When I was doing the intermediate ones, I got stuck at like 4-5 of them too. And now, the advanced ones seem like they are too hard. I got the first one right, but got stuck immediately with the second and the third one. Does that mean I don’t have a programmer’s mindset. Does that mean that my logic is pure? Does that mean that I should stick to simpler things? Did anyone else find the advanced bonfire challenges too difficult?
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Every programmer in history has been stuck on something at some point. None of these challenges are supposed to be easy. Take your time, have faith in your capacity to learn, and don’t expect yourself to understand everything immediately.
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Those challenges are hard for anyone. I know lot’s of good programmers who have trouble solving algorithms like those.
I used to think the same way as you: “I might not be cut out to be a programmer if I don’t understand this stuff or can’t solve this.”
I studies algorithms for a while before I felt comfortable doing them in interviews and such. I don’t think it comes naturally at all but now I am pretty good at them.
Plus, now that I work as a programmer for coming up on a year, I have never actually used any of those skills except just for fun 
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Also remember,the advanced algorithms aren’t required for any of the certificates. More like bonus material.
They’re meant to be really hard
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Thank you for your answers, guys!
Hey, that sounds great, I really appreciate your answer. Did you take any courses on algorithms or read any specific books on algorithms?
These three resources helped me:
- Kan Academy has an excellent course on algorithms made by professors from Dartmouth.
- Project Euler has a lot of excellent challenges to solve with code – some of them I have encountered are pretty difficult
- HackerRank.com Challenges – beginner to advanced challenges, starts off much easier than Project Euler
I also resolved some of the FCC challenges and read various blog posts about solving algorithms. I haven’t found a good book yet, but I would love to find a good one to recommend.
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I’d recommend http://www.codewars.com/ too if you want to get involved in more challenges that start off easy and ramp up in difficulty. It’s got a great community and once you solve / submit a challenge, you can see all the myriad ways that others have solved the challenge in novel or efficient ways, and ask questions / discuss the results.
It’s a real brain workout - but will start getting you thinking about efficient and creative ways to approach problems.
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