Category: Computer Science

When interviewing candidates, sometimes we need to know if they grok SQL. Here’s a simple interview question that gives me an idea that someone has had to create a schema from scratch, vs. always using a schema that someone else created. Setup We’re going to design a movies database. Each movie has a title and […]

Dan Karp used to ask this question at Zimbra. I’ve always loved it. 1. warmup Given this API from the java.lang standard Math class in the JDK: Your task is to implement a random integer in the range [0,999]. Don’t overthink it; this is just a warmup. Solution: Idea is to truncate a number like 123.99748 […]

We’ve open-sourced geoip-udf, a set of MySQL User Defined Functions for the MaxMind GeoIP API.

Want to build something that hunts down the bad guys and puts ’em out of business? Got experience building complex systems in Java? Fraudwall Technologies has the job for you. We’re looking for engineers at all experience levels who want to help build a massive data processing and modeling pipeline, using cutting-edge machine learning and […]

A colleague of mine is looking to hire a couple of hard-core C++ hackers for two jobs in Santa Monica. Unlike most Y! jobs that want folks with lots of Unix experience, these ones are all about Win32 development. If that’s you, send me a resume and I’ll pass it along.

In the past month I’ve seen at least 3 messages on the development email lists at work asking questions about developing multi-threaded applications. From a software engineering standpoint, this troubles me. I’ve always thought that multi-threaded apps in C/C++ are simply too difficult for most engineers to understand. There’s too much non-determinism, too many race […]

XML hasn’t cured our ills or saved the world, but people keep using it for absurd purposes anyways. I finally took a quick look at Apache Ant today to see what all the fuss is about. Apparently with some additional components you can actually get Ant to build C/C++ code. However, compare this build.xml for […]

I stumbled across How to Be a Programmer, a 40-page paper by Robert L. Read, a principal engineer at Hire.com. It’s a relatively good paper so I’d recommend it to anyone who’s new to the field or is a college student considering a career in Software Engineering. The distinction between Computer Science and Software Engineering, […]

The MySQL Users Conference 2003 is running from April 10 – 12 in San Jose, CA. I was nearby in Sunnyvale for work on Tuesday & Wednesday this week, so I stuck around a day longer than my usual LAX-SJC travel schedule to catch the beginning of the conference. Thanks to Zak for all of […]