The big deal here is that it allows for relevance. Skilled coders don't want to waste time with exercises. They come up with useful tools and side projects an

The big deal here is that it allows for relevance. Skilled coders don't want to waste time with exercises. They come up with useful tools and side projects and contribute to open source. Leetcode is a distraction because it is relevant only as an exercise, not as something truly useful. And that is the biggest test of a coder. Not that they can code something, but that they can apply the ability to code to real problems and address something relevant. Code that really matters has traction. Sometimes it is a very simple thing that makes a tool or application or library truly useful, and the skill to see that and apply such knowledge goes far above some leetcode exercise that has no real application and serves only for points in some game.