3 ms·
> than whiteboarding some memorized algorithm. This is not how it works! There are over 1000 problems on leetcode. Sure, many of them are solved using the same
by frankzinger 7y ago
> than whiteboarding some memorized algorithm.
This is not how it works! There are over 1000 problems on leetcode. Sure, many of them are solved using the same techniques but there is usually a twist and you often need to combine multiple approaches or come up with something new (to you). And then there is usually a very problem-specific way in which the problem can be solved 10 or 50 times faster. Often these insights are very difficult to come up with. The people who created these questions are actually very smart and excepting some of the questions at the easiest level it's usually a far cry from simply implementing Dijkstra from memory!
- lubujackson 7y agoI don't intend to say that leetcode/competitive programming is easy, far from it. It is too focused on coding vs. the broader skillset that successful web devs have: working in teams, business objectives, scaling issues, etc. I think even the baseline expectations (lets say remembering how to implement a specific type of sort) are often at odds with how anyone does things in the real world - a few devs are implementing these things by hand for certain reasons but not MOST devs, not even at most FAANG jobs. So why is everyone using that knowledge as a filter? The problem with leetcoding in interviews is that it is easily measurable but not an important metric. Focusing on someone's aptitude at skills they never use at their job means good developers get tossed aside or are forced to waste energy jumping through hoops needlessly.