Cracking the Coding Interview has many interview questions and challenge problems that really boggle the mind. Why would I want to go back to boggling my mind? In recent times, I had a daughter. This daughter has caused me to double down on my career and really get better at my craft. With tracking through the Cracking the Coding Interview book, I feel wholly inadequate but I will continue on bravely
What I Learned Today
The Runner technique. This technique involves running a “fast” pointer ahead of a “slow” pointer when traversing a linked list. This is useful for things like hitting the end of a list and then backtracking as the slow pointer moves forward, or for analyzing a sliding window across a linked list. This technique has proven very useful when doing things like re-arranging the order of the underlying list.
Is this a lot to write about? No, but writing about this is going to keep me learning and pushing through difficulties that may arise. It’s hard to come back and do this having been out of school for over 4 years now, but the payoffs are worth it.