5 posts tagged with "Personal"

Introduction: Beyond the Basics​

FizzBuzz has long been a staple of programming interviews. The problem is deceptively simple: print numbers from 1 to n, but replace multiples of 3 with "Fizz", multiples of 5 with "Buzz", and multiples of both with "FizzBuzz". It's not meant to be a challenging algorithmic puzzle; most candidates with basic programming knowledge should solve it without difficulty.

So why does this trivial problem persist in the interview landscape? Because FizzBuzz's true value isn't in filtering out candidates who can't code—it's in opening discussions about complexity, language characteristics, optimisation, and the subtle costs of different operations. The best interviewers don't just ask candidates to solve FizzBuzz; they use it as a starting point for a deeper technical conversation.

I found an interesting little field hidden in plain sight in Microsoft documentation. A clever chap recently said this to me: 'if you can figure out what problem the engineers were trying to solve then it makes it easier to understand why the product works the way it does'.

Introduction​

On a few occasions I have been asked to explain networks to people with no prior experience and it's quite hard to work out where to start; there is so much history and so many concepts from general computer science that have got us to where we are today. I have long believed that to truly understand a concept it's very valuable to be able to organise your understanding in a way that means you can explain it to someone else. My goal here is not just to explain many of the contributions to networking that make the internet work but also organise some of my own understanding and explore areas where I have taken things on faith rather than asking why they are the way they are. The approach for this will be to assume we're starting with nothing and rebuilding the internet from the ground up and solving the problems that were solved to get us where we are today.

Note for US readers: CV, or Curriculum Vitae, is the standard term in the UK and many other countries for what Americans call a resume. While traditionally a CV might be longer and more detailed than a resume, the terms are often used interchangeably in today's international job market.

Lessons from Personal Tech and Enterprise IT​

Notifications and alerts are ubiquitous in our always-on, hyper-connected world. But as I’ve learnt from personal experience and my work in enterprise IT, more alerts don’t necessarily mean better outcomes. In fact, over-alerting can be downright counterproductive.