Went back and tried to walk through the solution to the algorithm again and I think I got it. I realized that I don’t really connect with some of the author’s explanations. So, I tried to ask similar questions and it ended up making sense to me. I still need a ton of practice but at least I feel like I can move on.

TLDR;

Okay, so here are the highlights of what I did:

• Still reading through the book “Cracking the Coding Interview” by Gayle Laakmann McDowell. Since I am stuck on practice problem eleven I am trying to review the concept of Recursion and determining the time complexity for recursive algorithms. I finished reviewing the most difficult recursion problem in the examples so now I can head back to practice problem eleven and see if I can get it this time. I have reviewed factorials, permutations, and have developed my own question focused method of solving for Big O runtimes. I am still just a noob but at least I know I have made some progress.
• Continued going through a YouTube video on Big O Notation from the G.O.A.T. freeCodeCamp. It’s a 2 hour video I might glean some new information from the video so I figure why not.

Conclusion

That’s all for today. This is my sixth round of the “#100daysofcode” challenge. I will be continuing my work from round five into round six. I am currently working through the book “Cracking the Coding Interview” by Gayle Laakmann McDowell. My goal is to become more familiar with algorithms and data structures. This goal was derived from my goal to better understand operating systems and key programs that I use in the terminal regularly e.g. Git. This goal was in term derived from my desire to better understand the fundamental tools used for coding outside of popular GUIs. This in turn was derived from my desire to be a better back-end developer.

I have no idea if my path is correct but I am walking down this road anyways. Worst case scenario I learn a whole bunch of stuff that will help me out on my own personal projects.