Preparing a Coding Interview

Principles

• Build Knowledge Structures
• Deliberate Practice
  • 5 to 7 times every question and expand
• Constant Feedback
• By Topics and Review

7 Steps for a Coding Interview

1. Listen and Clarification
2. Example (big, non-special cases)
3. Brute Force Solutions
4. Optimize
   1. Improve Step by Step
   2. Think up all possible Solutions
5. Walk through the solution
   • Explain clearly
   • Time and Space Complexity
6. Code
   1. White board or computer
   2. Coding Style
      1. indentation, naming, variable naming
   3. Modularization
7. Test Cases
   1. small and fast cases first
   2. edge case
   3. big test cases

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Coding Style

• Naming - "Naming and Cache Failure"
  • Camel Style Naming
    • Python, Java
  • snake_case
    • C++
• Indentation
• Comments
  • file comment at head
  • TO DO
  • parameter specification, function header
  • type hint
• Test Habit
  • function test
    • do test case in mind
  • edge case test
    • stack overflow
    • out of range situation
  • negative case test
    • invalid inputs
• Error Handling
  • Use Return Value
  • Use Global Variable
  • Throw Error
• Robustness
  • Defensive Programing

Suggestions

• leave blank lines (~20%)

Coding Style Examples

PEP8 Coding Style Guid for Python

Google Python Coding Style

Google C++ Coding Style Guide