Since Jan 8, all I have done really is just 12 questions. Most of which come from Love Babbar's 450 DSA. No practicing building apps and nothing like that. I did watch the 1st 3 videos of NamasteyJS by Akshay Saini.
This is a bad rate at which to do things.
I have decided to brush up the basics of DSA by learning and writing fundamental programs for each topic.
On DS side of things: arrays, Strings, stacks, queues, linkedLists
On Algo side: Complexity, Dynamic Programming, Greedy, Divide and Conquer
I realize that I have done the same mistake again. Instead of moving onto next problem, I just kept banging my head on the wall of NZEC that I get in Flow004.
If this doesn't get resolved, I should have moved forward and flagged it as doubt instead of wasting a lot of time.
Day 5-29Jan:
BTW, if you're reading this and you use Java for solving problems on CodeChef. Please take a look at my discussion topic. If it is not solved, yet please help me.
Gripes against using Java for competitive programming
Weird errors when everything works fine locally and or with custom inputs.
Less amount of discussion and solutions available for Java
A simple thing like I/O is not easy. Scanner gives TLE, BufferedReader is verbose and not that fast. You have to keep FastReader class template handy.
Why am I using Java?
I am more comfortable with Java than I am with C++
Afraid of things like structures, unions, etc. in C++
At this moment it is tempting to jump ship and switch to C++. However, I know that I am going to encounter problems there as well. First I will have to struggle with pointers, parameterized types, lack of inbuilt features to handle large numbers, etc. So, instead I am going to stick with Java and face the music.
My decision is so because I am not interested in doing competitive programming for the sake of it, and as a sport. I am only doing it for interviews. So, at least in my case, it won't matter as much.