CLRS does about 5 pages on linked lists. If you want more, my advice would be to implement one in your language of choice, then look at the API for the standard lib impl of a linked list in your language of choice (if there is one).
Otherwise, for more reading on linked lists, read through adlist.c from redis, by antirez.
Next, one of the best books (IMO) on algorithmic thinking is SICP. Get through a few chapters, do the exercises, grok recursion, etc.
In no particular order:
Algorithm Design Manual, Skiena
Algorithm Design, by Kleinberg/Tardos
Algorithms, Sedgwick 4th ed. (also Algorithms in C)
If you find you need or would like more math:
Discrete Mathematics (Epp is an easier read, Rosen seems more verbose)
Eh, idk. We could have lisp, x-expressions, macros, and DSLs instead of most frameworks. We could even use lisp dialects to “write C” (eg Chicken Scheme).
I do think a lot of frameworks are fashion statements, but that’s okay because style matters when doing creative work.
Was reading through some C++ at work the other day and was like “why is this reference.. assigned to… copy constructor?… oh, yeah…”
IMO it’s better (explicit) to see a call to `.clone()`, but maybe this is because I’m not up to my elbows in C++ everyday. Either way, I think Rust will continue to grow in popularity (C as well).
Yeah, they’re tailored. I get ads for perf dev tools, compilers. I still get ads for vehicles months after buying one.
I’ve only had one ad that was “eerie.” Coworkers were talking about a kind of beverage I’d never heard of (talking over zoom, on a work-only machine), got an ad for the product later that day. Could be that I just recognized the name from our convo which caused me to scroll back up...
When I think about Linus’ lack of objection to Rust I immediately think about his vocal disdain for C++
When I learned rust I thought it felt more C-like than C++ to be honest. Nowadays I’m pretty happy to be in this c to rust to c loop.
I think you’re exactly right about c++ not offering much benefit to someone like Linus. It’s much simpler than c++. Rust has also informed the way I write C (granted, I’ve also gained more experience along the way, but rust forced me to have more discipline for sure).
Wow. I can read Bloomberg articles for the low annual rate of $290/year for the first year, but after that the introductory offer expires and then I would only be charged $415/year... /s
Alright, sarcasm aside, does anyone pay for this subscription? What makes it “worth it?”
Does that mean they don’t exist? Are the FAANG chip makers paying a lot more for engineering than in the asics space? Genuine questions, I have a growing interest in this (vast) space.
Is it possible that the appetite-suppressing effects of coffee are at play here? I’ve read about the general health benefits of reducing calories and I wonder how big a factor that is in caffeine/coffee studies.
I’ve been taking vyvanse for the last few years. I was skeptical whether medication would “work” or even about what “work” would mean. I’ve seen other commenters relate adhd meds to glasses. I think that’s reasonable. I wear glasses and they really smooth things out. Going through life without glasses would be so much more annoying. I think I’ll get lasik or something in the near future because, you know, good eyesight is pretty cool.
Without glasses I’d have to position myself in odd ways to get a good enough perspective of reality to interact with it in ways I want. Could I do it without glasses? Sure. Do I wish I didn’t need them? Yeah.
Vyvanse is tool. My life has been different since I started using this tool. However, I was trying to change—to be more consistent, less impulsive, and to reduce my anxiety. I can consistently practice other techniques and develop better habits long enough that they stick. Three years passed between my initial diagnosis and when I agreed to try out medication.
Since I’ve been on medication, I’ve gained a lot of the consistency I sought. I take a capsule in the morning around 6am and I go to bed at 10pm (almost every night, whereas I wasn’t on a schedule before). I have a little morning routine of reading or working on things before work (long term goals stuff). I start winding down with the fam at around 6-7pm. The daily consistent effort has helped my anxiety a lot (prior, I’d procrastinate a lot more). I can actually relax when it’s time to relax. I also need to exercise 1-3 times a week (medication isn’t a silver bullet). I don’t “take breaks.” I take it daily, as prescribed. I take the lowest dose that “works.” A 10mg higher dose delays my bed time and shortens my sleep window (fwiw I don’t use an alarm). I keep a little daily journal and I still have “off days,” I just have far fewer. There’s still things that I can’t stand doing, but I can at least articulate that to someone else (or keep it to myself) and make a procrastination plan.
I’ve been “successful” with and without medication, but my life is a little healthier now which was unexpected given my initial thoughts on amphetamines. Prior, I would pack my days so tightly I didn’t have the option of deviating. When things would slow down, it was apparent I needed to explore better alternatives. Over the past four years I’ve periodically thought “hey, I’m doing pretty good, I probably don’t need this stuff. However, one side effect of stimulants is that they can increase your confidence (just something to be mindful of).
It can take time to find a dosage that works for you. I started low and ramped up. For me, it took about 3 months of consistent use to determine if a dose was better or worse (except for a dosage that was too high). I think some people like to “feel it working,” but I would advise against using an immediate metric like that.
Unfortunately there’s not a common language that we can all speak in about these things. I think everyone struggles with some amount of the common symptoms for adhd, but it can be hard to quantify personal experiences (asking 20/20 vision people the right questions might lead down a path of “yeah, sometimes I do have some trouble seeing certain things”). There’s some things you’ve got to experience for yourself.
