The Epic Fail of String Concatenation: My TLE Tragedy 🥲💥

Alright, gather around, dear readers, for a tale of hubris, ego, and a coder who thought he knew everything... but in reality, had NO idea what he was doing. That coder is me, by the way. The tragic hero of this story. 🙄

So there I was, casually working through a string problem. Strings? Oh, they're so basic, right? I mean, who even cares about them being immutable? Not me. I was too busy flaunting my genius with the += operator, as though I was the master of the code universe. 🌌

I thought to myself, “Why use StringBuilder when I can just throw a little += in there? It works fine! I’m a coding prodigy, after all.” 🙃

But, of course, life had other plans. Life is a cruel, cruel teacher, and I was the star pupil in the class of "Don't Know What You're Doing." 🥴

Cue the TLE.

I thought I was just coding along, right? Maybe a little too cocky, sure. But, you know, I was "handling it." Then, BAM, the dreaded message appeared: Time Limit Exceeded. My brain froze. My heart skipped a beat. My cat even looked at me like, “What the heck did you just do?” 🐱💔

“Why me? Why now? Why this problem?!”

Then it hit me. The thing I was doing for months, like an absolute genius... was an utter disaster. The horror of it all. I was concatenating strings with +=, completely ignoring the fact that strings are immutable in Java. 😱

It’s like building a house, but every time you add a brick, you knock it down and start again. What was I thinking? I wasn’t, obviously. I was too busy being smug and getting things "done". 🙃

But here’s the kicker – every time you use +=, a brand new string gets created. That’s a performance nightmare! It increases both Time Complexity and Space Complexity, leading to TLE faster than my self-esteem after this realization. 😩

So, after sitting in silence for what felt like hours (it was probably 5 minutes, but let’s not get technical), I realized… I was an absolute fool.

Here’s the advice I’ll now shout from the rooftops:

DON’T DO WHAT I DID.

I repeat, DON’T. Don’t get lazy with += like I did, thinking it’s fine. It’s not fine. It’s like driving a car with no brakes and pretending you’re in Fast & Furious. 🚗💨

Instead, use StringBuilder, the unsung hero of the coding world. It’s fast. It’s efficient. It’s the cool kid that doesn’t try to look good, but just gets the job done. 🦸‍♂️

So, here I am, licking my wounds and quietly switching to StringBuilder, hoping nobody remembers my embarrassing downfall. But hey, at least you don’t have to make the same mistakes, right?

Moral of the story?

• Don’t be like me. Don’t blindly use += like some coding caveman who thinks performance doesn’t matter.
• Think about efficiency. Think about your future TLEs.
• Use StringBuilder and save yourself the heartache. ❤️

That’s it for today’s disaster! 😎 But don’t get too comfy—next post, I’m diving into another mess I created (trust me, it’s a good one). Hit follow if you want to see more chaos and laughs, because I promise, it’s only going to get crazier. Stay tuned for the next fail! 🎢💥