I have practiced Python coding as well as data structure + algorithm using LeetCode for over a year now. I solved all easy level problems, and almost half of the medium level ones. Although I liked solving problems one by one I started feeling the need for new challenges to further improve my coding skill. One of them is contributing to open source project to experience product grade codes, and the other one is doing coding contests.
Last Saturday there were two contests on LeetCode - weekly #155 & biweekly #9. The latter one was held in the morning and the former was at night in US Eastern time. Both sets had four problems; one easy, two medium, one hard over 1.5 hours. My goal was to solve one easy and one medium at the minimum. In the end, in the morning contest I solved two in time, and the third one 10 minutes after the contest was over. Not bad. However, in the night session I solved the easiest one in 5 minutes, and the second one 20 minutes after the contest. I spent the entire time on one medium level problem. Frustrating as I could not solve any other problem in time, amusing as I solved it at last. That particular problem turned out to be a difficult one. It scored nearly the lowest acceptance rate out of medium level ones. And people seemed to agree that this week's set was particularly harder compared to average weekly contest.
Solving problems under fixed time limit was quite different from solving without. Strong time pressure worked both ways: on the one hand it restricted my reasoning so that I had hard time coming up with ideas which I could have realized easily otherwise, but on the other hand it brought me into high level of concentration and efficiency which I haven't experienced in the past.
Quite fun. Will keep participating contest weekly. Do you have any advice on how to get the most out of coding contest?
