TL:DR: How should I start my Leetcode journy? The heavens smiled upon me and somehow led me to Blind about two months ago. Changed my major from business techish to computer science today after much deliberation. I want to Leetcode with the best one day. But I’m curious if Blind had any suggestions on precursors to LC. I was considering learning by getting premium and watching YouTube videos walk through problems. Thoughts on if this could be effective starting off? I’ve yet to take any CS coursework. Will be starting next semester :) TC: 55k (internship)
I voted other. I would rather hire someone with a strong presence on GitHub than someone who is super clever at coding. The contribution to open source litmus test usually means they can code well enough to have their code accepted and they also interact well with others.
Interesting comment given how many people on here preach Leetcode. I think I’ll take your advice and do a bit of both. My brother is also CS so might collaborate on some useful projects with him. I’m certainly far from that level though at this point so looking for very basic first steps towards this :)
Hey @Tiber I have an interview with LexisNexis coming up. Can I DM you?
Have you taken any CS class yet? If not please please don't start from leetcode. At lest take an algorithm course or something first. This will make things easier for you later.
Yep starting from scratch. So looking for very basic ways to train in the meantime. LC definitely seemed complicated to start with.
Yes. The other way to approach LC would be to learn one algorithm and then solve problems related to that algorithm. Ex: learn merge sort really well from YouTube videos etc. Code plain merge sort from scratch a few times. Then solve LC problems tagged with merge sort. Look at discussion if you get stuck.
Intro CS classes and specifically designed bootcamps/tutorial websites like tutorials point which is good at teaching from the first step
DO NOT Buy LC premium if you're completely new to coding, you're wasting your money and not ready for it
Take it slow. Don't sleep with it on the first date.
Jesus christ don't learn to code using Leetcode. That's like learning how to paint by copying the Mona Lisa over and over again.
If you start with leetcode then you will be come a competitive programmer instead of a swe. Learn the fundamentals first, learn how to write clean and understandable code, then leetcode.
Well I have seen people going in either direction and doing well. It doesn't have to be clean code first
I’ve seen people flexing their solutions on leetcode discussion. LRU cache problem, some people literally use python built in LRU.... good luck with that on an actual interview.
Leetcode premium won't help, you will only be burning money. You should start with a highly rated CS fudementals book. As you learn about each topic, say Graphs, you should go to leetcode and solve few graph problems. Keep doing this with all of the topics and you will become really good.
Duh! Why are you repeating what I said above. And why are you following me :)
I recently started following this guy.. Leetcode solutions - Keep Learning Everyday https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLod2hJhyen5fBGkRZelDtg5YBVgd8aSvx He solves mainly FAANG related problems. Another guy by name Kevin is also good.
Hackerrank. Also, if you know nothing about programming at all, then grokking algorithms. Remember, this is the abcd of programming. The goal is to be able to write an essay (LC med/hard).
I was not enthusiastic about hackerrank. "Hey there's a gem which solves my problem!" But then you find out it's not installed or some weird version. "Hey this is easy in Python!" And then blow an hour trying to get the IDE to be happy with whitespace.
Thanks for your comment! Just purchased Grokking Algorithms. I enjoy the cute mice on the cover as an added bonus.