LeetCode has induced instant gratification and made building boring ⚡
Why most engineers today are not thrilled by building something ground up, like their databases, programming languages, game engines, etc?
Leaving aside people who are not interested (at all), I see people starting the projects, but giving up pretty soon as they hit their first roadblock. Remember, we can build anything if we persevere enough, but why are we not doing it then?
Building something takes consistent time and effort over a long period. But because we are getting wired with quick rewards, there is no fun in struggling and building.
Don’t get me wrong, doing LeetCode-like questions is fun and has its perks, like, you do become great at problem-solving, writing efficient code, and using the right data structure and algorithms to solve a problem, but the quick feedback loop is kind of messing up with us.
Spending hours building something ground up is fun. Spending hours looking at a massive codebase to understand what that one piece of function is doing is fun. Spending hours building that one thing you always wanted to do is fun.
Once you are done with enough LeetCode, look beyond those 80/100 lines of code snippets and experience the joy of building something from the ground up. The struggle is real but worth it.
⚡ I keep writing and sharing my practical experience and learnings every day, so if you resonate then follow along. I keep it no fluff.
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