Deliberate practice techniques for software developers
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.
Mastering the craft of programming can take many years, but what about learning enough to pass an interview?
How long had you been learning programming for until you were able to solve medium/hard problems on LeetCode? What about the easy ones? (answer)
I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.
There are so many competitive programming practice problems available online now that it can be hard to decide which one to work on next:
How do you determine which problem is suitable for you at your level in competitive programming? (answer)
I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.
Two top competitive programmers who used to submit their solutions in Java have recently made the switch to C++. But how did they do so well with Java in the first place?
How has Petr Mitrichev won so many competitive programming contests by using Java and not C++? (answer)
I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.
Companies aren’t looking for competitive programmers. But because of how interviews work, it can seem like they are. So Quora ends up with some odd questions:
Do I need to be a competitive programmer to work at one of the top tech companies? (answer)
I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.
A popular criticism of coding interviews is that candidates can cheat by looking up common questions and memorizing the answers. I don’t know if anyone has succeeded using that approach, but it doesn’t seem to me like it would work.
Is it possible to memorise the tricks of algorithm questions to crack the Google interview? (answer)
I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.
Long ago, I wrote an article about Profiling Java Programs with VisualVM. It can be interesting to analyze code to find performance bottlenecks. But for competitive programming solutions, it’s usually a losing battle. If you choose the wrong algorithm, no amount of micro-optimization will help.
What are ways to optimize programs? My algorithms are strong enough but I am having serious difficulties in optimizations. I wonder how people in Online Judges think so creatively. (answer)
I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.
As 2019 comes to a close, I’m continuing my tradition of reviewing posts from the past year. This year was divided into two halves. In the first half, I covered topics in discrete math, math for competitive programming, and math learning in general. In the second half, I changed my blog content approach. More on that later.
People debate how useful competitive programming practice is for getting better at real-world programming. But there’s one area where it definitely helps:
Why are people obsessed with competitive programming when it’s not used in real-world programming jobs? (answer)
Why is this post so short? Find the answer, and links to a blog table of contents, at A Summer 2019 Experiment.