FizzBuz Practice Code

CodingBat code practice

FizzBuzz Practice Code

Video

FizzBuzz -- famous simple coding interview question
Simple code -- a little loop and a little logic
Idea -- experienced people can write it instantly
Simple test for at least moderate experience
Alternately .. weed out beginners
Here -- a series of problems, playing on FizzBuzz themes
Build up to something more difficult than classic FizzBuzz
Some constructive advice

Here is a little discussion and a series of live practice problems based of the famous FizzBuzz problem. FizzBuzz is a kind of famous introductory programming interview question. It's not deep or difficult; it just combines a little loop code with a little logic code. The idea is that someone with practice writing loop and logic code can write the solution out very quickly, so it makes a good first question to establish basic coding fluency. (See Constructive Advice below on this.)

FizzBuzz Problem Statement

Based on a traditional English children's game
Print the numbers 1..100
For multiples of 3, print "Fizz" instead of the number
For multiples of 5, print "Buzz" instead of the number
For multiples of 3 and 5, print "FizzBuzz" instead of the number
Here: fill an array instead of printing + some other complications

So just for fun, here's a graduated series of problems that play on the same themes as FizzBuzz, working up to a slightly more complicated version of the FizzBuzz problem itself:

Basic logic:

Array structure:

Put it all together:

fizzBuzz

The FizzBuzz problem here is a little more complicated than the original, since we make you assemble the results in an array instead of just printing. We also specify arbitrary start and end numbers which enables a more interesting variety of tests.

Constructive Advice

Someone with lots of experience can solve FizzBuzz instantly

Bad news: this is why it's hard to fake your way through for a code interview

Good news: it's just practice!

Experienced person has seen lots of loops, etc. ... not that many patterns, that's why they can do FizzBuzz

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Why is that someone with a lot of coding experience can just sit down and write FizzBuzz basically instantly? It's just practice. By the time you have written (and debugged!) hundreds of loops and hundreds of if-statements ... any new problem looks a bit like something you've solved before. There are not that many patterns.

The good news is, it's just practice! It's pretty quick to go through a bunch of CodingBat practice problems. I promise you, once you've solved 10 problems, the next 10 will go a lot faster. If you are feeling unsure of your coding ... just do the practice and be done with it.

Practice, practice, practice!