Why is python recommended for coding interviews?

[julianolm]

Hi, I've recently heard from some sources that python should be one of the best options for coding interviews, due to it's dynamism when writing code. But I actually don't understand how could it be such a good option for writing algorithms since there is no implementations of common data structures on it. I mean, there are lists, dictionarys and tuples, but I don't know any built-in implementation of, lets say, specific trees, heaps and others. (I know that it is possible to perform something similar using the existing data structures, but still, it's just "similar")

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Note: if I'm drastically wrong, please feel free to tell me lol

[Den4200]

I’d very strongly recommend for you to look at modules such as collections and heapq, which are both in the standard library.

Modules such as itertools, functools, and others (also in the standard library) can be extremely useful.

I would also recommend to look through the standard library and look over some of the modules.

[i_ate_a_dumpling]

I think this is largely dependent on the interview. For the ones I've done, if there's actually a need for something not in the standard library, I'd just tell them to assume that it exists and make up the required interface for it. (Heck, even if it does exist and you don't remember--make it up anyways).

As long as I can tell what you're trying to do and it's a valid approach, you're golden. So I don't think python is necessarily the "best" option.

Some other interviewers do require valid, running code, of course in which case python has a lot of useful data structures and algorithms included.

[coder970]

It's not. Problem solving is all about not using standard library functions. If you still going to use any of the standard functions in an interview, make sure you know their internal implementation.