CodingMediumcod-g260

Subject Game theoryLevel Mid–Senior~30 minCommon in Algorithms & data structures interviewsIndustries Software development

Question

Two players alternate taking the stone from either end of a row; piles[i] is the value of stone i. Both play optimally to maximize their own total. Player one goes first. Return the score of player one minus the score of player two under optimal play. 1 <= n <= 300, 0 <= piles[i] <= 10^4.

Implement

stone_game_diff(piles: list[int]) → int

Examples

in[[5,3,4,5]]out1

What a strong answer looks like

State your approach and its time/space complexity out loud before you optimize. Handle the edge cases (empty input, duplicates, overflow), and say why you chose this over the brute force. Green tests are the floor, not the grade.

Learn the concepts

Vibe coding: describe the solution in plain language (or narrate it) and the coach grades your approach. Generating runnable code from your description is coming next.

Run or narrate your approach, then ask the coach.