Notes from the UnsafeCSharp Presentation

At work each month a set of hours are set aside/scheduled for employees to learn something new. I have worked at more than a dozen companies and have never seen a periodic time scheduled in the company calendar for it. Yesterday we had eight hours scheduled for learning. During that time an invite for a one hour presentation UnsafeCSharp showed up. I watched and enjoyed it. In addition most presentations at work are recorded so I am planning on watching it again later today.

As I am writing this post I am not sure if there are things that were presented that are company confidential. For that reason, at this time I am not disclosing the name of the presenter or will dive into specific topics. Continue reading “Notes from the UnsafeCSharp Presentation”

Longest Absolute File Path – C# and Java – Revisited

Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving day with family and friends. My wife and I typically roast a turkey. This year, for the first time, we went with a fresh turkey breast. It was a fraction of the weight of a full turkey and when all was said and done, my wife did not have to deal with cleaning the bones. Today, and probably for the next few days, we will be having different types of turkey sandwiches (Bread, butter on the outside, panini press @ 350F, turkey meat. When brown and crunchy, open sandwich, apply mayonnaise and a touch of mustard. Close and enjoy).

In this post I will revisit solving LeetCode 388. Longest Absolute File Path. The motivation was a message I received a few days back on a solution in O(n). I looked up my solution in Java from February 27, 2017 and it was hard to follow. At the time I used a different plugin and the output was not that great. With time it stopped working so I switched to a different one. Much better but sometimes it mangles the output. Continue reading “Longest Absolute File Path – C# and Java – Revisited”

Database Sharding

Good day software developers and engineers. Today is Wednesday and it seems it is going to be a sunny day in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Hope the weather cooperates in your neck of the woods.

I continue to read and experiment with the contents presented in the on-line course Introduction to Python Fundamentals: Lesson 02 by Paul Deitel published by Pearson Education, Inc. As a matter of fact, tomorrow I will start with lesson 03. So far I am pleased to be reviewing and learning new things during the process. Continue reading “Database Sharding”

Singleton Threads

My wife and I enjoy cooking and of course eating the food we prepare. Yesterday we decided to making from scratch empanadas. Different cultures around the world have come up with similar implementations. I am not a historian so I am not sure if all foods covered in some type of dough and then baked or deep fried, are derived from a single version or instance (the Computer Science shows up).

In the US we refer to a similar object with the name turnover. My wife’s family comes from Spain. According to this article the name empanada was mentioned in a book published in Catalan as early as 1520. It seems that one should be able to find the best recipes for empanadas in and around Barcelona. Next time we are in that area will make sure to have some empanadas.

My parents came from Italy. As a matter of fact I am first generation not born in Genoa.  In Italy there are similar foods named calzone and Stromboli both of which we had on my parents table quite often while growing up.

While searching the web with Chrome, I found this site which lists some foods related to empanadas. Empanadas enclose some type of food in dough while a food that is quite common in the US, presents the food in an open face version. That is what pizzas are all about. You can read more about pizza here. The modern pizza was created in Napoli, Italy, and yes my wife and I have been to the restaurant that claims to have created the Neapolitan pizza.

So back to yesterday, my wife made about seven pounds of empanada stuffing (beef, onions, eggs, garlic, and many other spices). I made a batch of dough (flour, yeast, olive oil, and a few more ingredients) which was enough to make about 18 empanadas. While we were preparing the food, one of my wife’s nice stopped by. Apparently she was interested in joining us for lunch. While we were chatting, my son calls. One thing and the other and he (plus wife and two sons) requested some empanadas for Sunday. We where forgetting that two of my in-laws and spouses were stopping by around 02:00 PM for lunch.

Panic mode set in. We had plenty of stuffing, but not enough dough. I made a second batch. As the empanadas were taking shape, I made a third batch. Of course the dough did not have enough time to rise, but it had to be done. When all was set and done, we ended with around six dozen empanadas. We were baking them in batches so things were moving along.

Our formal guests arrived so we all had empanadas with lime, beer, and wine. On Friday, my wife had prepared a couple gypsy arms stuffed with “dulce de leche”. We forgot to serve the salad but I had more than enough to eat and drink. We did not have a chance to walk outside yesterday. That said; I checked my fitbit before going to bed. I had about 10,500 steps. I was pleasantly surprised with the final tally.

Today we are going out for Chinese food. We do not wish to cook. Continue reading “Singleton Threads”

Bash on Ubuntu on Windows

I have been working and developing software on Linux, UNIX and Windows for a while. On the Microsoft platforms I started on MS DOS. Last week I was talking with a colleague and he mentioned that while still in BETA, Microsoft has something called Bash on Ubuntu on Windows. I do enjoy the simplicity and power of the Linux shells. I decided to give the Microsoft BETA software a run. Continue reading “Bash on Ubuntu on Windows”