Code Jam's kickstart

July 6, 2018

Introduction

It is my research task to read Lalit Kundu's quora posts, I spent a few hours to read one by one. I came cross this video talk 30 minutes, and I like to watch the video. Here is the link.

Take some notes

5:00 - 11:00
Talk about solving a problem using a graph. Very good explanation.

11:00 - ?
There is a talk about topological sort algorithm given by Lalit Kundu.

15:13/ 31:55
Some caveats

Not every Kickstart problem will reduce to a known problem or algorithm!
Many problems require creativity and insights
It may help to think through the problem and your algorithm carefully before writing any code

19:57 PM thought process?
So other people's mileage may vary here, do not know what to do right away. Just apply a small individual case and spot some pattern.

Lalit: make it a general form -

20:00/ 31:55 - you can summarize the problem in one statement. Explore certain paths, dynamic programming, greedy algorithm. Good strategy is do not code until you have ideas how to solve it.

I do not code it until I finalize and prove the algorithm.

21:30 It can save you a lot of time to have the correct idea before you write the code.