What it looks like when you win at programming

I spent most of my time in college obsessing over – and frequently getting rocked in / cursing at – TopCoder. The weekly algorithm SRM (Single Round Match) competition was one of my favorite pastimes, and I learned a lot about performance and the appreciation of elegance in design and development through my plodding slog to upgrade my dismal rating.

One of my favorite algorithm SRM developers was a college student with the handle Kawigi. Kawigi developed a tool called KawigiEdit that I used when I first started in TopCoder. He also wrote fantastic, elegant, and frequently hilarious Java solutions.