This week's algorithm keywords: Binary Search, Divide and Conquer, Quick Sort, Merge Sort, Stack, Queue, Priority Queue, Linked List, Hash Table.
This week was similar to the last. The most difficult part was that the 'medium' difficulty problems were trickier than before, so I could only solve about half of them. To make up for my shortcomings, I focused on solving many LeetCode problems with difficulties between 'easy' and 'medium'.
If there is a change in my perspective, it is the realization that algorithms are not just for structuring my thought process. I realized they are essential for understanding how the language I am currently using works internally and its underlying principles. In particular, exploring how Python operates under the hood—seeing which algorithms were used and understanding the design intentions and characteristics of the language—was my biggest takeaway this week. #Will write about Python's internals later...
As for the team project, we moved away from the planning focus of the previous week and concurrently studied and implemented Redis ourselves. I was able to see exactly how data structures like linked lists and hash tables are used in an actual project. However, since I had absolutely no prior knowledge of servers, it took way too much time to look up basics like ports and the OSI 7 layer model. I regret getting so caught up in the history and necessity of Redis that I failed to take a broader look at what other alternatives exist and what their drawbacks are.
Because I lacked time and left the implementation to AI, it felt like the cart was put before the horse—implementing first and studying later. Still, I am starting to get a feel for what kind of questions to ask the AI and what tasks to delegate, and I want to apply this properly in the next project. Also, because we divided the roles, it bothers me that I couldn't directly track the areas I wasn't in charge of, especially how the CLI was implemented or the specific process of how input values reach the hash table. Since I only designed the flow using variable names and couldn't look through all the actual code, I want to review this part by sharing our knowledge during the team retrospective.