Quora questions are often about specific people. Here’s one about top competitive programmer Errichto, who is releasing a YouTube video every day in April:

How long does it take to get as good in competitive programming as Errichto? (answer)

I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.

Many people think it is (especially on Stack Overflow), but they don’t always make a good argument for their position:

Is it true that competitive programming is a waste of time? (answer)

I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.

This question is similar to some I’ve covered before, but I like how it’s worded:

How long does it take to finish a problem you don’t know how to solve? (answer)

I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.

I’ve spent time on both HackerRank and LeetCode this year, and they’re both useful. But I can see why LeetCode is the one that comes to mind when people think about coding interview preparation.

What is the difference between HackerRank and LeetCode? (answer)

I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.

There’s a concept in psychology called the forgetting curve. It describes how, once you learn something, you gradually forget it if you don’t actively review. Learning to solve coding interview questions is no exception:

Even if I solve 200 algorithm questions on LeetCode and think that I understood solutions, after 2 months without solving any question, when I try to solve them again I can’t remember some of the solutions. What should I do to literally learn them? (answer)

I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.

LeetCode classifies each of its problems as Easy, Medium, or Hard. This leads to discussions among users about how many of which types of problems to practice. Since even easy problems appear in interviews, it’s important to have a strategy for problems at all difficulty levels:

I can solve some of the medium problems that I attend to, in LeetCode and can never solve the hard ones. Do I have to study more to ace the Google interview until I can solve the hard ones or do I have a chance currently? (answer)

I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.

Although it’s unwise to abuse the Submit button, sometimes a few submissions is what it takes to get the most out of a problem.

Is it okay to submit multiple times and look at the test cases that you’ve failed when practicing competitive programming? (answer)

I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.

Companies won’t stop doing it, but that doesn’t mean candidates have to like it.

Why is it that many companies expect to find software engineers capable of solving real-world problems by throwing whiz-kid LeetCode style tests at them? (answer)

I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.

It’s useful to practice problems that have solutions available, but you have to use them correctly:

Should I just copy and submit the Codeforces solution from the editorial after trying hours to understand it even though I don’t? (answer)

I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.

Standardized tests, programming contests, and coding interviews all rely on short time limits. So there isn’t time to figure problems out from scratch. What’s the alternative?

How can the tops finish LeetCode weekly challenge that fast, usually under 20 minutes? (answer)

I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.