Hello!

It's 2023 now, and everyone is happy and hoping for a good year, which many good contests to come. So I want to say about one thing that I saw in most of the contests from last year, which I was pretty much annoyed about it and decided to speak about so that this year we will hope to have a better experience doing contests here.

I have been in this community for more than 3 years now, not very long, but definitely enough to say that although the number of participants did increase, the number of users increase dramatically, but the number of people that respond to the contests positively don't. It actually did decrease though. I still remember that 500+ upvotes for a contest announcement are a normal thing back then, but I rarely see them now. And a common thing right now, every single contest that is over will have some comments criticizing it, but not in a good way at all. So I will make this quick for certain types of comments like that.

I don't know if you do but I do see a lot of things like "This contest is complete bullsh*t", "Sh*t author" or similar. Or worse than that. Or even in different languages. Well, yes, most probably you did badly in that contest, and/or it's unbalanced or too hard, so you criticize the problem-setter for doing that badly. Seems understandable.

Or something like, "D is just boring implementation", "B is harder than C", or "E is just cancer. How the hell did you guys come to problems like this". Yeah right, problems are sometimes too nasty or not really your type, or it's just too unbalanced or something. Seems understandable.

And of course, the classic "X-Forces" stuff. MathForces, PermutationForces, Speedforces,... something like that. It's the most common one at least to my knowledge, and let's be honest, considering the number of upvotes in each of them, you can tell many coders agrees with this kind of thing like it has become a common thing in contests lately. Seems understandable.

All of the criticisms, all of the hate on the problem setters, are a lot more than I thought. It seems reasonable if you think that contest is bad for you and it's irrelevant in some way.

But how will the problem setters, or others feel, are very different.

I asked thanhchauns2, a real Codeforces problem setter who set 2 contests here recently and received a lot of positive feedback about it. I enjoyed both of them as well.

Or in short, he will spend a hell amount of time on problems and contests. Yes, thinking of an idea for a Codeforces problem, or any problem that would be in an important contest isn't easy. At all. Right now, the pressure is even bigger, the expectations are higher, hence a problem you solve here, recently, or generally, would likely take days, weeks, or even months, to even come out with a raw idea. It's not as easy as a lot of people think.

So sure, I don't say that you shouldn't leave negative feedback to the problem setters and their problems, maybe they didn't prepare it that carefully, it's a very important aspect for them to come back stronger with higher quality problems.

But always remember, if you do badly in a contest because of the above reasons, sometimes it's not their fault. It's you having a bad day.

An unbalanced contest, a "Mathforces" contest, or something similar, are still, contests. It might be unfamiliar to you, and it might make you frustrated, but every single one else does that contest as well. If you have a bad rank, everyone else above you, or you have many WAs, then no, it's not the author's fault. Then you have negative deltas, you are sad because you can't reach the level you want to. But think twice before blaming the problems. It is unfamiliar? Learn it yourself. It is math? Learn it. Practice some problems, until it becomes familiar. Because that day, they solved it, you don't. Simple as that, learn from mistakes and come back stronger, it will become beneficial for both authors, and you.

About unbalanced contests? Yeah, it's annoying, but get familiar with it. There are no rules here, that force the problems to be in a fixed range, to be acceptable. It's just a common sense building over the years, and sometimes, mistakes do happen, but that's how strategy comes to play. Most of the coders here solve problems in order, but sometimes, in a contest, if you don't have any hope for a problem, you could read the next one, nothing wrong with that, and it can save you. There aren't 1000 testers per contest to tell you what is more difficult than what. In the end, the same problem, they solved it, you don't.

And yeah, don't curse in a different language. Please. It is just wrong in every way.

So what do we get? Before leaving a comment about something, be the author. Be the one that will hear your screams. Be the author that will get the hate, for a whole f*cking year of making their dream of making a contest, just for you saying it's bad. Get over it. A problem is a problem, is for you to solve, not to hate. In the end, you will learn, and you will become stronger after each contest. And the authors will get the credit they deserved, and be ready, to make much more, and much better contests for you guys.

