2022, week 40

Monday, 2022-10-03 to Sunday, 2022-10-09

2022-10-07 Purchased How to read Java. First look: could use more editing. However, this is one book that pulls together various Java things that I’ve always found lacking myself in. Staying optimistic about learning “the lay of the land”.

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Aiming for small-big things in programming

Trying to use programming langauges for their libraries is over-rated and tiring. You are always looking to find a “big idea” to implement “something” in. Reach for something smaller. For example, implement a simple “Inverted Index”, so that you can search for the word “exasperation” in all the works of Shakespere. Does he actually use that word? I don’t know. Maybe google can tell you, or maybe it can’t. How about making it a bit more challenging by building a Inverted Index for a non-English language, say Kannada, and Index all the works of T P Kailasam, and look for the word “bhale” ;)

Let’s make it more interesting: Crush l33tc0d3 problems, but find the smallest useful/fun problem to use that programming pattern/data structure/algorithm in. Two birds → one stone.

Chasing accolades, recognition, and “big projects” is how one (ahem) loses the joy of programming. Let Linus(no, not that one, the other one) and Bellard be your inspirations.