A lesson from the data structures and algorithms bootcamp. About a 9 minute read.
Problem-solving is pattern recognition plus real comprehension, built on fundamentals and trained by doing. This lesson is about how to practice so the reps actually stick, which turns out to be a studied question with answers that contradict what most people do.
Every problem is a pattern in disguise. The goal is not to memorise answers, it is to recognise the SHAPE of a problem and understand why a solution works. This is the difference between a novice and an expert that the research keeps finding: shown a chess position, a master does 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 result generalises badly far from 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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