Code for each day lives within branches IE day1_p1
Note: Requires that you have python-pip installed on your machine
- Create a virtual environment using
python3 -m venv env - Activate the environment using
. env/bin/activate - Install dependencies using
pip install -r requirements.txt
Run tests using python -m pytest
I really wanted to use a recursive approach to solve this problem originally. I knew it was the right use case but I really struggled trying to create the function using recursion. This was mostly the result of inexperience with recursion. Interestingly enough, my silly method was able to past the test cases provided in the exercise but when I actually implemented it I was short by ~20. After banging my head against the keyboard for way too long, I decided to look for the answer and found the answer implemented in Golang using recursion and it was sooooo much more clean. I think I learned a valuable lesson from this experience.
The algorithm was pretty easy to grasp but I kept chasing my tail trying to figure out where to start. I kept trying to think up clever ways of solving the problem and it just left me more confused. I ultimately decided to start solving the problem with simple conditionals. Once I got it working, it was pretty easy to see what needed to be refactored to make the code more DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself). The lesson I walked away with... Sometimes starting with simple and ugly code will help you discover a more elegant way to solve a problem.