The Unfair Way I Got Good At Leetcode

[@nonefvnfvnjnjnjevjenjvonej3384]

i want to say something to my younger colleagues. the software industry and the internet that you see today, did not come from people who did leetcode and joined a big company. it came from people who loved programming and built new things with software. if at all possible, try to say no to companies who do leetcode, build useful software and try and sell it on the open market. who knows, the world might become a better place and you might make a lot more money.

[@ismbks]

og is right, and as someone who doesn't get much enjoyment from doing leetcodes i am even more inclined to buy this narrative

[@skillgamer76]

Man I just want to earn faang money and be a cog in a wheel. It’s the easiest method to being a multi millionaire.

[@nonefvnfvnjnjnjevjenjvonej3384]

@@skillgamer76 unfortunately they will also make you feel like their b*tch.

[@vectoralphaSec]

​@@skillgamer76no it's not lol.

[@psyedd]

@@vectoralphaSec it is if you're lucky enough to stay a cog for 35 years, live way below your means, and invest regularly. Power of compounding will get you there.

[@ryiv1848]

Takeaways: 1. Learn from examples 2. Join Communities 3. Spaced Repetition 4. Consistent Practice Beginner tip: if stuck on a problem for too long, bring your ego down and study the solution.

[@Dipj01]

As someone who has never done Leetcode, I don't why YT recommended this. Interesting though.

[@Zellie1994]

God bless your innocence. Once you’re in it, you can’t get out.

[@vectoralphaSec]

Its the most difficult challenge a software engineer HAS to face in their career??? Uh NO. You dont have to do it. Any employer that puts doing leetcode on a pedestal is not a employer you want to work for. Leetcode is a plague on the coding industry.

[@teqnify63]

Sounds like you suck at it lowkey

[@yt-sh]

thank you for sharing tips and tricks and congratulations on your hard work being paid off!

[@anand_r7784]

I'm still looking out for the unfair part 🤔

[@topswe]

Some tips like: gamifying leetcode, treating every problem like a real interview, using curated lists, etc.

[@shirish_yt]

whatever you told is not unfair way, its just sheer discipline and hardwork

[@user-gn4im3rh6n]

This is one of the best video I’ve seen on how to be good at leetcode. It basically gathers the best advice from all the other sources and provides clear guidelines and strategies❤❤❤

[@rajajrt_]

Thank you! Because of you, I'm know on my 75th problems. I'm doing neetcode 150, and can't believe I made it this far.

[@yashjaiswal4828]

This was super helpful and inspiring! I’m nearing completion for my shortlisted topics on Neetcode 150. Can you make a video about the best way to revise leetcode problems if you have any tips for that? Thanks! Love your content! :)

[@topswe]

Glad it was helpful! That’s a good idea, thanks. In general I’d make sure to take detailed notes, and try to review every few weeks. You want to write a sentence about the main insight necessary to solve the problem

[@glowiboi]

I am a new coder, and I not familiar with optimization and time complexity. I know what they are, but I often mis-identify the complexity of a solution. Do you have resources or tips for learning this?

[@ManojKumar-rp6sp]

Did you like go back and solve the questions again to like revise them , cuz I forget some q's after some time

[@topswe]

Yes for sure, it’s great to revise every few weeks! Spaced repetition

[@Chessnerd2003]

Bro is giving tips like he had solved all the leetcode problems

[@tezkalow]

sounds like me solving chess puzzles for months and eventually grinded to 3k puzzle elo

[@viewer1821]

topswe be like: i will eat the whole platform only

[@topswe]

haha took me over 3 years! :)

[@MOHAMMADIQBALRASULSEEAM]

How some people always beat 100% on Leetcode ? If I submit the same solution mine beats 50%. Could you please explain

[@topswe]

@@MOHAMMADIQBALRASULSEEAM what happens if you submit multiple times?

[@takeuchi5760]

That's just a leetcode compiler and ranking thing, it changes everytime, and it's irrelevant to the efficiency of your program as long as you know your time and space complexities are the most optimal for the problem.

[@ManojKumar-rp6sp]

@@takeuchi5760 yeah its cuz leecode compiler is server based so yeah

[@ayushmaanpandey5233]

Racial discrimination😢

[@Daiviklk]

Optimise bro

[@zRe678]

how much time did you dedicate to leet code a day to achive your result? nice video btw

[@topswe]

Thanks for the support! I leetcoded on average 3 hours on weekdays, and 8-10 hours most weekends.

[@akshaysingh548]

can you share a video to show how you take notes, Thank for vid

[@topswe]

Thanks for the feedback! Good idea, at a high level you want to write 1 sentence on the key insight to solve the problem. Also time space complexity.

[@arshadalam]

Should I do java or C++ for leetcode, I am thinking to do full stack development, so which language should I go with.?

[@topswe]

Python is the best choice! :)

[@mohammedkaifullakazim]

Whenever I see the question on leetcode, i figure out what needs to be done, but when it's time to code I cannot even if I am at the intermediate level, the logic goes wrong, what can I do?