And I know, there are still bad contests in general. There are even copy-pasted problems, which I hope will never happen again. But from these lessons, I know they will know what they did wrong after each contest, and they, the problem setters, the authors, and the coordinators will improve themselves to bring to you a better experience with Codeforces contests, to make this platform better. And do me a favor. So should you. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can break your heart. And it can shatter your dreams.

Any opinions drop them below. Apologize for any mistakes.

Stay well my friend.

Think about this. In the near future, let's say 10-15 years, technology will improve drastically, and artificial intelligence (AI) will probably be a very important thing in daily life and work. What would be its effect on Competitive Programming? This topic is not new, Every 1-2 years there's someone talking about it on numerous platforms. And probably all received the same answer: It's dubious, only time will tell us, which is true. But in some way, we can just imagine and make probable guesses about what may happen to CP in the future. This blog will mostly summarize my guesses and questions about the near future of CP, and we can discuss it somewhat to hope for an even better community in the future.

I. Competitive Programming Problems

One thing we can agree with is in the near future, with a huge potential in the CP community and the existence of AI, the quality of the problems may be better. The knowledge standard will increase over time, to match the improvement of the world. Another prediction in the near future is a huge improvement in computer speed and coding languages as well, so we have more time and resources to explore new exciting algorithms of programming. But there are some unanswered questions.

Take an example. Let's assume that in the future the computer speed increases dramatically, and the judging system in problems improves as well. Let's say, around $$$10^{12}$$$ calculations per second. Then what will happen to old problems? There are thousands of problems that could be solved in $$$O(n)$$$ and $$$O(n$$$ $$$log$$$ $$$n)$$$ in Codeforces alone, and if the judging system improves, problems could be solved in $$$O(n^2)$$$, that might be a bad choice. Numerous problems will be outdated and won't be as beautiful as they should be, and well, the problem ratings will mess up. There are a lot of examples of this already (a lot of very old problems which have a high rating could be solved by a way lower coder with ease), and there will be a lot more. There are solutions to this, but I will leave it here for now.

II. Competitive Programming and Real-Life Programming

Another thing is, that a lot of CP bits of knowledge are not really useful in general programming. We have to admit that Competitive Programming (CP) and Real-Life Programming (RP) are basically 2 different things, as RP requires a lot of design skills, knowledge of many coding languages, and a lot more, while CP is mostly math and DSA (Data Structures and Algorithms) required. We don't need CP to do RP, and RP is a lot more useful in life, so CP is not as important and popular in general.

According to this, there probably are 2 main ways that CP can go in the future:

1. CP may be more and more related to RP. This means, that in the future alongside the DSA and math problems, there might be some RP problems (such as designing simple bots that do random things). It's quite unlikely, but if it happens, CP would be a great thing to explore RP and will be a great resource to build a career in the future. There surely are drawbacks, such as designing things will probably reduce the uniqueness and excitement that CP brings over the years, which means this will be a hard thing to get with. But with a lot of problems having a little bit of something called "design", I think it's possible.

2. CP separates from RP, which is a lot more likely to happen. As I said before, CP is not really needed to go to RP so it doesn't get as much recognition as it deserves. Watching CP competitions is as many people say, boring, as competitors just sit in front of a computer and do a lot of coding stuff that normal people can't understand. Therefore, to get CP to the people, we have to make it unique in its own way, while making it more exciting and can attract the audiences. If we don't, CP may never enough to be a big thing in the future, and just become a small community that wants to relax after work or people who want to get hired. Which is still a thing to be happy with, but to become a dominant thing in the future, a change is needed.

III. Can Competitive Programming be an eSport?

One change that is very considerable to think about is to change it into an actual eSport, which has actual battles, competitions, and huge prizes. Right now there is a lot, but it's more like a study competition, not a sports one, which can reach the audiences. To make it familiar to normal people, we need to change it into a way more exciting format which can make you addicted to it. This has been discussed before, and a lot of people have said it's not possible due to the uniqueness of Competitive Programming, budgets, and much more.

