That's certainly a (to me) very unusual way to learn programming.
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Show HN: AlgoDrill – Interactive drills to stop forgetting LeetCode patterns
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Re: Show HN: AlgoDrill – Interactive drills to stop forgetting LeetCode patterns
#12I learned the other day ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46184676 ) that people who aren't students apparently use LeetCode too, for recreational purposes? I'm not sure why you'd work on someone else's imaginary problem instead of doing something for yourself, so apparently it's there and some people enjoy it, regardless of my understanding of it. But then I don't know how to reconcile the idea that some people…
> imaginary problem instead of doing something for yourself
they're doing it for themselves just like when they solve sudokus, crosswords or play fortnite
Re: Show HN: AlgoDrill – Interactive drills to stop forgetting LeetCode patterns
#13I like the idea, and you've got yourself a customer :)
The lifetime membership + launch discount was a good marketing bait I felt for.
Not really understanding the negativity here. We know for a fact that most of the people that master intellectual problems do so via pattern recognition, not by reasoning.
You show a chess master a position, he/she can instantly tell you what the best moves are without "thinking" or "calculating" because it's mostly pattern recognition.
Maths and algorithms fall in the same category. When approaching new problems, masters don't really start processing the information and reasoning about it, instead they use pattern recognition to find what are very similar problems.
The thing I really don't like is the lack of TypeScript or at least JavaScript, which are the most common languages out there. I really don't enjoy nor use Java/Python/C++.
Re: Show HN: AlgoDrill – Interactive drills to stop forgetting LeetCode patterns
#14...the f?! why are we interviewing ppl for things like this?! you either: (a) want DEEP understanding of math and proofs behind algorithms etc. (b) can get away with very high level understanding, and refer to documentation and/or use LLMs for implementation details help there is no real world use case for a middle-ground (c) where you want someone with algo implementation details rote-memorized in their brain and wi…
People are sheep. Someone somewhere used mathematical puzzles as interview questions. That someone became big. Others assumed it was because their interview process was amazing and followed blindly. Soon enough the process started to be gamed. I'm seeing this trend again in the field of AI where math olympiad participants are being given God like status by a few companies and the media. Truth is even the most prolifi…
Hundred percent. Classic example of academic smarts vs real world smarts.
It's why developers as a group will lose negotiating power over time. You would expect a smart person to question why that 'problem' exists in the first place rather than forge ahead and making a solution for a problem that doesn't exist. It's like your manager telling you to write a software that does something, whatever that is. Your first question should be why and you should not type a single letter until you understand the domain and whether a software solution is needed in the first place.
For all the intellectuality modern devs give to themselves, they are still asking how high when told to jump. And in some cases even bragging about jump heights. Only difference is that many devs look down upon others (or simply are unable to understand those) who refuse to jump.
We all know devs have better things to focus on, given the state of modern software development.
Re: Show HN: AlgoDrill – Interactive drills to stop forgetting LeetCode patterns
#15Nice, you have identified shovel very well.
Re: Show HN: AlgoDrill – Interactive drills to stop forgetting LeetCode patterns
#16The idea of getting quizzed on how good you are at recalling specific patterns in algorithm construction is completely and utterly bizarre. I get that some people feel forced into it, but nobody can believe that this is an appropriate measure to judge programmers on. Sure, being able to understand and implement algorithms is important, but this is not what this is training for.
It's just a power move on devs. People come on HN to brag about crazy high comp and how devs are untouchable. The reality is that if you feel the need to do circus tricks for someone in exchange for a role that makes you happy, you got no leverage. While this might have been less obvious during the late 10s and early 20s with all the fancy pods, consoles, free high quality fresh meals and what not that Big Tech used to offer to devs, it is certainly harder to deny nowadays.
Re: Show HN: AlgoDrill – Interactive drills to stop forgetting LeetCode patterns
#17...the f?! why are we interviewing ppl for things like this?! you either: (a) want DEEP understanding of math and proofs behind algorithms etc. (b) can get away with very high level understanding, and refer to documentation and/or use LLMs for implementation details help there is no real world use case for a middle-ground (c) where you want someone with algo implementation details rote-memorized in their brain and wi…
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Re: Show HN: AlgoDrill – Interactive drills to stop forgetting LeetCode patterns
#18I like the idea, and you've got yourself a customer :) The lifetime membership + launch discount was a good marketing bait I felt for. Not really understanding the negativity here. We know for a fact that most of the people that master intellectual problems do so via pattern recognition, not by reasoning. You show a chess master a position, he/she can instantly tell you what the best moves are without "thinking" or "…
I don't know if I feel any negativity, but this is the first time I actually thought 'the price of subscription is approximately equal the price of Opus tokens needed to build a custom version of this for myself'... and got a bit scared TBH
Re: Show HN: AlgoDrill – Interactive drills to stop forgetting LeetCode patterns
#19I like the idea, and you've got yourself a customer :) The lifetime membership + launch discount was a good marketing bait I felt for. Not really understanding the negativity here. We know for a fact that most of the people that master intellectual problems do so via pattern recognition, not by reasoning. You show a chess master a position, he/she can instantly tell you what the best moves are without "thinking" or "…
Thank you, I really appreciate you signing up.
I agree with you on pattern recognition. AlgoDrill is built around taking patterns people already understand and turning them into something their hands can write quickly under pressure. You rebuild the solution line by line with active recall, small objectives, and first principles explanations after each step, so it is more than just memorizing code.
You are also right about the language gap. Right now the drills are Python first, but I am already working on full support for JavaScript, Java, and C++ across all problems, and I will have all of those in by the end of this year. I want people to be able to practice in the language they actually use every day, so your comment helps a lot.
Re: Show HN: AlgoDrill – Interactive drills to stop forgetting LeetCode patterns
#20I like the idea, and you've got yourself a customer :) The lifetime membership + launch discount was a good marketing bait I felt for. Not really understanding the negativity here. We know for a fact that most of the people that master intellectual problems do so via pattern recognition, not by reasoning. You show a chess master a position, he/she can instantly tell you what the best moves are without "thinking" or "…
> We know for a fact that most of the people that master intellectual problems do so via pattern recognition, not by reasoning.
Where is this fact stated, and who are "we" here? Sounds like an opinion or guess at best.
> Not really understanding the negativity here
There are two comments that could be read negativily, the rest is neutral or positive. I don't really understand the constant need for people to bring up what (they think) the rest of the comments said. Post your piece adding positivity if you want, but most of the time comments end up a fair mix so any time someone adds a snippet like that, it turns outdated in a few hours.