Five programming problems every Software Engineer should be able to solve in less than 1 hour

[Mark Schonewille]

Hi,

I think this should be something like this (below). Mind line wraps, 
especially in the solution for problem 5.

My solution for problem 5 is much easier but also less elegant than the 
Java solution on the website. If anyone has better (faster or easier) 
solutions, especially for problem 5, I'd like to see them.


Solutions:

// sorry, but I really can't care about the 3 different methods.
// They're silly.
function problem1
      put sum(myGivenList)
end problem1

// piece of cake for LC but in PHP and C++ also not that difficult
on problem2
      repeat with x = 1 to number of items of myList1
           put item x of myList1,item x of myList2 & comma after myNewList
      end repeat
      delete last char of myNewList
end problem2

// doh
function problem3
      put "0,1" into myList
      repeat 98
           put comma & item -2 of myList + item -1 of myList after myList
      end repeat
      return myList
end problem3

// easy
function problem4
      put "50,2,1,9" into myList
      sort items of myList numeric descending by char 1 of each
      replace comma with empty in myList
      return myList
end problem4

/* I would rather do this as a recursive function, avoiding the
multiple repeat loops and allowing for an arbitrary number of digits
(e.g. 123 or 1234 or 1468 etc) but that seems to take too much time */
function problem5
      put "+-o" into signs
      repeat with x1 = 1 to 3
           repeat with x2 = 1 to 3
                repeat with x3 = 1 to 3
                     repeat with x4 = 1 to 3
                          repeat with x5 = 1 to 3
                               repeat with x6 = 1 to 3
                                    repeat with x7 = 1 to 3
                                         repeat with x8 = 1 to 3
                                              put 1 into myLine
                                              repeat with c = 2 to 9
                                                   put char 
value("x"&c-1) of signs & c after myLine
                                              end repeat
                                              replace "o" with empty in 
myLine
                                              do "put" && myLine && 
"into mySum"
                                              if mySum is 100 then put 
myLine && mySum & cr after myList
                                         end repeat
                                    end repeat
                               end repeat
                          end repeat
                     end repeat
                end repeat
           end repeat
      end repeat
      return myList
end problem5



--
Best regards,

Mark Schonewille

Economy-x-Talk Consulting and Software Engineering
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On 5/9/2015 23:49, Geoff Canyon wrote:
> https://blog.svpino.com/2015/05/07/five-programming-problems-every-software-engineer-should-be-able-to-solve-in-less-than-1-hour
>
> Interesting blog post, made doubly interesting because when the author
> posted his solutions to problems 4 and 5, one of his solutions was
> incorrect. So I guess he won't be hiring himself...
>
> In any case, I thought they were interesting so I gave it a shot. I
> finished in something like 40 minutes, but I think some of my solutions are
> more expedient than I would like.
>
> I'll post the code in replies, so don't read those if you want to try
> yourself.