But there might be a way. An unrelated example is, that health bars are pretty easy to think about and code, but combine with some unique ideas and materials, we will have different games that are very popular right now. CP if combined with some simple stuff in some way that is familiar enough, we may hit a jackpot. Of course, talking is harder than doing, but if there are enough support and people/companies who are interested in this idea (CodinGame for example), it's not impossible at all.

IV. Competitive Programming and AI

There are blogs about AlphaCode long before and the fact that it actually can solve problems man-made is really stunning. Of course, the hope of AlphaCode participating in the next contest is gone, reduced to atoms but in about a few months, it may become a reality. In the near future though, AI will become a big thing in CP. It will help us a lot in thinking about new problem ideas, hosting contests, or even solving problems that we have never solved before, finding new algorithms that we never found before. Another idea is to make an AI similar to Stockfish in chess, which can analyze our performances and chance to win a contest somehow, which will be a fun idea speaking of competitions. A really hopeful future.

Final thoughts

Competitive Programming has a really bright future ahead of it. There will be obstacles or challenges we will need to go through, but I know our community is very strong, therefore everything is await us.

Those are my overview predictions about what may happen to the future of Competitive Programming, and it is one of the most interesting categories I have ever thought of. What about yours? What do you think can happen in the future? If I missed something or you have your own ideas, feel free to write a comment below.

I may have some mistakes in English, if it happens, I'm sorry.

Much thanks to phattd for valuable feedback and encouragement to post this blog.

Stay well :)

TL;DR stop making new accounts just to post blogs and post it on your main.

Hello everyone!

I know it has been a while since I ever post a blog. I'm lazy ok? Today I want to tell you what went pretty bad recently: The existence of alts.

There are many type of alts which is being used for different stuffs, but let's put it in a side and talk about the most annoying type for me. Yeah, those unrated alts that appears everywhere, from recent blogs to comment sections.

If I am not wrong then every 1-2 days there would be an alt like that appear and post something like: Asking to be better at topics, talking about CP in india, or other stuffs. But what occur the most? Those who "catch" cheaters.

When EVERY SINGLE CONTEST that ends there would appear a blog that says "Cheater EXPOSED in Codeforces round #XYZ!" or "Google Kickstart round M code LEAKED!" from a random alt created shortly ago, drop a bunch of comments, and then some continue doing their "good" stuffs, some AFK forever.

What do I mean? I did a research about users that have "cheater" in their username (I know there would be a lot of others that don't), and oh my lord there's a lot. (You can do it yourself here.)

So what do they say "catching" cheaters? Not something like "If you want to be better don't cheat next time" but tell you what? They don't stop just there. Everytime someone they catched post a random comment, they jump right in and says "You stupid cheater tryna post comments but we won't forget you ever HAHAHA" or something similar.

Proof? A lot, search it by yourself, but if you are lazy so here's one.

It's really annoying that people who cheated and even those who changed their minds can't live normally at Codeforces and being stomped. I would still say, exposing cheaters are good, and people who cheat should be punished to not doing that at the future.

But why don't you post it on your main?

Are you scared of polluting your main account? Or you think you want to farm upvotes but your blog doesn't deserve to be on your main? Please, be yourself. If you post it in your main account, you will for sure getting more attention right? At least you are something on this platform, not a random alt bullshit that just made 2 hours ago and became a legend at contribution.

Way better right? Everytime I see an alt account that has the Last visit time almost equal to the Register time, I asked myself: Why the hell this account needs to exist anyway? What is the purpose of creating an entire account just to post a blog and boom, gone? I mean, those posts not only don't make an impact on cheaters (They are unrated, and yes, there are too many cheaters), but they make Codeforces recent blogs worse. Don't judge me, just my own opinion. Post it on your main account would be great for you, me and this platform.

