I Gave Up Codeforces to Build an Ecosystem
Around two years ago, I wrote my first blog, “Motivated Coder.”
Back then, Codeforces was a big part of my daily routine. I loved solving problems, learning new ideas, and pushing myself further.
In that post, I also shared a small achievement from 2022:
A HEART STREAK.
That HEART STREAK is probably the best proof that I really loved coding. It was never just something I did for work. Solving problems and improving myself became part of my life.
But life is not always as smooth as it looks. A lot has changed since then.
So, What Happened?
Over the past few years, I ran into a lot of obstacles while trying to build my own things. At one point, I even lost my motivation. I wrote about some of that journey in my dev blog.
There was also a practical problem.
I couldn't always afford to spend hours on a Codeforces problem before starting my day. If I got stuck, my mind would stay on it for the rest of the day.
So I stopped using Codeforces as my daily warm-up.
Instead, I started putting that time into something of my own.
I've always wanted to make games, so I decided to finally give it a serious try.
One game became another, and eventually I started thinking beyond individual games.
Soon, I had a collection of games and ideas I wanted to bring together.
That became PromTGames — an ecosystem for everything I build.
P.S. This is the second edition of this post. I removed the longer story and development details — they can be explored on my website for anyone who is interested. I also removed the game links because this post is about my journey, not about promoting my games.
Auto comment: topic has been updated by nauthnim (previous revision, new revision, compare).
huh???
Write it yourself. It is too ai.
Nah... You wouldn't want to read the raw version anyway.
It'd be like a painting without colors... Or a girl without clothes.
A girl without clothes is better than this.
Thats diabolical 😂
ayo chill bro
I find exceptionally hilarious how both analogies you provided actually contribute against your point.
A well-composed painting will actually look great even when converted to monochrome. This is actually used as a learning excercise for artists.
Second one is just a perfect setup for a sexual joke. xD
On a serious note: assuming that you have an actual pre-LLM-edited version of your text, why are you so sure that nobody would prefer reading it instead?
About the analogies
I think both analogies were misunderstood.
Painting without colors → I meant something not yet fully presented. The structure may exist, but it is not in its final form.
Girl without clothes → not a sexual joke. I meant something beautiful, but also exposed and vulnerable to judgment or attack. A raw version exposes all the mistakes, unfinished thoughts, mixed languages, and the whole process behind it.
About the AI part
Using AI does not mean I typed:
…and posted the first result.
The ideas, experiences, structure, reasons, and story behind the post are mine. I still need to decide what to say, build the structure, explain the context, read the result, and revise it.
I'm also not a native English speaker. My completely raw writing often mixes two languages and can be difficult to read. AI helps me present my thoughts, but it doesn't magically know exactly what I want.
The person behind the work
Sometimes I feel like people judge the final presentation while completely ignoring what is behind it.
It's a bit like judging a singer only by their body instead of listening to their voice or understanding the work behind their music. The presentation is only one part of the whole thing.
So yes, I use AI to help present my thoughts more clearly. But the thoughts, experiences, decisions, and story are still mine.
If you prefer the raw version
If you genuinely want to read it, just message me. I'm not afraid to show my actual thoughts.
And if you want to discuss something in real time, feel free to message me too. My English is good enough for a conversation.
Just don't judge a singer only by their body — and don't judge a person's work only by the tool they used to present it.
You put an emphasis on "my thoughts" and mentioned it twice, but your response makes me think that you do not clearly separate your thoughts from AI generations.
My assumption was that you had ready to publish version of this blog without any LLM editing, but I guess I was wrong.
Do you actually let AI finish your unfinished thoughts for you?
What kind of mistakes? Nobody would even notice if you just fixed typos with AI.
Somebody who helps with presenting thoughts is a coauthor.
Suppose $$$A$$$ expresses his ideas, experiences, structure, reasons and story, decides what to say, builds the structure, explains the context. $$$B$$$ writes a book on that material. $$$A$$$ then reads the result, revises it and claims a sole authorship. Well, then $$$B$$$ is a ghostwriter for $$$A$$$, an actual author who agreed to stay anonymous for payment.
What do you actually want?
I don't think there's anything worth discussing here.
At first, I thought you were asking:
My answer was simple:
But now...
Now you're making a lot of assumptions about how I write the blog.
You assume that I don't write the whole thing myself, that AI is finishing my unfinished thoughts, and that I should simply "pay for AI" and treat it like a co-author or something along those lines.
But that's not what the blog is about.
You don't actually know how I write it, what I give to the AI, what I change afterward, or how much of the final text comes from me.
You assumed. That's the problem.
I'm not dodging the bullet. I just don't understand why we're discussing all of this in the first place.
It looks like you either read the post too many times or didn't read it at all.
The actual problem
The language isn't actually the problem.
The problem is that people don't want to read it.
My mistake was caring too much about making sure people could get the most out of the post.
But in reality, they look at the length, say:
…and skip it.
Then they come back with:
That's not the point
That's not the purpose of the blog.
That's not what the blog is about.
We're solving the wrong problem.
It's not my business to explain how someone should use AI, and it's not your business to ask me about it either.
One last note
You don't need to assume anything.
You can investigate and prove it. That's what we do. :D
Friendly note: Have a kid and spend time with them. It makes you think about the world a little differently.
I never argued about the story behind post itself. In fact I decided to click on it in "recent actions" and read it just because I was interested in reading a CF blog with a personal story. And I have no significant comments for it, I have seen similar stories many times and I can relate to some parts. Thank you for sharing.
I'm more interested in peeking at formatting, editing and writing of your post. I believe that your post failed to get positive feedback not because people don't want to read similar stories or because you've overpacked the post with information. People who seriously think like that aren't the target audience of "a personal story" type of blogs. But people who are will get alienated for a different reason.
In my opinion this so-called "AI-style" defeats the trust in the author in the eyes of the public. If a similar post can be generated within minutes without a real story behind, then for a single real post you'll get a dozen of hollow ones attempting to farm contribution or attention or whatever else. And then it's simply not efficient to be reading similar blogs just to end up discarding most of them. Your "Do not assume" doesn't work, readers do not possess unlimited time to conduct a proper research on every blog they read online.
Like, damn, I believe I belong to the core target audience for your blog and even after talking to you, I am still left with a feeling of hesitation on whether I am not talking directly to an LLM model. And sorry, I'm not interested in conducting a research.
Also your post isn't long, it just looks excessively lengthy because of weird formatting. You treat sentences as paragraphs starting each one from a new line, and you treat paragraphs as chapters preceding each one by
h1/h2caption.Anyway I'm not in a right to judge or teach you on something, but I wanted to express my thoughts and I genuinely wish you find the connection with intended readers in the future regardless of whether I belong to them or not.
P.S. I will play an Uno Reverse card for the friendly note and say "do not assume".
Auto comment: topic has been updated by nauthnim (previous revision, new revision, compare).