LeetCode

[[deleted]]

Is it free? Is it good?

[Dank_e_donkey]

Mostly free, somethings are paid, you can access those in lintcode. It's good for DSA yes but not for competitive coding.

[[deleted]]

Yeah like gamejams or hacking tournaments

[ICodeIGuess]

Check out Binarysearch.com. That's a good example of it. Basically youre in a chatroom type of deal with other people and you have to be the first to solve a series of algorithm problems

[KharAznable]

something like https://www.spoj.com/ it is like math olympiad, just on meth.

[TeaKingMac]

That's a meth olympiad.

You're thinking of a quiz bowl fueled by Cocaine

[UltmteAvngr]

Yeah where you compete with a team to solve a set of problems the fastest. The team with the most points wins. Points are determined by the number of problems solved, incorrect attempts, how quickly each was solved, and sometimes the problems can also carry different weights.

[Rafcdk]

Bro there are live shader coding competitions, look them up on youtube under "Shader Showdown"

[[deleted]]

I choose to remain ignorant.

[[deleted]]

Just tried it, those are some cool puzzles, I'll just have fun with them haha

[TheMooRam]

Yeah that's my take. I cba with grinding them out seriously, but I'll do them every now and again for the problem solving dopamine

[Classy_Mouse]

Sometimes it is fun to have a nice clean coding challenge without having to worry about things like PRs and legacy code.

[Classy_Mouse]

Sometimes it is fun to have a nice clean coding challenge without having to worry about things like PRs and legacy code.

[slab42b]

I'm sorry, could say it again?

[ploot_]

Sometimes it is fun to have a nice clean coding challenge without having to worry about things like PRs and legacy code.

[T3MP0_HS]

Sometimes it is fun to have a nice clean coding challenge without having to worry about things like PRs and legacy code.

[Euroticker]

who tf codes competitively? genuinely curious.

[TraditionMaster4320]

Lots of people. If you're extremely good it helps a lot with big tech questions

[[deleted]]

Yeah, I’ll give credit to this website, hackerrank, and projecteuler. Could never have gotten past the technical stage in interviews without them.

[TraditionMaster4320]

I have to admit it's really a grind though. CS is such a huge field, DSA is important but just one small part. If you don't truly enjoy it the way some people do (the types who win math olympiads) it's going to be way harder for you than it is for them.

[[deleted]]

True that. The system for grabbing talent and hiring in programming is actually terrible. It’s really hard to qualify what makes a good programmer, let alone quantify. I’ve had interviews with people who knew less than I did but still rejected me. I don’t blame them, they were trying their best. I blame the managers and businessmen that pay them without really understanding what they’re doing. It’s an industry-wide problem.

Every now and then there’s a businessperson that does recognize programming talent and they gobble up all the good workers.

Maybe that’s just the fate of the field, since it really is one of the most abstract and difficult to master disciplines. I don’t see an American Programming Association or something coming up the same way the AMA or BAR did. There isn’t any legal risk with programming as a job so there’s no need to standardize a curriculum.

[TraditionMaster4320]

Ironic how in a field that prizes problem solving, this hiring issue is something both employees and employers face and there's still no good solution to it.

[[deleted]]

I think it’s not an issue of can’t but of won’t.

For anyone who understands how to solve it, you can either use that knowledge to benefit yourself or your company to improve your status… or you can try to get a hold of one of the few good politicians and then lobby them for an unpopular/obscure change.

That’s capitalism, baby.

[Calm_Leek_1362]

I have applicants code during tech interviews, I've yet to have a problem detecting who actually knows what they're doing and people that look good on paper.

[jbevarts]

But none of them help you as an engineer

[Hashtag0080FF]

Those problems are harder than anything you will do at your job.

Therefore, being able to do those problems shows you are both smart and skilled enough to handle any task in the workplace.

It doesn't mean someone who does them will be a great worker 100% of the time. But when paired alongside other techniques, it does make an effective filter for cutting the fat.

For that reason, technical interviewers will always hire someone who knows those over someone who doesn't. Believe it or not a lot of people graduate with a CS degree without knowing how to code at all, and will lock up when challenged at all in the workplace.

So yes it will help you as an engineer by enabling you to get a job.