Another thing I need to say, if you found a cheater, why ping the contest authors and the creator of this amazing platform for no reason? Why do you ping them? Just to be answered "I will take a look about this, thanks" and you will be happy that you did something big? Not only wasting their time looking at stupid cheaters you caught, but it sounds just dumb. Useless. For real, tryna make a contest author replying to your cheater exposed blog, "for the sake of this community", why? They tried their best at creating problems, make Codeforces better everyday, just to see your blog sake? Think.

Everything I said above is just the "bright" side of those alts sake. I know there are random alts that saying, post stuffs that is "not supportive" to Codeforces (you remember Good_Stone spams?) but I won't go any further since it doesn't even deserve to be here.

I think I made this too long so I will stop here. Just saying I wrote this all freestyled (just to release my anger, not dependent on any other previous posts) so if I say something rude or wrong then sorry, please don't take this seriously.

Be your true self. Get to the main. Solve some problems. Get a life. Don't bother about those cheaters sake, overcome it. You will see your life would be way better :)

Any opinions drop below.

Stay positive mate.

Erm, so...

Today for me starts like any other day, I woke up, ate breakfast, and visited Codeforces for fun. To be honest I didn't compete in any contests for a while, as I have a lot of exams and studying online.

I'm pretty bored so I scrolled down randomly, and I found something that hit me, like a truck.

One of the highest-rated and most respected Codeforces users in my country, Kuroni, left the Codeforces community.

I checked his profile, and he left it with nothing but a blank in his profile picture, and a line below his nickname that says "Goodbye". That's it, nothing else.

I was completely shocked. I even cried for around half an hour. I mean, anyone that has a big contribution to this community (and high-rated as well), and decides to retire, hurts. You may think that this is hurt as anyone else farewelled before, and I feel ok with it.

But for me, it hits different.

He is my personal favorite coder. Kuroni was my idol, since the first days I entered Codeforces.

I still remember back then, on my first day ever at Codeforces, with my curiosity I checked the highest rated users in Viet Nam. Well, it is now cabbit, but on that day, it was him. Kuroni.

Since then, I had a dream. A dream to practice with my own heart, to be a red coder like him one day. Across my journey on CP, he inspires me a lot. Every time I was feeling down, I checked his profile and have the motivation to continue. Seems pretty weird, but without him, I am not very sure that I would be blue right now.

Long story short, although this will be really hard for me to come through, life must continue. But for now, I will sit back and take this as a new step in my life. From now, I will train harder than ever, trying my best to one day, at least one day, fulfill my dream.

I don't think I could say anything more about this topic, so everything I can say is: farewell, thank you, and best of luck to Kuroni for whatever you choose to have a brighter future. I hope that when you come back here, you can know that at least this community doesn't forget and always welcome you with open hands.

Any thoughts are welcome. Sorry for my bad English.

Kuroni orz

Hello Codeforces,

Nowadays there are a lot of memes posted on blogs every day. And after 6 months, I understood that.

So today I think I should tell you about my own story :)

(For all fellow meme creators and a bit to answer this blog)

When I started Codeforces, I didn't care about memes much. Then I saw right below my rating is my contribution, and it stays zero. I was very confused about that.

Later I saw lots of blogs, full of comments. Many of them are memes, with upvotes and even downvotes. I realized that they can affect their contribution.

I wonder: "What if I post a meme on this platform?" So I start searching about memes, and how to make them. Not much after I post my first ever meme on Codeforces.

I got lots of upvotes. I was so happy because my contribution increases a lot. I started making some more. A lot more. I used every chance ever to post my own meme, to see my contribution increases and being satisfied.

But then, one of my memes got downvoted. I was very angry, and even post a blog complaining about downvotes. I was being hated, got downvotes, and most importantly, my contribution decreases.

I was sad, depressed. A lot. Once I even think about leaving Codeforces.

But then, lots of my friends told me to change. They told me that contribution is not as important as your rating.

