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  A turing machine in 133 bytes of javascript

Multiply turing machine The fact it took me 20 lines of javascript to implement a nondeterministic turing machine simulatorlast week kept me up at night. All weekend. Too much code for something so simple and I kept having this gut feeling implementing a basic version shouldn’t take more than 140 bytes. Sunday afternoon I sat down for about an ...

   Turing machine,JavaScript,Simple code     2011-11-28 09:27:28

  Solving easy problems the hard way

There’s a charming little brain teaser that’s going around the Interwebs. It’s got various forms, but they all look something like this: This problem can be solved by pre-school children in 5-10 minutes, by programer – in 1 hour, by people with higher education … well, check it yourself!  8809=6 7111=0 2172=0 6666=4 1111=0 3213=0 7662=2 9313=1 0000=4 2222=0 3333=0 5555=0 8193=3 8096=5 7777=0 9999=4 7756=1 6855=3 9881=5 5531=0 2581=? SPOILER AL...

   Problem solving     2012-04-05 23:40:35

  Java Doesn't Need to Be So Bad

I do a lot of Java coding and I enjoy it. I admit that there is a lot of typing, often a lot of boilerplate and getting even simple tasks done can involve too much work. Most of the tools that try to fix these problems trade one moment saved for another lost. Maven's XML based configuration file is a good example: Thank you for making my project easier to manage and I won't forget that you made me edit XML to do so. These are the things that you live with, these are the things you trade for ...

   Java,Coding,Enterprise application,Tedious     2011-12-09 07:50:20

  Parallel Javascript

Lately the ideas for a parallel, shared memory JavaScript have begun to take shape. I’ve been discussing with various JavaScript luminaries and it seems like a design is starting to emerge. This post serves as a documentation of the basic ideas; I’m sure the details will change as we go along. User Model The model is that a JavaScript worker (the “parent”) may spawn a number of child tasks (the “children”). The parent is suspended while the children exe...

   Parallel JavaScript,API,Spawn,Parent,Task     2012-01-11 12:02:00

  The mystery of Duqu Framework solved

The Quest for Identification In my previous blogpost about the Duqu Framework, I described one of the biggest remaining mysteries about Duqu – the oddities of the C&C communications module which appears to have been written in a different language than the rest of the Duqu code. As technical experts, we found this question very interesting and puzzling and we wanted to share it with the community. The feedback we received exceeded our wildest expectations. We got more than 200...

   Duqu,Code mystery,OO C,C++     2012-03-21 09:29:18

  Everything you need to know about what happened at Apple’s Special Event 2019

Apple’s special event that was announced in mid-November is finally over. The company held a presentation event in New York City where it highlighted the best apps and games of 2019 with no new software or hardware announcements at all.   On the event, five different nominations were announced: Apple’s chosen favourite apps, top free apps, top paid apps, top free games, and top paid games for 2019. Usual keynotes from Apple The tech industry is pretty accustomed to Apple’s...

   APPLE,EVENTS     2019-12-04 05:50:15

  Python object creation sequence

[The Python version described in this article is 3.x] This article aims to explore the process of creating new objects in Python. As I explained in a previous article, object creation is just a special case of calling a callable. Consider this Python code: class Joe: pass j = Joe() What happens when j = Joe() is executed? Python sees it as a call to the callable Joe, and routes it to the internal function PyObject_Call, with Joe passed as the first argument. PyObject_Call looks at the ty...

   Python,Object creation     2012-04-16 15:03:55

  How do Silicon Valley companies recruit

There are a lot of friends asking me about the basic flow of how Silicon Valley companies recruit engineers. As a candidate, I tried Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Oracle, and I received offer from all these companies. As an interviewer, I have interviewed no less than 300 people and I know about the process of recruitment. I write this article with the hope of inspiring people who want to go to Silicon Valley or who are preparing for interviews or who are in the design of the recruiting process...

   Facebook,Interview,Experience,Silicon Valley     2012-05-15 06:36:52

  How to Ace a Google Interview

Imagine a man named Jim. He's applying for a job at Google. Jim knows that the odds are stacked against him. Google receives a million job applications a year. It's estimated that only about 1 in 130 applications results in a job. By comparison, about 1 in 14 high-school students applying to Harvard gets accepted. Jim's first interviewer is late and sweaty: He's biked to work. He starts with some polite questions about Jim's work history. Jim eagerly explains his short career. The intervi...

   Google,Interview,Questions and answers,Job     2011-12-26 09:17:36

  #46 – Why software sucks

No one makes bad software on purpose. No benevolent programmer has ever sat down, planning out weeks of work, with the intention of frustrating people and making them cry. Bad software, or bad anything, happens because making things is hard, making good things doubly so. The three things that make it difficult are: Possessing the diverse skills needed not to suck.Understanding who you’re making the thing for.Orchestrating the interplay of skills, egos and constraints over the course of...

   Software design,Sucks,Software industry     2012-03-19 13:10:37

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