Okay, so today I wanted to mess around with this coding problem, number 713. It sounded kinda tricky at first, but I figured, “Why not give it a shot?”
Getting Started
First thing I did was actually read the problem, you know? Like, really understand what it was asking. Sometimes I jump in too fast and get totally lost. Not this time! I made sure I knew what input I was getting and what kind of output I needed.
My First Attempt (and Fail!)
My initial thought was, “I’ll just brute-force this thing!” I wrote some code that basically tried every single possibility. It kinda worked on the small test cases they gave, but when I submitted it… boom! Time Limit Exceeded. Classic.
It was super slow. Like, watching-paint-dry slow. I realized I needed a smarter approach.
Thinking it Through
So, I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen – old school, I know – and started sketching out some ideas. I thought about how I could avoid checking the same things over and over again. It was like, “There’s gotta be a pattern here…”
A Better Way
Then it hit me! I could use this “sliding window” thing. I’d keep track of a chunk of the numbers and move that chunk along, updating my calculations as I went. It felt much more efficient.
It is much more efficient to use two pointers to solve this problem!
Coding it Up
I started rewriting my code, using the sliding window idea. It took a few tries to get the details right – had some off-by-one errors, you know, the usual stuff. But I kept plugging away, debugging and testing.
Fingers Crossed…
Finally, I had something that looked pretty good. I ran it on the test cases, and it passed them all! I was feeling pretty good, but still a little nervous. I hit that submit button…
Success!
And… it worked! Accepted! I did a little happy dance, I’m not gonna lie. It’s always a great feeling when you finally crack a problem that’s been bugging you.
what have i done
I wanted to share my solution with everyone!
- Initialize two pointers and.
- Iterate over the array with.
- and many detail to achieve it…
It took a while, some trial and error, and definitely some frustration. But hey, that’s coding, right? The important thing is I stuck with it, learned something new, and finally got that sweet, sweet “Accepted” message.
