[_drimzy]

> buy a copy of cracking the coding interview, make a leetcode.com account

In my opinion this is a pretty bad advice and I see a lot of entry level programmers struggling for a long time because of this. A basic algorithms and data struture book (something like Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen, and Data Structures by Mark A Weiss) is a must before jumping into leetcode/cracking the coding interview. One needs to have a foundation before diving straight to interview problems.

[oatmeal_croc]

Also, having a Cormen handy is always a good idea regardless of your expertise level with data structures/algorithms!

[beezechurger]

why cant ctci be supplemented by youtube videos? perfection is our enemy and many non faang jobs dont do LC interviews

[_drimzy]

Because ctci is a terrible book to start learning basics from. I agree with let perfect not be the enemy of the good, but CTCI/LC are not good, they are terrible and overwhelming for someone with no background in algorithms.

[catwind7]

agree with this ^. Pretty sure the book was written with STEM (but really, comp sci) new grads in mind