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Ask HN: What motivates you to participate in any online coding challenges?
2 points by thetalkingcode 3393 days ago
What are the things that motivate you to participate in any kind of online coding challenges or competitions on any kind of platforms that you know of? Is it the cash prize or the gadgets which you get if you win? Is it about something giving back to the community by learning more stuff and teaching others what you've learned? Is it just for networking if it's the offline hackathon? Or Do you really want to build a product that is loved by people and used by them?
1 comments

You've seen the XKCD comic on Nerd Sniping[1]? I just can't resist solving a puzzle.

It's really just as simple as that. There's zero extrinsic motivation, only the intrinsic joy of solving problems or optimizing the heck out of something.

(That said, my favorite, most worn, t-shirt of all time is my Stripe CTF3 Winner shirt - Thanks Stripe!)

[1] https://xkcd.com/356/