Live coding for beginners
This course covers the live coding round at intern and first-junior level. It describes the shared browser editor, small prompts that arrive in stages, and what interviewers watch: narration, clarifying questions, testing and composure when a bug appears. Lessons work through thinking out loud, asking about input shape and edge cases, common string and array patterns in Ruby, testing your own code, and recovering when stuck. A full mock session and a coding challenge on word counts and anagrams close the course.
What you'll learn
- ✓How a live coding session is set up and what interviewers watch for
- ✓Narrating decisions and plans out loud while you code
- ✓Asking clarifying questions about input, edge cases, case sensitivity and ties
- ✓Ruby string and array patterns such as split, chars, Hash.new(0), tally, map and select
- ✓Testing your own code on examples and edge cases, and debugging with p
- ✓Steps for getting unstuck, asking for a hint and using it
What happens in a live coding session
Picture a cooking test. Nobody hands you a written exam on knife technique. They put you in front of a stove with a short recipe and watch you cook while you explain what you're doing and why. That's much closer to live coding than any school test. You aren't proving you memorized a textbook.…
Read the full lesson free →Curriculum
7 lessonsWhat happens in a live coding session
A walk through a live coding session: the shared browser editor, staged prompts and four things interviewers watch.
Thinking out loud
Why narrating decisions out loud matters, how useful narration sounds, and how to practice it before an interview.
Clarifying the problem before coding
Which clarifying questions to ask before coding, how to handle the answers, and how to avoid over-asking.
Strings and arrays: the classic warm-ups
Ruby patterns behind common warm-ups: split, chars, Hash.new(0), tally, map, select, manual reversal, palindromes and uniq.
Testing your own code live
Running code on examples and chosen edge cases, catching bugs by testing, and debugging with p instead of puts.
When you get stuck
Steps for getting unstuck: narrate the specific block, restate the problem, clarify, then ask for and use a hint.
Mock live coding: putting it all together
A full twenty-minute mock session that combines every skill, followed by a word count and anagram challenge.