You could write "apple" and it would still work

A category would be nice. There are some kata which push the limits on what you can do on the max time limit that is available on CW (7 - 11 seconds, depending on the language).

Something to keep in mind with code performance is that its not constant, in terms of run time. The host machine that is running the code may be doing any number of things that affects how much attention the code is given on each run. Check out big O notation to understand more about how to improve your algorithm complexity.

The rules were confusing! Would have helped to put all the rules and conditions in a list format instead of a big paragraph. Great kata though - learned a ton!

Man these instructions are hard:

Here are some tips...

• The instructions are saying that the output should be one string sorted by: the number of appearances the letter makes, which input it was found in, and alphabetized. There is a special sort condition - for instances where let's say aaa appears in both strinsg, then it is denoted with =:aaa. It's of length 3, but in the sort, it comes behind code like 1:ddd or 2:ccc. Equal scenarios always come behind letters of the same length, but without the equal condition.
• Disregard all lower case letters, non-alphabetical numbers (#%@#%@), and spaces. You can just act like those don't exist. If 'a' appears in the second input 3 times, and the first input 2 times, ignore the appearances where it appears less (input 2 for this example).
• If a letter appears once in any input, disregard it completely (not even counted).

There could be something like a community adjustment factor - (level just right, too easy, too difficult, etc.). Then have some algo to automatically adjust it.

I've learned an immense amount from this website - there's no question about that.

However, since I have no formal coding training at all - I've found that my code is...ugly and slow.

It could be helpful to have timing requirements for code - where it needs to run under a certain time limit...

...or better yet, have an entirely new category of code where your job is not to solve a problem or fix it, but to make the code more efficient (for a specific scenario, or faster in general).

I figured it out! I needed to think more in depth about cases I was missing. Did not account for cases where there would be remainders.

Did you figure this out? I'm struggling real hard for test case with 3263.

I'm having the same problem. In fact it shows up as completed in my kata list but I can't see the solution. Now it doesn't even show up as correct anymore.

...so lost. What's the c = 1 for? I totally did not know you could use multiple if and else statements in a return too.

Wow did not know let can be used short for letter.