That's exactly what I'm trying to get at with this post. I initially started my study of algorithms about a week ago, with nearly a decade of professional prog

That's exactly what I'm trying to get at with this post. I initially started my study of algorithms about a week ago, with nearly a decade of professional programming experience under my belt. I quickly realized that expecting myself to find the optimal, or even near-optimal solution, was setting myself up for failure. Yet (hence this post) I wasn't sure if that was the case for other people. I continue to wonder what other people's experiences have been like in the pursuit of algorithm study. Do you find that the intuitive, brute force solution is readily available in your mind, but that you have to "peak" aka "cheat" to find the elegant / right solution? Or are most people finding themselves able to just tackle the problems outright, getting (or nearly getting) the optimal (or nearly optimal) solution on first pass...?