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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

#51

Post by paddleon »

epolanski wrote: post #13

I 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 "…

> Not really understanding the negativity here.

In the last year or so HN seems to have attracted a lot of people (plus some bots) who seem to have been socialized on Reddit.

I don't know if these people are ignorant of what a good discussion forum can be (because they've never experienced one) or just don't care, but I do wish we could see more reflection on the second-order impacts of posting, and a move away from the reflexive negativity that mimics the outer face of good criticism while totally missing the thought and expertise good criticism requires.

Re: Show HN: AlgoDrill – Interactive drills to stop forgetting LeetCode patterns

#52

Post by another_twist »

embedding-shape wrote: post #9

I 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…

I do codeforces in my spare time. Sometimes I implement and ML paper. Other times, I like to slog through my implementation of Raft, Paxos and VR. Not everybody wants to build generic crud app number 1,200,674. Coding is for solving problems, the problems might be engineering or just pure fun.

Re: Show HN: AlgoDrill – Interactive drills to stop forgetting LeetCode patterns

#54

Post by michaelmior »

What threw me off is the expectation that I use the same variable names and exact same code structure. There are many ways to implement effectively the same thing. I understand that it would be very challenging to implement a way to validate solutions in this way, but memorizing exact fragments of code feels like it's optimizing for the wrong thing.

Re: Show HN: AlgoDrill – Interactive drills to stop forgetting LeetCode patterns

#57

Post by VBprogrammer »

michaelmior wrote: post #54

What threw me off is the expectation that I use the same variable names and exact same code structure. There are many ways to implement effectively the same thing. I understand that it would be very challenging to implement a way to validate solutions in this way, but memorizing exact fragments of code feels like it's optimizing for the wrong thing.

Some might consider that a kind of commentary on the leet code interview format.

Re: Show HN: AlgoDrill – Interactive drills to stop forgetting LeetCode patterns

#58

Post by hansmayer »

epolanski wrote: post #25
embedding-shape wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

There's lots of psychological and anthropological studies behind the fact that most experts in various fields excel due to pattern recognition not reasoning. Going back to the chess example, while chess masters are incredible at analyzing complex positions they can recognize as "similar to", their advantage over normal human beings is very small when positions are completely randomized. "Peak: Secrets from the New Sc…

> There's lots of psychological and anthropological studies behind the fact that most experts in various fields excel due to pattern recognition not reasoning.

Pattern recognition in experts comes from combination of theoretical understanding and a lot of practical problem solving experience (which translates into patterns forming in way of neural paths) - not the other way around. If you dont understand the problem you are solving, then yes maybe you'll be able to throw a pattern at it and with a bit of luck solve it (kinda like how LLMs operate), but this will not lead to understanding. Memorising patterns isolated from theoretical backgrounds is not something that will create an expert in a field.

Re: Show HN: AlgoDrill – Interactive drills to stop forgetting LeetCode patterns

#59

Post by pegasus »

epolanski wrote: post #45
pcthrowaway wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their advantage over normal human beings is very small when positions are completely randomized. The book you referenced does not say they're comparable to normal players at playing from a random position. Normal players are almost as good as them at recalling a nonsensical board of random pieces. The suggestion that the advantage of a chess master over a normal player is "very small" at playing from a random posit…

I obviously meant it as a delta over the recognizable lines.

That wasn't obvious at all. I interpreted it as the chess masters lacking an advantage at playing from randomized position, which would be consistent with the claim you were supporting, as opposed to recalling which is neither here nor there.

Re: Show HN: AlgoDrill – Interactive drills to stop forgetting LeetCode patterns

#60

Post by Vaslo »

embedding-shape wrote: post #9

I 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…

Seeing how other people solve problems opens up new ways for me to solve my own. Many people are not RTFM but instead want applied examples.
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