I continued my Data Structures and Algorithms study track today. I started reading through the “Linked Lists” chapter of the book, “Cracking the Coding Interview” (CTCI) by Gayle Laakmann McDowell.
I am actually fairly familiar with linked lists since they were one of the first data structures that I ever studied. The chapter highlights the structure of a Linked List’s Node class and the properties each instance would have. The example seemed liked a self contained version written in Java. I was a bit unfamiliar with it but it had most of the same key properties and methods that I included in my old examples written in C.
I also used this opportunity to review some of my older code related to linked lists. I honestly like the Linked List data structure. It is simple and effective although I have not found any use cases for it in my daily coding life LOL. Maybe one day…
TLDR;
Okay, so here are the highlights of what I did:
- Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA) -> Continued reading through the book “Cracking the Coding Interview” by Gayle Laakmann McDowell again. Started reading through the chapter on “Linked Lists”. So far so good. Nothing too special.
Goal For Round 8 of the #100DaysofCode Challenge
This is my eighth round of the “#100daysofcode” challenge. I will be continuing my work from round five, six, and seven into round eight. I was working through the book “Cracking the Coding Interview” by Gayle Laakmann McDowell. My goal was 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 turn 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 am currently putting a pause on the algorithm work to build some backend/full stack projects. I primarily want to improve my skills with the back-end from an implementation perspective. I have improved tremendously in terminal and CLI skills but I lost focus due to how abstract the algorithm concepts got. I wanted to work on things that were more tangible until I can get to a position where I could directly benefit from improving my algorithm skills and theoretical knowledge. So that’s the focus right now. Build my backend skills and prove my full stack capabilities by building some dope projects.
Again, I still 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. Best case scenario I actually become one of those unicorn developers that go on to start a billion dollar company… You never know LOL.