Here to Learn
Daniel Leskosky
If you are thinking of switching careers to become a software engineer, then this post is for you. There are a lot of great resources available on the internet to become a job-ready software engineer, but it can be a challenge to separate the signal from the noise. It was for me anyways. My hope is to offer some insight that I gained from my own coding journey to make your journey a bit easier. Just a reminder, these are just my opinions.
It is important to always strive for the best time complexity when solving algorithm problems. I recently solved for the brute force solution to this problem and was ready to move on. Then, a fellow programmer on the world-wide-web reached out to me and encouraged me to do better! He showed me a solution that was much better than mine. The only problem was that I didn’t understand it at all. Well, now I do understand it. AND I want you to understand it too!
Every so often when I am practicing algorithm problems, I run into a problem that requires a bit of math to solve. For this “Path in ZigZag Labelled Binary Tree” problem, my initial impression was that I would have to do a breadth-first search on a tree. As I quickly found out, I was not dealing with a typical tree problem. This problem requires a bit of math to solve. I don’t know about you, but my math is a bit rusty.
I was working on a LeetCode problem a few days ago. I was able to come up with a brute force solution, but wasn’t able to get any further past that. On the discussion board a user gave a solution that utilized histograms. The user also referenced another problem for more histogram practice. I don’t know about you, but I could use some more histogram practice. Let’s figure out how to solve “Largest Rectangle in Histogram”.
I was going through LeetCode problems that I have solved, looking for one that would be good to write a post about. I came across the Dutch National Flag Problem and knew right away that it would be a good one. Let’s learn how to solve it!
Although I continue my practice of algorithms, I am still having trouble identifying when to use the appropriate data structure. I recently attempted to solve a problem on LeetCode and completely missed the obvious hints that a queue would be a good data structure to use for the algorithm. This post will provide a detailed solution with illustrations for that problem. While the main purpose of this post is to help others get a clear mental picture of what is happening with the algorithm, I also write this post with the hope that I can work to strengthen my intuition of when to leverage the correct data structure.
Linked List problems can seem tricky at first, but they aren’t so bad once you get the hang of them. Or so they say. I have yet to get to that point, which is why I am here blogging about it! While, reversing linked lists and finding cycles are great problems to start on, this odd even linked list problem is a pretty good one for us beginners as well. Let’s get started!
As I practice more algorithm problems, I sometimes find it challenging to identify the right time to use the appropriate data structure. While, doing lots of problems is a sure bet to develop this perception, I have found that it is also important to have a thorough understanding of what is going on under the hood. In this blog post, our goal is to better understand stacks.
As I am continuing to learn more about algorithms and data structures, I have found one particular kind of problem that has been giving me trouble: Breadth First Search. Because I was having a hard time grasping this concept, I figured that the best thing for me to do would be to blog about it. So, time to put our differences aside, BFS, because by the time this is over, you and I will be BFFs.
Big-O is pretty important. It is the metric that is used to describe the efficiency of algorithms. Having a thorough understanding of Big-O is crucial for ensuring that algorithms are as efficient as possible. Let’s learn more about this fundamental computer science topic.
If you have found your way to my blog then chances are that you have been on the website “Stack Overflow” before. Despite being a frequent visitor of that site, I never really thought of what the name actually meant though. What is a stack overflow? In this blog post we will learn a bit more about stacks and what causes a stack overflow. We will also learn about a data structure related to the stack: the queue.
Trees are similar to linked lists in that they are made up of nodes and links. There are certainly some differences between the two though. Let’s find out what makes a tree a tree.
When first learning about Computer Science, arrays were one of the first things that I learned about. For the longest time, I had no idea what a linked list was. Linked lists are pretty important though, and if you are a serious student of the Computer Sciences then they are definitely worth learning about. So let’s learn about linked lists!
I am determined to learn more about algorithms and data structures! What better way to learn about something than to blog about it? So that is what I will do. I will start blogging about algorithms and data structures!
When it comes to learning databases there sure is a whole lot of ground to cover. A good starting point is to first become familiar with some of the key definitions. Let’s start with ACID.
In the computing world a cache is hardware or software that is used to temporarily store data. Let’s learn more about when a cache is used, how caching works, and the different types of caches.
When it comes to databases there are two types that deserve some attention: SQL & NoSQL. These two different types of databases are quite different from each other. Let’s explore some of those differences.
API is a buzzword in the tech industry. What does an API actually do though? This article will help you to familiarize yourself with what an API is and how it is used.
Configure phpMyAdmin to connect to a remote highly available MySQL database that is connected to an Amazon Lightsail WordPress instance.
Learn how to connnect with SSH to your Lightsail WordPress instance. Then, learn how to use SSH to access phpMyAdmin to manage your site’s database.
When I first started teaching myself about programming concepts, I didn’t do too much reading. I thought, that the best resources for learning about computers would be: on computers. Without a doubt, there are loads of excellent learning resources on the internet. However, I have also found there are just as many great programming books out there. If you truly want to streamline your learning progression, then utilize as many quality resources as you can.
Hello there! This is my first post! It sure does feel good to be a proud owner of a brand new blog. Heck, it still even has that new blog smell! I must say though, it was a bit more work than I expected to get it up and running. While I was building my blog, I would often find myself scratching my head, searching for the next step. That elusive “next step” can often be a difficult thing to identify, especially when working on an unfamiliar process.