TheCodedWorld

Spent the last week in Canada focusing on teaching fellow colleges the ins and outs of a tool we develop and sharing knowledge on other pieces of software we develop as well. Of course we also wanted to learn as much as possible from them and had some really good discussions and training sessions. I am certain that we were able to get more done in those few days than what had been possible with weeks of phone meetings and e-mails. Too bad some companies think forbidding travel all together saves them money.

Yesterday we had our first Coding Dojo at work that I helped to arrange. It was fun. It was challenging. It was great. I believe that there is a thirst among us developers where I work to just sit and code something from scratch, and that you can just throw away if it did not end up the way you wanted it. The Dojo provides this opportunity, and even getting paid while doing it. Of course the Dojo is not only for fun, it is a way for us developers to practice and get better at our profession. Better developers is good for the company, win-win. The goal now is to arrange at least one more Dojo before the vacations. I am sure that it won't be any problem at all filling up the seats.

I have come to realize that I need some hands on practice on Object Oriented Analysis and Design ( OOAD ). During the years I have read several books with good advice on how to design and structure your code for good abstraction and re-usability. But what good is theory that is not put into practice? To get this going (again I should say. Had a good run down this road during the years 2011-2013, but that really needs refreshing) I have started with a Java Project "The Guitar Store" where I will put extra focus on doing a good design.

Since my initial contact with Codility some years ago they have added  lessons . I feel a bit bad about that I recently failed one of their tasks that is considered an easy one. Therefore I will attempt to remedy that by taking all the lessons, thoroughly. I have printed all the material and will read it in detail and then do the lessons. Currently I am at lesson 5, Prefix Sums. The Genomic Range Query task was quite tricky (hint: you can use more than one Prefix Sum). No solutions will be posted here this time. But I am open for discussions on how to approach different problems. Today I will try to crack 'MinAvgTwoSlice'.

Received a tip about two sites to practice your coding skills. Check out https://leetcode.com/ and http://www.lintcode.com/en/ (registration required).

I am typing this on my smartphone since my computer has been hijacked... by my common-law wife... who is watching cake shows on Youtube and playing Facebook games (it has been like this for the last week). Time to buy an extra computer! Any ideas on what to look at? It is a jungle out there. I will be running some Linux flavor and code like mad. No games though. We have gaming consoles for that.