Practice is important, but not all practice is equally useful: What is a better method to learn LeetCode than just practicing it? (answer) I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.
ContinueQuora: CodeChef DSA Learning Series
CodeChef is running a series of learning-oriented contests that may be useful for people working on algorithm fundamentals: What basic data structures and algorithms knowledge do I need to be able to solve easy problems on CodeChef? The transition from “beginner” to “easy” category felt overwhelming. (answer) I’m doing most of my writing on Quora […]
ContinueQuora: Should You Prove Your Competitive Programming Solutions?
Writing proofs is slow. Solving programming contest problems is supposed to be fast. Is there any relationship between the two? Are top competitive programmers good at writing proofs? (answer) I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.
ContinueQuora: How to Use the LeetCode Problem Discussion Boards
A benefit of LeetCode’s current popularity is the wide range of solutions in the discussion board for each problem. What’s the best way to use these? What do you see as the main benefit of stopping to look at the Discuss board when trying to solve LeetCode problems? (answer) I’m doing most of my writing […]
ContinueQuora: Why Are Coding Interviews Hard?
I think most people would agree with the premise of this question: Why are coding interviews so difficult? (answer) I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.
ContinueQuora: The Role of Coding Interview Books
With so many online coding interview preparation sites, it’s natural to wonder what the role of prep books is these days: Is “Cracking the Coding Interview” still the best resource for programming interview practice? (answer) I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.
ContinueQuora: Using Pre-Written Code in LeetCode Solutions
Some programming contests allow participants to use pre-written algorithms. How does that apply to LeetCode? Should I use pre-written code to submit in LeetCode? (answer) I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.
ContinueQuora: Can Coding Interview Solutions Be Too Short?
I’ve been reading a lot of LeetCode problem discussion threads this year, and a consistent trend is that that people upvote short solutions. The solution authors aren’t counting each character like they do over on Code Golf Stack Exchange. But they do try to minimize the number of lines, and even advertise their program length […]
ContinueQuora: How Do You Get Better at Codeforces?
I used to think that Quora questions like this one should all be merged into one big question. But as much as that idea might seem to match official Quora policy, it isn’t compatible with how Quora works in practice. So it’s sometimes better just to answer the question: I am doing competitive programming for […]
ContinueQuora: Should You Learn to Implement Algorithms from Scratch?
You don’t need to, but…. Do I need to know how to implement various data structures and algorithms from scratch? (answer) I’m doing most of my writing on Quora this year. For more information, see A Project for 2020.
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