Become someone who can solve problems.

From problem to plan

Solve it by hand, whiteboard it, run your plan (even wrong), watch it become code.

Your first Python

Make a computer obey, then break it and fix it.

Making decisions

if, else, and comparisons. Teach code to choose.

Loops

Do something a thousand times without copy-paste.

Functions

Bundle steps into a reusable recipe with a name.

Lists & dictionaries

Hold many things, and give the computer a memory.

While loops & strings

Loop until something happens, and work with text.

Build a whole program

Multi-step programs from a blank page, guided.

When things go wrong

Sets, try/except and imports. Survive the blank field.

Files, JSON and finding things

Point your programs at data that already exists.

Objects, and proving it works

Classes for shape, assert for certainty.

Capstone: read the log

A vague request and no steps. Exactly like real work.

Learn to think

Derive the two-sum trick yourself, then debug it safely.

Patterns & Big-O

Recognise the shape of a problem in seconds.

Hash maps and sets

The cheat code. Searching becomes a glance.

Linked lists

Follow a chain you cannot see the end of, and spot the loop.

Sorting

The precondition for half the tricks that follow.

Two pointers

Two numbers in a sorted list, with zero extra memory.

Sliding window

The best run of k in a row, in one pass.

Binary search

Find anything in a sorted list by halving.

Recursion

Functions that call themselves, and the call stack you can watch.

Backtracking

Choose, explore, undo. The maze move, named.

Stacks & queues

The two lines every system stands in.

Trees & graphs

When data stops being a straight line.

Heaps and greedy

Take the best available now, and know when that is a trap.

Dynamic programming

Remember sub-answers, solve the unsolvable.