Red-Green-Code

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]