Hi,

I've seen a large chunk of my upsolving/practice time goes into trying to learn how to implement algorithms or data structures from scratch (like KMP/suffix arrays etc) when I encounter these new algorithms.

I understand — albeit at a high level — how/why the implementations work, but is it important to spend time perfecting one's ability to implement these from scratch when I already know how to apply them to most applications?

What are the scenarios where not knowing how to implement from scratch handicaps you where a template won't save you? Algorithmic interviews? Would I ever need to worry about implementing such algorithms there?