I continued my Data Structures and Algorithms study track today. I continued reading through the “Linked Lists” chapter of the book, “Cracking the Coding Interview” (CTCI) by Gayle Laakmann McDowell.
Read through the recursion section in the chapter, which was honestly pretty short. It referenced a future chapter that focuses purely on recursion. It did however highlight that all recursive problems can be implemented iteratively (i.e., using a loop) and have a runtime of O(n) where n is the depth of the recursion or the number of times the loop is run.
Additionally, I read through the sample questions provided at the end of the chapter. Honestly, I was really unfamiliar with all of the problems. I haven’t really done any problems related to Linked Lists. All of the problems seemed odd and would probably take me a while to do. I definitely need to come back to this. I am realizing that a core reason behind my discomfort with DSAs problems is my lack of experience and comfort. There is so much to cover and the intimidation factor is real. This process of exposing myself to more information on the topic is really helping me get over that fear. This like many other topics is just something I need to spend some time on to learn. I just have to keep chipping away at it.
I can’t wait for the time when I am comfortable and confident working with a variety of data structures and algorithms to build efficient tools and solutions to modern coding problems.
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. Continued reading through the chapter on “Linked Lists”. Read through the sample interview questions.
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.