Finding childcare through your employer
It is amazing how hard it is to find childcare. There are a lot of Facebook groups to find nannies and babysitters. We had been looking for babysitters there but there is high rate of people showing initial interest and then disappearing for a week. We cannot hire someone like that to watch our son. We decided we should signup with care.com or sittercity.com. However, my colleague reminded that our employer, IBM, has some sort of program to find childcare.Published on
LeetCode 26 – Remove Duplicates from Sorted Array
Here is my solution to Remove Duplicates from Sorted Array problem in JavaScript /** * @param {number[]} nums * @return {number} */ var removeDuplicates = function(nums) { let i=0; while (i<nums.length-1) { if (nums[i] === nums[i+1]) { nums.splice(i+1, 1); } else { i++; } } return nums.length; }; Results Runtime: 108 ms, faster than 33.69% of JavaScript online submissions for Remove Duplicates from Sorted Array.Memory Usage: 40.6 MB, less than 89.Published on
LeetCode #73: Set Matrix Zeroes
Here is my solution to Set Matrix Zeros problem in PHP: class Solution { /** * @param Integer[][] $matrix * @return NULL */ function setZeroes(&$matrix) { $rowsToZeroOut = []; $colsToZeroOut = []; for ($i=0; $i<count($matrix); $i++) { for ($j=0; $j<count($matrix[$i]); $j++) { if ($matrix[$i][$j] === 0) { $rowsToZeroOut[] = $i; $colsToZeroOut[] = $j; } } } foreach($rowsToZeroOut as $r) { for($i=0; $i<count($matrix[$r]); $i++) { $matrix[$r][$i] = 0; } } foreach($colsToZeroOut as $c) { for($i=0; $i<count($matrix); $i++) { $matrix[$i][$c] = 0; } } } } Results Runtime: 52 ms, faster than 13.Published on
My experience with Open Water Scuba certification in Dallas
This year I crossed off one of my bucket list item, got Open Water Diver certification. I had done scuba diving before at Honolulu. It is among my top 3 best experiences. Ever since that vacation, I had been wanting to get into diving more seriously. But since we live in land locked Dallas, I didn’t think it was possible or worth it. Then this year in February I saw Groupon from International Scuba and I decided to just go for it.Published on
iPad Pro as main machine after 2 years
I got my iPad Pro at the end of 2017. Before buying it, I had read many blog posts by various developers who were using iPad for programming and web development. But soon after I bought it, I realized that serious web development on iPad is hard. The biggest issue was debugging JavaScript and CSS without web tools. At first, I was having buyer’s remorse but I loved the form factor of iPad and loved drawing on it.Published on
More research on choosing dev stack for game dev
Last week, I had decided to use Swift/Apple’s ecosystem for initial gamedev. But I wasn’t feeling 100% okay with getting locked into Apple’s ecosystem. So I spent last week doing more research on developing simple apps using Swift, Xamarin, Flutter, and React Native. Since I use JavaScript at work, React Native would be the easiest way for me to get started but it feels too much like work and I am kind of tired of js/npm dependencies and build tools.Published on
Git Simplified
One of most common technology that new professional developers struggle with is git. Many junior developers are eager to start using all of the powerful commands of git and usually end up getting more confused. Here are a few commands that I recommend to anyone learning git for the first time: clone This downloads entire git repo from a remote server, usually. You will get all revision history and branches.Published on
Tools of Trade
I use 13-inch MacBookPro for personal projects and 15-inch for work. My personal MBP would be last traditional laptop, hopefully. Since most of my work can easily be done on Linux VPS. I have been using 10.5-inch iPad Pro with Blink shell for most my side projects. I like the form factor of iPad Pro and I am getting better at Linux administration. Now I am also setting up Docker images so I can bring up new images as needed.Published on
You don’t need a web developer
Occasionally, when people find out I am a programmer, they ask me if I will build them a website or an app on the side. As I spend all day programming at my work, I rarely have motivation to continue programming after work. However, talking to most people, I realize they don’t need a programmer; most of their needs can be met by a simple SaaS solution. Recently, I directed a few friends to WordPress.Published on
WordPress vs Hugo
Managing WordPress can get time consuming. I have tried to move to static website several times but kept going back to WordPress. But there are several advantages of static sites generators that I finally moved for good. I am also advising a lot of my clients to use Hugo especially when they know that they will rarely ever update their sites. Here are some of main advantages of Hugo (or other static site generators) vs WordPress and other CMS.Published on