[@ShubhamGhuleCodes]

I would suggest you to search A2OJ ladder and solve atleast 15-20 div2A problems...it will help with the implementation

[@topswe]

Yeah it’s an implementation issue, which is the easy part thankfully! I would practice hard implementation problems , involving data structures. For instance, lru/lfu cache.

[@topswe]

Great advice!

[@mohammedkaifullakazim]

@@topswe So any tip to improve ?

[@topswe]

@@mohammedkaifullakazim can you give an example of a question you’re stuck on?

[@Qwerty123zzuy]

Do u have a map of the most frequently asked patterns? I feel like I am starting to learn things which will never be asked in an interview(like bellman-ford).

[@topswe]

great question. you can check the 20 patterns in the leetcode 75, or see the most frequently asked tags on leetcode directly! my topswe100 list covers the important questions.

[@madghostek3026]

I think stuff like bellman ford, or in general more convolved graph algoritms, are something you should be aware of anyway, at least that they apply to certain problems. I remember the idea but I wouldn't be able to implement off the top of my head, but I know what it does and I wont reinvent the wheel when asked.

[@chuangfan5621]

Damn ! My man !

[@sarveshjoshi6913]

after solving so much problems ..u must be solving all questions in the contest within less than half an hour i guess

[@topswe]

Yeah if the problems aren’t too difficult I can usually finish within 30 minutes :)

[@seraph1007]

@@topswe if you're finishing within 30 minutes you wouldn't be only 2200 rating

[@ManOfCultureUSA]

If you can solve all 3 problems within 30 minutes then y your rating is at 2200 ? Shouldn't it be more ? The people I know who solved all questions in 30 minutes have rating 2800+ . You are clearly lying.

[@seraph1007]

@@ManOfCultureUSA yep, i thought so as well, also self-proclaiming rank 10 when thats just problems solved is pretty pathetic, every top cper / leetcoder looks at contest rating

[@param1797]

@@seraph1007 yeah looks like a copy paster tbh. his site has “LC Patterns” with just binary search. no videos of him solving problems ever and just boasting about his rank and number of problems solved.

[@kavoya]

hey there! do you recommend trying out leetcode if one knows the fundamental of a language? or would you recommend learning data structures and algorithms to a certain degree before jumping onto leetcode?

[@topswe]

I would always suggest to dive into leetcode even if you don’t know any dsa. There’s tons of problems that you can solve just based off intuition, like simulation, greedy problems. And learning dsa from leetcode is great since you can directly see its applications! :)

[@guyindisguise]

I found this very interesting. I always thought that the way to improve would be to do a lot of hard thinking and try to come up with all the clever solutions yourself and not "just" first try yourself and then look up the answers (but actually solve everything yourself). @topsw do you think there's a difference in how one should approach this depending on the background (CS degree vs self-taught)?

[@jaswanthandhavarapu4325]

U r final boss

[@jaswanthandhavarapu4325]

I will chase you

[@rkninja-pc4ko]

Have you done any competitive programming like codeforces or only focused on leetcode?

[@topswe]

I’ve focussed on Leetcode but now that I’m done I’ve been working on codeforces and atcoder!

[@aryansudan2239]

idk man even the hardest LC qs pale in front of CF D/E qs. How easy is CF for you after basically running through all of Leetcode

[@topswe]

@@aryansudan2239 yeah that is a good point. Do you mean div2s D/E? I can solve most problems on Div 3/4, haven’t done many Div2s.

[@ManojKumar-rp6sp]

@@topswe I can understand that, my freind has solved around 900 questions on Leetcode and still managed to have same contest rating as your , his is 2218. But yeah , he had been doing CP on codeforces alongside as well

[@user-be8ud2qd2d]

What ratio would you recommend for solving questions by difficulty easy:medium:hard?

[@topswe]

For beginners, 100% easy. Intermediate, 50;50 easy and medium. Do not do hards until you are comfortable with easies and mediums.

[@abhishek-94]

@@topswe Thank you. Your channel is very good. I saw your video where you asked to do 150 problems, and then practice weak areas. So in total how many problems is a good ballpark figure to target. If I am a beginner, should I go breadth first and practice 5-10 problems of all areas: array, string, graph, two pointer, dp etc. And then move to medium. Then, finally to hard problems?

[@topswe]

@@abhishek-94 I think start with leetcode 75 list or top interview 150. You should target about 200 in total at the minimum

[@topswe]

@@abhishek-94 doing the list will give you breadth. And yeah don’t do hards until you’re comfortable with easies and mediums. Glad you like the channel! :)

[@topswe]

@@abhishek-94 also have the topswe100 on my website, it’s ordered by difficulty roughly.

[@sarveshjoshi6913]

do you revise tough or medium but late striking questions often?

[@topswe]

Wdym by late striking?

[@ManOfCultureUSA]

Bro, 2200 rating with all problems solved is not impressive tbh. This just shows that you were seeing solutions of too many problems too quickly. If you would have given enough thoughts to those problem, you would have been at least 2800 + . I am saying this because I just solved 300 problems and have a rating of 2000 on leetcode.

[@BonerPauler]

thank you your videos are helpful