2024-03-18
I was never a person to try programming competitively. I know that solving isolated or abstract problems can be really fun and I have gotten kicks out of it myself from time to time. But I have always been on that group of programmers who are more focused on building something rather than programming for problem solving (i.e. competitive programming). Does that make me less of programmer and more of a 'builder', or 'architect'. I can't quite find the word for it. However, I have always thought of myself as a programmer first, everything else later. I get pleasure from just writing code. Previously, I used to just sit down and write some piece of utility function, or some small script/application. Or I would take some problem from reddit and hack at it until I got bored of it.
For the past few months or so, I haven't done any of that. Nix, nought, nothing. This week, I had some time one evening. So I decided to log into Codeforces and join the ongoing contest. I took one problem from the middle of the pack, it seemed approachable enough. I thought I understood what was being asked for. But apparently not. I went at it for some time, then moved one problem up. It was easier, almost 10K people had already submitted. Funnily enough, I couldn't solve even that. Sure, I don't try out CF problems often. But I've never had trouble solving problems at that rating. The question naturally sprung up on my mind.
Am I now worse at programming than before?
I started doing full time game development at start of this year. Juggling that with my final year at the University has not been easy. Add the pressure of my final year research with that, and as a result I have been having less and less time to do fun programming. Don't get me wrong. My job has been plenty fun to me. I also don't mind