A lesson from the Start Here module of the bootcamp. About a 9 minute read.
Problem-solving is pattern recognition plus real understanding, built on fundamentals and trained by doing. This lesson is about how to practice so the reps actually stick. That turns out to be a studied question, and the answers contradict what most people do.
Every problem is a pattern in disguise. The goal is not to memorize answers. It is to recognize the SHAPE of a problem and understand why a solution works. Research keeps finding this is what separates a novice from an expert. Show a chess master a position and they do not calculate faster than a beginner. They SEE the board in bigger chunks. Chase and Simon measured this at Carnegie Mellon in the seventies, and the same effect shows up far beyond chess. An expert sees 'this is a monotonic stack problem' where a beginner sees an array and a loop. Both then write the same code. Only one of them knew what to write.
The rest of this lesson continues with 4 further sections. See the full curriculum.
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