I looked back and can't even believe what have I done. I asked myself how I became a meme creator and how I was being a people like that.

I was being like crazy. I was looking at my upvotes, my comments like every minute, and forgot what I really here to do.

My friends really made me change my mind. So I changed to what I am today.

Now I am back to what I really am, not caring about memes anymore. I am very proud of myself, about how I escaped that.

So, yeah! That is my full story, about how I got into contribution, memes, and how I got out of that. Now I can look back and tell myself "Phew! Glad that I am not making memes anymore :)"

If you want to prove that my story is true, just go into my blogs, comments, and how I used to post.

And finally, thank you, guys. Thank you Codeforces, and my friends, for making me change, and realized that how life really is.

Feel free to hear your own story and opinions :)

See you soon! :) ****

Does anyone think that badges are too rare?

10 years have passed and only 3 badges have been released.

Moreover, those 3 badges are pretty much similar: 5 years badge, 8 years badge, 10 years badge.

So, lots of deserved coders don't have any badges.

Boring right?

So today, I suggest adding more badges, like "Reaching LGM" badge, "solved 1000 problems" badge, "coordinator" badge, or something similar.

If there are more badges, more people will enjoy doing CP, attending contests, or reaching new targets.

That would be much better than just 3 badges, I guess.

That's all :)

Any questions, thoughts, or if you think it's unnecessary, comment below.

Thanks for reading!

Hello Codeforces!

(Again, sorry to anyone that I will be showing kind of disrespect.)

So, since now there are more and more contests that had unusual starting times, many coders need to leave them because of religions.

You guys may know that this month is a very important month. You know, about Ramadan month, Iftar time and, erm, Eid-Al-Fitr???

(Sorry if I didn't spell it right)

And also tonight, 23 of May, is the Eid-Al-Fitr night. This is the most important night in Ramadan month, according to my knowledge :)

So, many people had talked about them in comments, blogs... and some even decided to make a contest about them.

Examples:

These are my opinions.

I know that religions are very important to everyone who is used to it.

But, I think that Codeforces and Religions don't fit together.

Because Religions, like something that I mentioned above, only being used by some people or countries.

But Codeforces is a platform for all over the world.

Therefore, most of Codeforces users won't get by them and will ignore it, including me. Because we don't know about these kinds of stuff. Downvotes are inevitable.

So, If you get used to religions or something, keep it yourself. Enjoy it with your family, friends, and the country you live at. I will respect that.

And you shouldn't care about contests too much. We all know that unusual times affect a lot of users. But you can make virtual contests later, or solve contest problems, and attending contests in the future. I'm sure that this would be OK for you.

But, you shouldn't bring it here, in Codeforces. I want this website to be clear, diverse with a lot of exciting contests, not just for caring about your religions.

Religions are very important. So, enjoy it in your area, it is more important than just Codeforces contests.

Nothing lasts forever. Soon you will be back with All-day Codeforces with so much fun and things. Trust me.

So that's it!

Any thoughts are welcome! Sorry for making this blog long,

And thanks for reading!

Hello Codeforces!

And no, I don't think everyone should change your profile picture. Just a tiny amount of them, because I'm so angry about them right now.

Profile pictures often share the user's faces, and sometimes their feelings or favorites. I respect that.

But, if you post a profile picture that shows blood, scary or violent stuff, like these two below, then just stop. It would make me and many other users uncomfortable.

(if you don't like seeing scary stuff or violence, or blood, don't click this link. Please)

Example 1

Example 2

Codeforces is a platform for coding, solving problems, attending contests, and much more. Not for blood/violence stuff.

So, if you are one of them, change your profile picture. Please, that would be much better.

Any thoughts are welcome!

Thank you!!

(Sorry guys for problems about the first blog, I hope it won't happen this time)

Hi guys!

Today I will be talking about downvotes.

And anyone thinks that I write this blog is because of my comments, then you are correct!

