, and it appears you're supposed to do it on spec as part of a "competition."

Did something happen? Am I just not looking in the right place? Does anyone recommend something similar?

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From the wiki page on TopCoder [1] "In September 2013, [topcoder] was acquired by Appirio." So assuming it was when they got acquired that it changed.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TopCoder

I remember TopCoder from around 2000-2001 when they had contests twice a week and actually paid out cash to the top finishers in different groups. It was 3 problems, I believe, that could be coded in C++ or Java and each allowed 20 minutes to complete. I thought it was pretty crazy when I actually got paid for programming contests that took about an hour.

I can speak from (two-year stale) personal experience. I attempted to use the site as a freelance marketplace.

They have some interesting buyers. http://www.topcoder.com/asteroids/ On this one, at the time I looked at it, any individual could code up a solution and submit it. Best solution wins money.

There are other parts of the site. I'll refer to the "competitive Project Euler" stuff as Algorithm Contests.

My conclusion (speculation) is that the truly interesting buyers (DoD? Fortune 100?) use the rankings board on the algorithms contests for some purpose.

I also concluded that I am both too stupid* and too paranoid to hang out on [TC]. YMMV.

* O(n)^what?

Are you referring to the TopCoder Arena java applet? It still exists here: http://community.topcoder.com/contest/arena/ContestAppletPro... . They've redesigned the site recently but to access it you can just visit topcoder.com/tc and click Challenges -> topcoder Arena.

The browsable problem archive is also in the same location: http://community.topcoder.com/tc?module=ProblemArchive.

From what I can tell, as someone who's used the site on-and-off and won some contracts, it's slowly transitioned from algorithm contests as the main focus to being a weird freelance site for very... traditional (think waterfall as an aesthetic) companies and for civilian fringes of the military-industrial complex like NASA and DARPA. Lots of users in high school and from 2nd world countries.

Codeforces is similar to TopCoder, well-used, and is only focused on algorithms.

http://codeforces.com/

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