Code RoomStone game optimal score difference
MediumPrep Room Coding #834

Stone game optimal score difference

CodingAlgorithms & data structuresMid–Senior~30 min

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.

0:00 of about 30 min
InputExpectedGot
[[5,3,4,5]]1not run yetsample