But today we won't talk about my comments. I don't care about my comment that much. Downvotes are ok.

cry inside...

So why there are downvotes?

People downvote a comment or blog mostly because of bad content.

Some of them downvote comments or blogs just because of THEY LIKE IT.

And in my opinion, when a comment (or blog) has a bunch of downvotes, people will start a movement, and start downvoting the comments, either they are good or bad.

My opinion about downvotes

I think that downvotes are ok. If you think that the comment is bad, downvote it. Even my comment. That's fine.

But, if you downvote (or even upvote) a comment based on the movement, you should stop.

Because you just vote the vote that they don't deserve.

And also, if you downvote someone if they already had like, 5 downvotes, then everyone would think that comment/blog suck.

For some comment posters, It would make them unhappy. And even worse, they would be heartbroken and alone.

(I said too much.)

Furthermore, it will affect the poster's contribution, and if they have a negative contribution, they might be hated, or even alone.

So, vote properly. See the whole blog/comment, and then decide to vote.

Before I stop this blog, I want to show you a Codeforces issue.

(well this issue is in fact a feature that I didn't know, sorry guys)

All done!

I hope you enjoyed this blog!

And once again, if you upvote or downvote something, think back and see all of that comment/blog and then decide.

If you vote based on the movement, please stop. Vote properly.

Thank you for reading!

Any accepted upvote or downvote, and comments are welcome!

And finally, this blog will have a lot of downvotes for sure. I know it because I might hurt someone or people will start a movement to downvote my blog. That's ok, I don't care.

Love you all!!!

BYE!!!

Hello Codeforces!

I have been in Codeforces for about 7 weeks. And I love it.

Exciting problems, understandable and interesting problems, comments, blogs, .....

Codeforces, in my opinion, is the perfect environment for attending contests and solving problems for people like me.

And as I am using Codeforces, I got a bunch of dumb ideas that I think MikeMirzayanov shouldn't apply it into Codeforces, but if he did, it would be quite interesting.

So today I would like to share them with you guys!

(Please don't take this blog too seriously, this is just my ideas. And sorry for bad English, I guess)

1. Rating

I quite agree with this website's rating. But "the International Master"'s rating ranges make nonsense, I think. Because others need at least 200 ratings to reach new colors (or new rates), while this need 100 ratings to reach Grandmaster. Also, we need a 2100 rating to reach Master, which I think is a little bit too high. So, the rating should change like this:

1800-2000: Candidate Master;

2000-2200: Master;

2200-2400: International Master.

That would be better for me.

2.Contests

I love contests and problems here. A little bit queue and "hard to understand" problems are okay for me.

But the delta is a little bit too unfair, especially in Div.4. If you attended Codeforces Round #640, you might know that some pupils or even newbies have become Experts, which is too much.

So to make ratings fairer, I think we should make ranges of deltas higher in Div 1,2 than Div 3,4, like if in Div 2, top 1 increases 300 in ratings, in Div 4 should be like 100.

And also I don't think there should be too many subtasks, because it would be annoying if you can't solve the first subtask, I guess.

3.Emojis

I am pretty much surprised that the comment section in blogs doesn't include emojis. If it has emojis, the comment section would be more diverse. Yes, I know that emojis aren't sound good at a coding website, but I want more than just :) and xD, ok?

4.Friend requests

Let's stop a little bit to see tourist's profile.

You can see that he now has 25,645 friends.

But most of them are not friends.

They are pretty much fans.

Friends need friendship, in my opinion. According to Wikipedia, friendship is a relationship of mutual affection between people. And most of the tourist's "fans" are not.

I think that there should have "friend requests" to distinguish friends and fans. That would be much better to communicate with your "real" friends and not being affected by "fans". I personally like this idea the most.

Okay that's it! That's some of my ideas about Codeforces.

And once again, this is just my ideas, don't take it too seriously.

Any questions or thoughts about this blog, comment below.

Thanks for reading!

Stay safe!