Programming's Hard
Tuesday February 11, 2014
Day one of the PikPok Developer Conference has just gone by. My talk on Dynamic Programming was well received and the programming competition had a few glitches here and there, but on the whole, not too much trouble.
I think it was a pretty big gamble pushing to run a programming competition at work. There is a lot of preparation involved, a lot of uncertainty. Not only did I have to organise all the questions and answers (one answer was wrong ;_;), I had to fight hard to convince all the programmers to enter! Har har. I think most people had a good time, and if they didn't, I think at least they would have learned how programming competitions work, and been made aware of the pressures and challenges you face when having to work in those conditions - I guess it's just an extension (or in parallel?) to how we'd do it in a day-to-day situation.
Quite a few people were tripped up on how to read from standard in - who does that anyway? Luckily for the Python programmers, they had it easy in that respect. We had a lot of problems with presentation errors - too much whitespace, too many newlines, those kinds of pedantic tidbits that don't really matter in the big picture. They are there to test people's ability to follow instructions rather than test their programming ability, which I might look into changing for future installations. Perhaps I can provide some basic reading/writing code so that people only have to implement the body of a method instead of deal with input/output problems? Is there a way I could do that for all programming languages that we support? Could we integrate that into DOMjudge somehow? All questions that I'll need to think about!
Because I split the group up into random teams of two, it was also interesting to see how people tackled pair programming. The dynamic between colleagues is always fascinating to observe, especially if there is conflict or strong opinions! I say that with a bit of schadenfreude, but this may be of use to my boss.
I would like to see more of these in the future, and hopefully my boss will approve (and mandate?!) these competitions to be run on a regular basis. I'd say today was a success.
Posted by Jeremy at 7:12am on Tuesday February 11, 2014 :: 0 comments :: 
Year of the Horse
Thursday February 6, 2014
I spent Chinese New Year up in Auckland. I guess I'm a stickler for tradition, Chinese New Year should be spent with family and it was good to see my parents, my sister and brother in law, and especially my two nephews. One day I hope to spend CNY back in Malaysia - I almost had a chance to do that this time round but Malaysia Airlines wouldn't have any of that.
Eight at the Langham Hotel had a promotion during January where all diners whose birthdays were in January dined for free! So I treated dad to the famous buffet lunch there and it was awesome. There was plenty of fresh oysters and some different things from when I went over New Years with Jordan, and some festive delights in celebration of the Chinese New Year too! Not surprisingly, the majority of the diners there were Asian. The amazing lunch caused me to have a three hour food coma, but I regretted nothing.
Saturday was our family Chinese New Year dinner. Though "reunion dinner" is supposed to happen on New Year's Eve, rules are a bit more relaxed these days to allow for working families and those who have to travel long distances to get home. Nevertheless, the spirit of the dinner was honoured, with plenty of dishes, each symbolic in their own right: chicken, duck, prawns, fish and vegetables made for a scrumptious feast, even if it was a bit chaotic preparing it.
On Sunday I went to church, followed by our regular lunch at Masala, and then I met a few of the old gang at Cornwall Park for a late barbeque picnic for Jacinta. So wonderful to feel the sunshine (and no wind), and great to catch up with people - even if I'd only seen them a month ago. It's been six years since I left Auckland, but I still enjoy the friendships I've made with these people despite the distance. I also got to play badminton on Monday night with them - so good.
I managed to get a login for the computers at Uni so I could work on a presentation about Dynamic Programming for the PikPok Developer Conference next week. I took the chance to wander around the city campus, admiring the new buildings and appreciating the old ones. I was astonished to find the entrance to the CompSci department completely different - they've removed the time tunnel and replaced it with a large hallway where the Science Student Center sits, as well as a time wall depicting various important historical events. Info Commons hadn't changed much (Munchy Mart is still there <3) and I was able to finish most of the Powerpoint presentation in the three days I was at Uni. I also caught up with Bobby and Raymond on Tuesday at Elliot Stables, and Graeme and Tom on Wednesday at Tony's.
Such a pleasant and relaxed few days. I should do that more often.
Posted by Jeremy at 9:45am on Thursday February 6, 2014 :: 0 comments ::