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Show HN: AlgoDrill – Interactive drills to stop forgetting LeetCode patterns

(algodrill.io)
178 points henwfan | 2 comments | 09 Dec 25 11:09 UTC | HN request time: 0.409s | source

I built AlgoDrill because I kept grinding LeetCode, thinking I knew the pattern, and then completely blanking when I had to implement it from scratch a few weeks later.

AlgoDrill turns NeetCode 150 and more into pattern-based drills: you rebuild the solution line by line with active recall, get first principles editorials that explain why each step exists, and everything is tagged by patterns like sliding window, two pointers, and DP so you can hammer the ones you keep forgetting. The goal is simple: turn familiar patterns into code you can write quickly and confidently in a real interview.

https://algodrill.io

Would love feedback on whether this drill-style approach feels like a real upgrade over just solving problems once, and what’s most confusing or missing when you first land on the site.

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dragochat ◴[09 Dec 25 12:08 UTC] No.46204035[source]▶
...the f?! why are we interviewing ppl for things like this?!

you either:

(a) want DEEP understanding of math and proofs behind algorithms etc.

(b) can get away with very high level understanding, and refer to documentation and/or use LLMs for implementation details help

there is no real world use case for a middle-ground (c) where you want someone with algo implementation details rote-memorized in their brain and without the very deep understanding that would make the rote-memorization unnecessary!

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1. bko ◴[09 Dec 25 12:49 UTC] No.46204381[source]▶
Maybe it's just me, but I want people that are reasonably competent and you can work with. Maybe there are some jobs that require deep understanding of maths/proofs etc, but those are what, maybe 1 in 100 engineering jobs?

More often than not a deep interest in a particular technical domain is a liability. It's like that guy that insists on functional programming design patterns that insists on a fold with tail recursion where simple mutation could have easily sufficed. Or endless optimization, abstraction and forced patterns. Bro, you're working on building a crud app, we don't need spacecraft design.

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2. only-one1701 ◴[09 Dec 25 13:02 UTC] No.46204491[source]▶
The math puzzles like this are supposed to show deep mastery. I assure you that you don’t need DP in 99.999% if cases as well, but idiots are still asking house robber.