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Deliberate practice techniques for software developers

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Ignore This Advice

By Duncan Smith Leave a Comment Jul 29 0

When you’re stuck on a programming problem for a while (everyone has their own time threshold), it’s customary to look for a hint. If you’re working on a competitive programming problem from a past contest, they’re easy to find. Problems on uHunt are categorized by algorithm, so that’s a big hint already. Popular problems often […]

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Java Lessons from uHunt Chapter 1

By Duncan Smith Leave a Comment Jul 22 4

This post is part of a series on Java syntax and libraries for solving the problems in each chapter of uHunt, a tool for competitive programming practice. You can find the rest of the posts in the series by visiting my uHunt Java post category. A few months ago, I wrote two posts related to […]

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Profiling Java Programs with VisualVM

By Duncan Smith Leave a Comment Jul 15 0

Last week, I wrote about ways to improve runtime performance for a Java solution to UVa 732. This week I’m going to cover a process for analyzing Java program performance using the profiling features of the VisualVM Java troubleshooting tool. But first, a note about profiling. As I mentioned last week, even a highly optimized […]

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Implementing a Fast Solution to UVa 732

By Duncan Smith Leave a Comment Jul 8 879

Programming puzzles are often designed in such a way that getting your solution to complete under the time limit is at least as challenging as getting the correct result. To create such a challenge, a problem setter can adjust the size of the input until sub-optimal solutions no longer run in under the time limit. […]

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The Problem With Codecademy

By Duncan Smith Leave a Comment Jul 1 0

I believe in the importance of practicing programming fundamentals, especially through programming puzzles. But puzzle learning works best when you already have some experience with the programming language you’re using to solve them. By prompting you to exercise a core set of programming fundamentals, puzzles help strengthen basic coding skills. To get those basic skills […]

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Unit Testing the Java Class Library

By Duncan Smith Leave a Comment Jun 24 0

Unit testing is a controversial topic in developer circles. Opinions range from Most Unit Testing is Waste to You are not allowed to write any production code unless it is to make a failing unit test pass. For those on the pro-unit testing side, there are numerous benefits to the practice, especially the test-first variety. […]

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The Puzzle Approach to Coding Mastery

By Duncan Smith Leave a Comment Jun 17 0

Programming is a skill that’s easy to start learning. You can head over to a site like Codecademy and get up and running instantly. But once you finish a few introductory courses, it’s not as easy to keep making progress. You need another approach.

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How to Make Your Job More Interesting

By Duncan Smith Leave a Comment Jun 10 0

Programming is creative work. Given a problem, you have to find a solution, then explain it to a computer in a way that humans can also understand. But unless you’re working on your own project, you don’t have total creative freedom. You have to use the tools and technologies that your team has selected, and […]

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Proving That You Can Juggle Code

By Duncan Smith Leave a Comment Jun 3 0

Peopleware is one of those books that show up on recommended reading lists for software development managers. Joel Spolsky was recommending it back in 2002. (It was written in 1987 and revised in 1999 and 2013). Chapter 16 (in the 3rd edition) begins with this vignette: Circus Manager: How long have you been juggling? Candidate: […]

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Asking for Advice is Easier than Taking It

By Duncan Smith Leave a Comment May 27 0

We have good options these days for getting answers to programming questions. Stack Overflow provides answers to fact-based questions. They can be targeted questions like How to sort a Collection? or even somewhat speculative questions like Why is there no SortedList in Java? that can be answered factually (does Java provide a list data structure […]

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Getting Started

Are you new here? Check out my review posts for a tour of the archives:

  • 2023 in Review: 50 LeetCode Tips
  • 2022 in Review: Content Bots
  • 2021 in Review: Thoughts on Solving Programming Puzzles
  • Lessons from the 2020 LeetCode Monthly Challenges
  • 2019 in Review
  • Competitive Programming Frequently Asked Questions: 2018 In Review
  • What I Learned Working On Time Tortoise in 2017
  • 2016 in Review
  • 2015 in Review
  • 2015 Summer Review

Archives

Recent Posts

  • Do Coding Bots Mean the End of Coding Interviews? December 31, 2024
  • Another Project for 2024 May 8, 2024
  • Dynamic Programming Wrap-Up May 1, 2024
  • LeetCode 91: Decode Ways April 24, 2024
  • LeetCode 70: Climbing Stairs April 17, 2024
  • LeetCode 221: Maximal Square April 10, 2024
  • Using Dynamic Programming for Maximum Product Subarray April 3, 2024
  • LeetCode 62: Unique Paths March 27, 2024
  • LeetCode 416: Partition Equal Subset Sum March 20, 2024
  • LeetCode 1143: Longest Common Subsequence March 13, 2024
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