Maximum number of chunks algorithm

January 21, 2018

Introduction

It is the new way to learn the algorithm called maximum number of chunks. Last 2 weeks I asked the algorithm after mock interview over five times, through the discussion with so many peers, I also learned a few things. The peers are super talent on algorithm problem solving, one is senior developer of top four companies, one is computer science Ph.D., and others are preparing Google/ Facebook onsite.

Brute force analysis

One thing I learn is about the brute force solution. What is the time complexity for a brute force solution. I met a software engineer who is also Chinese. He argued with me and then I understood after the mock interview he is correct on the time complexity. For the array of size N, every index can be open chunk/close chunk position or not. So each index has 3 options, open chunk or close chunk or not the first two. So the option should be 2ⁿ time complexity.

Maximum number of chunks

January 20, 2018

Introduction

It is the best way to learn the algorithm in mock interview together. I asked the peer to solve the extra algorithm, and he worked so hard to solve the algorithm in 20 minutes or so. I watched him and learned how he thought out loud.

Transcript

Here is the transcript. I will review the transcript later on. The peer likes to write down the programming and then think about in the same time. I do not like this kind of style. Actually it is better to work on the idea, and until you have an idea to solve, you write down the algorithm and ask the peer which idea to write.