Is TopCoder dying? Shall I start participating in Topcoder SRMs in late 2019?

Revision en4, by nocriz, 2019-09-26 11:38:19

TopCoder has been a famous competitive programming platform and I've heard of TopCoder for years. I've never participated in TopCoder rounds though. Like many of my friends, I started to really participate in online rounds since 2018, and Topcoder's fame already seemed to fade.

Last year, I did attempt to participate in a SRM, but I met various difficulties. Possibly I'm not clever enough but participating in SRM is indeed much complicated than participating a Codeforces Round.

  • The java applet was confusing.
  • I didn't know where to find the time of the next SRM. Although I saw posts of SRM announcements on Codeforces, it is usually the day after the round.
  • The TopCoder website didn't seem like a competitive programming website.

In the end, I didn't success in participating in any SRM. A few days ago, I finally find the current Topcoder Competitive Programming Page with the future contest time, solution, problem archive etc. The Link. (Last year, all I found was the arena. That was indeed confusing to me, I never imagined that there is a separate page.) It is finally possible for me to start participating in TopCoder, but I found that on TopCoder, SRM participants in 2019 are typically ~300, while a few years ago there were ~2000 people in a single round.

I'm a bit worried that TopCoder is dying and start participating on a new platform is probably not a good idea for me, and that I will encounter more difficulties or that there will be even less or none participant in the future. However, I heard that the problems were good, Is it true? What are your suggestions for someone that wants to participate in TopCoder Contests in late 2019 to make it easier?

Tags codefocres vs. topcoder, #topcoder

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  Rev. Lang. By When Δ Comment
en5 English nocriz 2019-09-26 11:39:24 0 (published)
en4 English nocriz 2019-09-26 11:38:19 393
en3 English nocriz 2019-09-26 11:28:56 782
en2 English nocriz 2019-09-26 11:21:36 162
en1 English nocriz 2019-09-26 11:18:38 559 Initial revision (saved to drafts)