Question
Given exactly two lowercase strings a and b, return the shortest string that contains both a and b as substrings, maximizing their overlap. If neither is a substring of the other, merge them on their largest overlap (a's suffix with b's prefix, or b's suffix with a's prefix), choosing whichever yields the shorter result; ties may return either valid superstring. Lengths up to a few hundred.
shortest_superstring_two(a: str, b: str) → str["abc","cde"]out"abcde"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.
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.