/Arthur O’Dwyer

Make Things Simpler Than Possible tl;dr: Donald Knuth presents a particular system in a specific way. “He first presents an oversimplified version of the system — so oversimplified that it is, in fact, incorrect — to give the student the general gist of the system. Seeing a consistent general plan up front, even though it errs in some particulars helps the student understand the final version.”

featured in #541


Make Things Simpler Than Possible tl;dr: Donald Knuth presents a particular system in a specific way. “He first presents an oversimplified version of the system — so oversimplified that it is, in fact, incorrect — to give the student the general gist of the system. Seeing a consistent general plan up front, even though it errs in some particulars helps the student understand the final version.”

featured in #540


The Best Engineering Interview Question I’ve Ever Gotten, Part 1 tl;dr: "It’s been a while since I was on the receiving end of a software engineering interview. But I still remember my favorite interview question. It was at MemSQL circa 2013... Since MemSQL was a database company, this is a database challenge."

featured in #536


The Best Engineering Interview Question I’ve Ever Gotten, Part 1 tl;dr: "It’s been a while since I was on the receiving end of a software engineering interview. But I still remember my favorite interview question. It was at MemSQL circa 2013... Since MemSQL was a database company, this is a database challenge."

featured in #535


Reverse The List Of Integers tl;dr: Reverse a list of distinct positive integers using two types of moves: splitting a number into two parts that sum to the whole, or combining two adjacent numbers into their sum. The goal is to reverse the list without creating numbers greater than the original list's maximum or duplicating any elements. The challenge is to find the optimal sequence of moves.

featured in #509


My Muscle-Memory Git Toolbox tl;dr: "This post focuses on my basic muscle-memory git commands. There are at least two other major Git subtopics this post doesn’t mention at all: “branching discipline” (what is a release branch? what’s the difference between rebase and merge?) and “hygiene” (how big should a commit be? what does a good commit message look like?). That is — as usual for this blog — we’re talking tactics, not strategy."

featured in #462


The Best Engineering Interview Question I’ve Ever Gotten, Part 1 tl;dr: "It’s been a while since I was on the receiving end of a software engineering interview. But I still remember my favorite interview question. It was at MemSQL circa 2013... Since MemSQL was a database company, this is a database challenge."

featured in #286