LeetCode Update II

This was my previous LeetCode Update and this was my Original LeetCode post.

Before I was doing the LeetCode algorithm problems in order of difficulty. I was doing and redoing the problems in random topic order.

I am now doing the problems by category. I am not finishing the category until I am able to solve the problems in the category. I think this is an improvement because it is more drilling and practicing of recalling and typing the correct solution. It is definitely more difficult than just searching for patterns, but it is providing me with a better understanding of what each line of code does in a solution.

Also to make sure I can do new problems in random topic order I use TopCoder.

 

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TopCoder

I have recently begun to do code challenges from TopCoder.

I first heard of TopCoder from John Sonmez here: So You Want to Become a Better Programmer? (TopCoder).

I started by doing the archived problems here. The problems are sorted by the percent of competitors who were able to solve them–basically in order of difficulty.

The questions can be fun but a few of them are impossible for me to understand and the interface requires a very large monitor for me to see everything. But overall it has benefited me because I get to attempt to understand a requirement, pass tests, then look at successful and cleanly written code from past competitors.