Recently, I feel I've passed my peak as a competitive programmer, and ran out of sufficient energy/motivation to keep the top form and be prepared to win the next contest. I think I've done everything I can do as a competitive programmer, and now it's time to end my career as a professional (mind) sport player.
It was a great experience. I'd like to thank everyone involved in the community, especially:
- Competitors. It was always nice to compete against you all!
- Problem writers who gave great problems to the community.
I started my career as a competitive math-puzzle solver in 1999. The first contest was a local one named "junior sansu (arithmetic) olympiad". Since then, I enjoyed this sport a lot for 21 years.
In 2007, I started TopCoder, and it changed my life. The problems were great, and every single match of SRM felt like a once-in-a-life event. A lot of legends were competing there — Petr, tomek, ACRush, then tourist, and many more. I watched them on a screen, like a football boy watching Messi on TV. I dreamed to join them one day, and always stayed on practice rooms on TopCoder Arena and tried to improve. Imagine the moment when I finally reached the Finals, met those legends, and competed with them at the same stage!
Then I became an admin, first at TopCoder, then at AtCoder. Especially in AtCoder, I had a right to decide everything as the leader of the writers' team, and tried to make what I consider to be the ideal form of a competitive programming website. I tried to create a community where the legends and top competitors gather, and compete against each other for solving ad-hoc, math-puzzle-like, elementary, thinking-oriented problems, and newcomers who dream to be the star of the next generation join and practice. I hope you enjoyed the contests!
For now, I'll get some rest for a while, live a calm, non-competitive life, and gradually think what to do next. I'll stay in AtCoder and hope to keep in touch with the community in some form.
Good bye, and good luck to the community in the future!
