How I approach coding challenges

This time last year I was doing a lots of tests for job interviews, and I was practicing with https://adventofcode.com

I know there’s various data structures and algorithms you can learn to make these easier (and I hope to come back to some of my favourites in a later post), but there’s a general approach I take to these that helps me, and might help some of you too.

Use TDD

I’ve always been a fan of Test-Driven Development, and these type of puzzles lend themselves well to TDD thinking. Often examples are provided that will form the initial test suite. The algorithm is often broken into steps (sometimes explicitly “On every clock tick…”)

Get into the habit of checking as you go to make the most of the information provided to you. Think about the problem first, and the mapping between the input and the output, before you write any code.

Check everything on simple solutions.

Have templates

Most challenges involve a few common tasks. Read input from a file (ignoring blank lines), create a list of…, output as CSV, etc.

Some of these will have standardised patterns in your chosen language, and you should use them. Some will likely require some error handling. Some will require loading from standard or 3rd party libraries. And all will require a test framework.

As you go, build up a utilities list of functions, classes and packages that you know how to use, are robust enough and have minimal clutter. They’re not meant to be usable by anyone but you, but you will use them a lot. Collect and cherish them.

Think simple

Technical tests and coding challenges, in general, are designed to have short, easy solutions. If you need to solve P == NP to make your code fast, it’s likely you’re using an algorithm that’s a poor fit. Find 2 other ways to solve the problem, and pick the simpler one.

Simpler than that

Think about the simplest solution that could possibly work and write it simply.

Make the code readable. This is not the time for clever solutions. When it fails on an input, make it easy to change.

But not that simple

You still need to think about edge cases, and memory usage, and a myriad of other resource constraints. Think about what could go wrong, within the confines of the puzzle. Advent of Code has a particular knack for detecting edge cases in your code for Part 2 of each day’s challenge.

Think fast

Beware of premature optimisation, but expect long inputs and many loops if you use the naive implementation. Learn new algorithms and data structures.