Alright, so, “DP Season 1,” what a ride, right? I remember when I first started this thing, I was like, “What the heck am I doing?” But I dove in anyway. I just jumped into this whole “dynamic programming” thing without really knowing what it was.
First, I tried to understand what this “DP” was all about. I read a bunch of stuff, watched some videos. Honestly, it was kind of confusing at first. These tables, these states, these transitions… it was a lot to take in. But, you know, I’m not one to give up easily. I kept at it. I started with some simple problems, like that Fibonacci thing. It’s like, everyone starts with that one, right?
So I coded that up, and it worked! I was like, “Yes! I’m getting it!” Then I moved on to some other classic problems. There’s this knapsack thing, where you have a bag and you have to put stuff in it to maximize the value without going over the weight limit. That one was tricky, but I got it working too. I used a table, just like the tutorials said, and filled it up step by step. It was pretty cool to see it come together.
- Fibonacci: Yeah, I started with that. It’s pretty straightforward once you get the hang of it.
- Knapsack: This one was a bit harder. Took me a while to wrap my head around the whole weight and value thing.
- Shortest Path: This one was tough! I tried a bunch of different approaches before I finally got it right.
I spent hours on these problems, just coding, debugging, and trying to figure things out. I remember one night, I was stuck on this one problem, the “shortest path” one. I just couldn’t get it to work. I tried everything I could think of. I even started drawing diagrams on paper, trying to visualize what was going on. Finally, after hours of work, I found the bug. It was a stupid little mistake, but when I fixed it, the whole thing just clicked. I felt like a genius, haha!
But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. There were times when I felt like I was hitting my head against a wall. Some of these problems are really hard! I remember I spent days on this one problem, and I just couldn’t solve it. I had to take a break and come back to it later. And you know what? That worked. When I came back to it, I saw the problem with fresh eyes and figured it out. I guess sometimes you just need to step away for a bit.
What I Learned
So, after all that, what did I learn? Well, I learned that dynamic programming is a really powerful technique. It can be used to solve all sorts of problems. It is not easy. But once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty amazing. It’s like having a superpower or something. You can solve problems that seem impossible at first.
I also learned that practice is key. The more you do it, the better you get. It’s like anything else, really. You can’t just read about it and expect to be good at it. You have to actually do it, and do it a lot. In the end, I feel it was all worth it, and I can not wait to take you all on my next adventure in season two!