If things are going really well right now and this is a one-off lingering family issue, it may not be worth your time to run all the tests. I’m actually pretty impressed that your providers want to run tests (maybe that’s something you should listen to). However, it’s possible that taking medication can make things worse before it can make them better.
To actually answer your question, an adult adhd diagnosis helped group together some observed effects under one name. After this thing had a name I went about making improvements that helped my situation (both with and without medication). To be honest, I have to read between the lines of your description which is “my life is going great, but I have a lingering family issue and my doc thinks I have adhd because of it.” I can imagine a scenario where this adds up, but I’d keep working with your doc and I’d get a second opinion before subjecting yourself to (possibly invasive) time-consuming testing.
Rust requires more of an initial investment than Node/Java, but IMO the ROI is higher or at least more consistent. Others have noted “correctness” as a reason for using Rust, this is accurate. A few reasons I’d give for why it’s easier end more ergonomic to write correct programs in Rust are:
* exhaustive pattern matching
* Result and Option types
* builtin first class unit testing ability
* builtin first class documentation ability
The enforced exhaustive pattern matching tells you “hey you didn’t cover all cases.” Result and Option types make error handling explicit and ergonomic—the notion that each function can either succeed or fail is supported at the language level (in other languages, it’s up to you to ensure you’ve covered all cases and have thought about what “success” and “failure” mean for each function.
Testing is “built right into the language,” it’s frictionless. It’s super easy to write unit tests. You don’t have to canvass and vet a ton of testing frameworks to get going.
Documentation is easy, fun, and quick to write. So, now combine all the above with the culture of detailed documentation Rust has and now you’re really thinking through your codebase—you can use writing docs to tighten up the interfaces, seamlessly transition to writing a test that enforces some invariant, leverage “compiler driven development” to rinse and repeat this process.
The strongest reason to use Rust is that you’ve detailed the requirements for a piece of code and determine Rust is a better fit than LangX. A weaker, but still valuable reason to use Rust is to experience the discipline and idioms Rust enforces/enables and then take that experience back to your native language (I.e. exhaustive matching, which of used in certain ways can be a kind of “proof by cases” that your code does exactly what you expect, then you can easily inspect what you expect via tests).
I’d suggest reading from the foreword and working through chapters 1-3. You’ll know if you want to finish by then.
It’s a really fun read; it’s an exercise in thinking differently. If you’re looking for a new/different perspective on programming this is it.
People either love or hate this book, but it’s popular for a reason. It’s not uncommon to struggle a bit through the exercises. Some people dislike it for this reason.
The intro CS course I took waded based on this book and I never even saw this book. It wasn’t until after the course was over that I found, read, and worked through (most) of it. I took my time with it—a little each day.
> 80% of people buying an f150 or similar never have been and never will be building contractors or lumberjacks
Yeah, I feel this. I used to have a big work truck, but it was for work. Everyone has a truck in my hometown (seemingly). Last week I saw a big F-250 super duty pull up and the dude that got out was in scrubs (a nurse).
Friends of mine have considered the super duty’s for towing, but now they’re interested in the lightning for the same reasons.
Yeah, it does. I’ve had a good amount of experience doing this. You need to have tact and a kind of humbleness that can be difficult to maintain (tbh, it was for me at least). In my most recent experience with this, many of the bugs were unknown. During my ramp up, I read through nearly all of the code I’d be working on and got a good sense of what needed to be done, but the code changes were the easy part. The issue that required more work IMO was navigating the social waters as a new hire.
I found that you can use being a new hire to your advantage, eg “hey I was reading through this piece of code and I had a question about XYZ.”
Sometimes I’ve felt certain bugs are, for one reason or another, difficult to discuss. One thing I’ve done in cases like this is to refactor a bit of code in a way that makes a subtle bug painfully obvious; then in review, where the reviewers were the original author and reviewer, it’s easier for them to see the bug and say “this looks weird,” to which I respond “ah, yeah, this seems like a bug, I’ll fix this.”
The rough part of this is that you can get so good at being the fixer that this becomes all you (ie. maybe you’re not working on new features, etc) which can suck. The bright side is that you can strengthen the team—-everyone gets a chance to build/rebuild context and mental models, design docs can be updated, and the teams foundation gets stronger as a result. Of course, ymmv.
As a new hire, I find it important to build trust and relationships.
I’ve developed a reading habit over the past 18 months or so. I’m always reading. Books, I enjoy reading books. Books are less distracting. I read with a pencil and annotate notes, comments, and questions in the margins (to keep me “in the pipe”).
Prior to the last couple years I’d read for pleasure, sure. I’d also read things I had to (work, school, etc). Lately I’ve been reading like I’m optimizing for throughput—to read everything I can, to cover as much ground as possible.
I also read to my daughter (still in the womb hahah). I read her children’s books (many of them stem based). I also read books on algorithms, computing, & mathematics to her.
I prioritize reading. I wake up hours before work (not as bad as it sounds given the late start engineering culture) and read. Much of what I’m reading now are texts that one must “work through” so I read and work through books. This is all rather new to me too. I’ve never read this much this quickly.
This habit started humbly, but now the train has left the station...