Why are you up at 1am? (&Netflix)

I just got back from my C++ Data Structures Exam.

• I feel great. Really full of energy. I actually had a revelation in the middle of the exam. Something clicked.

• I went “ohhhh…” and then my programmes COMPILED. I enjoyed the exam. It was fun! Not to sound corny, but I had this amazing feeling walking out of the exam where I felt like this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. It was wonderful.

I heard..not so much for others…

Hahah. I have some colourful friends! My advice to this person was that if they enjoy it, to stick with it. And they do, so I hope they will stick with it!

So…

• Looks like, from what I’m hearing from the community, it’s going to be an uphill battle with C++. There is terrible code out there, it’s a beast to master, and you can shoot yourself in the foot, but I like it a lot, so we’ll see.

• Looks like I’ve also been taught some poor practices (mostly from class! Ugh!), but that’s okay…I’ll keep learning and get better! I noticed this when I was doing one of the Cherno tutorials. Also, my prof, although wonderful and very helpful, works in Java, not C++ at a day job. So….Sad :(

• Maybe once I’m done with the classes in this place, I’ll go to another and see how they teach it, also. Or maybe just try to start working. We’ll see.

• I got great advice from the Functional cpp channel, which is to look at good open-source C++ code. Particularly, code that has been maintained actively (as in, issues are resolved in a timely response) and for a while (the gentleman who gave some advice, for example has an open source code project that is quite substantial, from 2009!

• I’m also hoping that I can get an internship doing some C++. That will also help me get better. I expect a lot of knuckle-hitting :) For those who don’t know what that reference is about, it’s about ‘learning to play the piano’. Where I’m from, sometimes the teachers would give you a rap on your knuckle if you kept playing the wrong notes.

• This is good to hear now so I wasn’t at the stage where I thought I knew C++ (who can really say they do? LOL) and found out all this stuff I learned was bad practice. So definitely sticking with it.

Also learned about Rule of Zero

Katas

Difference between sets

# return a sorted set with the difference
# find what is unique to each set
# by comparing twice
# then do a sort to match tests 

def diff(a, b):
  a1 = set(a)
  b1 = set(b)
  c = list(a1 - b1)
  c1 = list(b1 - a1)
  d = c + c1
  return sorted(d)
  
## diffy(['a','a','t','e','f','i','j'],['t','g','g','i','k','f']) # [a,e,g,j,k]

• I also solved this kata: Find first x multiples of y: eg. mult(3, 4) gives [3, 6, 9, 12]

function mult(x, y){
  var arr = [];
  for (var i = 1; i <= x; i++)
  {
    arr.push(y * i)
  }
  return(arr);
}

• Make everything a Taco! I could have used +=, but oh well…

• It wasn’t passing initially, but I figured out because the test wasn’t all lowercase (wonk wonk..). So .lower fixed that.

def tacofy(word):
    arr = []
    arr.append("shell")
    for i in word.lower():
      if i == 'a':
        arr.append('beef')
      elif i == 'e':
        arr.append('beef')
      elif i == 'i':
        arr.append('beef')
      elif i == 'o':
        arr.append('beef')
      elif i == 'u':
        arr.append('beef')
      elif i == 't':
        arr.append("tomatoe")
      elif  i == 'l':
        arr.append("lettuce")
      elif i == 'c':
        arr.append("cheese")
      elif i == 'g':
        arr.append('guacamole')
      elif i == 's':
        arr.append('salsa')
    arr.append("shell")
    return arr

Onward soldier!

• C++ is really growing on me. I spent a lot of yesterday reading through and working on some OpenGL stuff. I plan to continue with that.

• It’s certainly not easy, but I like the challenge and plan to stick with it. I also like the kind of programmer it is making me become.

• I also have some work to do for this week’s “Unbootcamp”. Pretty much spent all day working on a bunch of exercise on Arrays and Objects. Man, I hate Methods, but I guess that just means I need to do more of that.

Update

• Started with enabling my app via Github Oath and Firebase

Also…

• I’m going to an event at Netflix today. We’ll see how that goes… should be interesting.

I GOT MY OWN BEANIE CHAIR!!!

That’s it! That’s all I need in this life :)

Just kidding….

• Actually, really interesting. I always appreciate how thoughtful their pipeline is, and well structured. Learned about Microstrategy, Metacat and Chaos Kong.

• Chaos Kong is particularly intriguing, because I knew about Chaos Monkey before. Also, they use Spinnaker. Didn’t know that.

• They’re also open to other tools…basically, they think the best tools will win in the end.

• I’ve always thought (since I was introduced to their engineering team) that they had a really interesting culture.

• I also heard that this event was pretty vetted, so they turned down a lot of people they didn’t think were a good fit. One guy said he was in a group of five, and only he was allowed in. He’s an actual data scientist, so that makes sense. It looks like they were essentially recruiting from a pool of people.

• Invited to yet another event…Cloud based (Big Four), and I’d like to go, but… we’ll see.

• Also, I got my flight booked to Strange Loop (yesterday)! They were very professional, and I got to choose a Window for my flight to and from and the airline. It looks like I am there by 3:30pm on the 27th, and back by 6:30pm on the 30th. Have to get my parents something from St. Louis. It’s easy when you are going back and forth to think casually, “Oh, I don’t need to get anything..I’ll be back”. This one..not so much, unless I plan to make it to Boston or NY sometime soon (mayyybe).