Agree completely. In the workplace I would use itertools, but for this challenge I decided to do it the "hard way". Was trickier than I thought and a fun bit of optimization challenge.

I was working on a timed coding challenge for a job today, less than 24 hours after completing this kata. The challenge involved finding permutations and combinations. While I did it the "hard way" to complete this challenge, for the time crunched interview, I went straight to itertools!