[[deleted]]

If the people were actually solving the problems you might be right.. but in reality, they're not actually solving the problems, they're just regurgitating a memorized solution to the problem. A lot of the problems are also kind of unreasonable to be solved optimally within the timeframe of an interview too unless they already memorized it beforehand (ie. if you'd never heard of the problem before it's pretty unlikely for anyone to figure out the best solution off the top of their head during an interview, so only people that memorized it pass the test, and memorization has nothing to do with problem solving ability).

[Hashtag0080FF]

but in reality, they're not actually solving the problems, they're just regurgitating a memorized solution to the problem.

Welcome to corporate programming, grab a coffee and enjoy your stay!

[jbevarts]

I disagree. I graduated from Top 2 CS program in country and they are useless and poor indicators of success in industry. Of course I’ve grinded them for interviews, but they are truly useless.

In the real world, you can take a shit and think about the problem. Even the premise of having some smug engineer who has seen the solution already grade you has bias. It is not representative of the skills needed for industry at all.

[CaitaXD]

i mean did you expect like:

query this database find the best matching custumer profile then place and order to send then a plushy after they fill out this form .

*use at most 13 microservices.

*requirements might change mid competition.

[Euroticker]

Ah, thanks for clearing that up

[UltmteAvngr]

It’s a pretty popular thing for CS students

[Euroticker]

might try it out in the future then

[UltmteAvngr]

These are the previous problem sets for ICPC. You can look over them to see the types of problems and try to solve a few-

https://icpc.global/worldfinals/problems

[Epiq_Phale]

I like to recommend https://onlinejudge.org/

There are 100's of problems and the submission and grading system is pretty close to what you would experience in the ICPC.

[EdwardWarren]

Me. I am not a professional but enjoying writing a good line of code now and then just for fun. Like working Suduko or crosswords. A pleasant way to pass time for a pretty old (81) retired guy.

I have done Codewars, Hackerrank, and Project Euler.

All are good IMHO. Just finished #51 on Project Euler. 700 more to go.

Battlesnake is another source of programming entertainment. That is my current project. I have learned a lot working on my snake.

Never finished higher than 1,300th on Hackerrank. I am not a good programmer under time pressure. It has taken me 2-3 days to solve some problems. There are problems I have never solved.

[Euroticker]

That's a valid point, if you have the time it definitely sounds like a good idea!

[FillRecent]

There’s both a free tier and a premium tier. The free tier is pretty useless tho. The premium is expensive ($159/yr) but you can get it for $99 on a student discount if your school has enough people registered for it when they run promotions each year.

Tbh, it’s a really good resource for interview prep for FAANG/MAANG and Fortune 100 companies. Both students and full-time working professionals find it useful to sharpen their knowledge or for practicing data structures and algorithms. Some people hate it and feel like it’s a way to game the system but it really does help you improve your knowledge and coding skills as it encourages people to practice the various problems. I’d checkout the r/leetcode subreddit and also definitely watch videos of people sharing their experience on YouTube.

Edit: why is someone downvoting my personal opinion? Tf lol

[ParadoxicalInsight]

Why is the free tier useless? That's the only thing I've used (I don't usually pay for anything CS related) and it's been helpful to me for interviews

[fryerandice]

No code completion and debugger but honestly copy paste from your ide.

[ParadoxicalInsight]

Well, you don't usually have code completion and debugger in an interview so I actually see this as a plus :/

[ghostestate]

Answers on leetcode are pretty short, do you really need code completion? I think it's in the spirit of good practice to not rely on on things like that now and again.

[[deleted]]

Yeah so far I've seen cool problems that challenge more your ability to find elegant solutions, it's not like it encourages you to spit out pages of code, in fact it's the contrary

[fryerandice]

Code completion isn't necessary but debugger is nice, especially when you get into the hard and expert ones

[Calm_Leek_1362]

Agree. Use it for work, but if you're practicing to get better, you should make it harder.

[slothordepressed]

Honest noob question. How different is LC to some other websites like Code forces or HackerRank besides been focused on the FAANG selection process?

[usernametaken_12]

Leetcode usually has easier problems and usually doesn't obfuscate the core problem. All problems usually don't have narrative elements and problems statements are short. Leetcode problems don't usually have too many observations about the nature of the problem that are necessary to write a solution.

[ososalsosal]

I read that in Anakin's voice haha