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Mel Reams

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How does a breadth-first search work, anyway?

Posted on 2016-04-25 in algorithms, dev trivia, development, how does it work?, interviewing

In a recent post I mentioned having read an article about passing programming interviews that said it was important to be able to write a breadth-first search and to understand how hash maps work. I covered hash maps last time, so this time let’s talk about breadth-first searches. The first question is what on earth is a breadth first search? It’s a way of searching a tree structure. in a breadth-first.. Read More

Atom plugin of the day

Posted on 2016-04-21 in atom, text editors, tip of the day, tools

Since I switched to Linux, I’ve had to find a replacement for my beloved notepad++. I went with Atom because I like the project view in the sidebar and I’m too cheap to pay for Sublime. Because I miss notepad++ so much, I’ve been slowly trying to make Atom behave as much like it as I can. One very simple plugin that helps me do that is selection-highlight, which highlights all occurrences.. Read More

How does a hash map work, anyway?

Posted on 2016-04-18 in data structures, development, how does it work?, interviewing

I was reading this article about programming interviews a little while ago and one of the things they mentioned was that “A startlingly high percentage of interview questions reduce to breadth-first search or the use of a hash table to count uniques. You need to be able to write a BFS cold, and you need to understand how a hash table is implemented.” I saw that and started thinking wait.. Read More

Mongo tip of the day

Posted on 2016-04-14 in development, mongo, tip of the day

Mongo can be very weird to adjust to if you’re used to “normal” (SQL) databases. One thing that tripped me up a little was discovering that mongo throws a DuplicateKeyException when you try to insert a duplicate into a field that has a unique index but is not a key. If you see that exception and there’s nothing obviously wrong with your _id field (mongo’s version of a primary key), have a look at any.. Read More

First blogiversary!

Posted on 2016-04-11 in productivity, unsolicited advice

I realized the other day my blog is just over a year old. My very first post was a Play framework tip that took two whole sentences to explain. Since then I’ve published 71 more posts, go me! Turns out one or two posts a week over a year really adds up. What I’ve learned from my year of blogging is that building a habit is way more important to blogging.. Read More

Learning How to Learn

Posted on 2016-04-04 in learning, MOOCs

I’ve been kind of skeptical about MOOCs (massive open online courses) for a while, but I took the Learning How to Learn course on Coursera and it was actually really good. Turns out there is free stuff that doesn’t suck :) Like any free resource, some MOOCs are great and some are… not. On the upside, the fact that they’re generally free (although some sites charge for a certificate of completion).. Read More

Linux to Windows: why is everything terrible?!

Posted on 2016-03-31 in linux, windows

Not so long ago, I wrote a post about my first impressions of Linux as a Windows user. A while after that, I booted back into Windows to get some files and oh god Windows is a terrible shock after you’ve gotten used to Linux. To be fair, my Windows installation at home has fallen prey to the 100% disk usage bug, which means that every reboot I have to patiently.. Read More

The interviewer is on your side

Posted on 2016-03-28 in career, interviewing

I’ve been thinking about interviews lately since I know a number of recent grads who are looking for work (ping me if you’re looking to hire a junior dev). Interviews can be really intimidating, especially when you’re trying to find your first development job. They still make me nervous and I’ve been at this programming thing for ten years. I’ve only participated in a couple of interviews from the employer side of.. Read More

Rubber duck debugging

Posted on 2016-03-21 in debugging, development, unsolicited advice

Rubber duck debugging is one of those things that sounds completely ridiculous and is actually really helpful. To summarize the wikipedia page quickly, rubber duck debugging is when you figure out what’s wrong with your code by explaining it very carefully to an inanimate object. You’re probably wondering why you would bother explaining your code to an object like a rubber duck or a teddy bear if you work as.. Read More

Mongo tip of the day

Posted on 2016-03-17 in mongo, tip of the day

The other day I learned that it’s possible to convert a field in a mongo collection to uppercase. I didn’t know that was a thing until I went digging, so in case it’s news to anyone else, here’s the stackoverflow link. While I’m at it, you can use regexs in mongo too, but of course they’re slow so don’t go nuts with them. Now we both know just enough mongo to.. Read More