#Leetcode #ProgrammingBeginner #LearningToCode
🤔 Hey everyone! So, I’ve recently dipped my toes into the world of coding and stumbled upon leetcode. But, I gotta admit, I got stuck on the very first assignment! 😅
I’m torn between focusing on learning the basics of a programming language or continuing to push through with leetcode. What do you think – should a new programmer start learning from leetcode right away?
Here are some possible solutions I’ve come up with:
– Focus on understanding the language basics first before diving into leetcode challenges.
– Start with easier leetcode problems to gradually build up your skills.
– Supplement your leetcode practice with tutorials and guides to fill in any knowledge gaps.
What’s your take on this? Share your thoughts and experiences below! Let’s help each other out on this coding journey 💻🚀
No, I’d wait much longer. That’s aimed for programmers looking to get an internship or a job. Easy problems doesn’t mean it’s easy for complete beginners. It’s actually quite hard.
Having said that, I think it’s good to look at the easy problems and just think about it as you learn more about programming. Personally, I’d wait 6 months before trying again, but it depends. You can read the problems any time, just don’t worry that you can’t solve it.
I didn’t start using leetcode on its own for a while. I would recommend a guided set of tasks like Neetcode or CS50.
The thing with leetcode is that the problems they give you are similar to the ones that are sometimes given as part of technical interviews. You don’t actually need to be able to answer any of them to do your job properly, but you might have to be able to answer them to pass these interviews and get a job to begin with.
But this also depends on where you live. I believe this is a fairly common practice in the United States, but over here in the Netherlands we don’t really do this sort of thing (from my experience, at least). So your mileage may vary.
MUUUUUCH more useful to build stuff, little apps and toys. Make a grep or cat clone. The classic todo app. And test them too!
I’m a beginner and I started learning HTML/CSS. I see the same thing about leetcode, and I could be wrong, but it looks and sounds like one of the harder languages compared to Python (which I’m a complete novice at).
I see no problem with leet-code. But take it for what it is. It is programming excercises. The important thing is to analyse the problems and trying to solve the problems.
But it is only intro to algorithms, nothing more.
No. It won’t worth it. There is a better way to use your energy.
You can understand a lot of things without ever addressing what they are specifically.. But that is a lengthy process and compromise your learning all the way through. This is what could be perceived as: “Learning through doing”. It’s like cooking without rules; it might work, but it will take a lot of effort and time to produce anything edible, let alone rivaling or compared to chefs before you.
Get this: Every subject treated in a serious course will deal with snippets. These snippets are addressing exactly what is needed in that par of the course. This is itself a snippet-sized project. By piling up these concepts/projects, through a lot of individually treated snippets will make up your learning. A leetcode question or challenge might incorporate few concepts that you will need to have grasped in the past.
If you want to learn by solving problems, Codewars is a much better site for it. Leetcode is specifically for practising data structures and algorithms – which isn’t helpful until you’ve learned them, and is mainly useful for interview preparation.
I think you should focus on building simple applications. That being said, spending some time on some easy leetcode problems in python (maybe 1 or 2 a week, hour total) probably wouldn’t hurt and might give you a head start for later. If it’s too much then just come back to it later. Have fun learning!
Leetcode is more for practicing for job interviews than learning.
No. Leetcode is “good” (or supposed to be) to practice data structures and algorithms once you learnt them.
Leetcode is the best solution the industry could find for a hard problem. That problem is “how do we find good hires; how do retain good hires; how do we know our hires are authentic.”
It is not a source of knowledge or a lesson plan. It’s the same as standardized testing. You are testing based on a set of principles because you know it tends to yield good programmers, not because you know it is the best way to find good programmers.
You should focus on:
1. Data Structures
2. Algorithms
Every single thing you do in computing at the abstraction hierarchy that Computer Science is at is some form of those two things.
If you want to learn “programming” and not Computer Science, you should focus on:
1. Pick a problem you want to solve that is related to something you like.
2. Break that problem into the smallest portion of the application you can build.
Fourteen years ago the problem I wanted to solve was how do I recommend league of legends champions to people with small champion pools. The first few steps in that problem were:
1. Find a website with champion data.
2. Find a way to retrieve that data.
3. Convert that data into a format that was easier to work with.
Programming solves real world problems 99% of the time. Rest 1% might demand leetcode and codility style problems. Work on real projects. If you need some guidance feel free to send me a message. I have been working in the industry for 14 years now.
No. You have more important things to focus on.
That’s like starting with mountain biking when learning to ride the bike. Just read a text book or take some online courses and take it slow to start. Once you know the basics practice with leetcode problems.