A shorter a book I think a lot of clients would find worth reading regarding their own websites, a lot of common sense in this book to the oh yeah that makes a lot of sense.
Had this book on my reading list of a while, but since it is required reading for OU, I thought I would give it a go.
The take aways from don't make me think for me are
- Convention is not all bad
- Accessibility is really a lot of common sense and fringe benefits including potential for increased traffic
- We tend to scan websites for information and do not read it all
- Usability testing is worth while doing and does not have to cost much at all.
- Goodwill can be bought and lost at a rapid rate.
Browsing more interview questions, can I sort a dictionary by value and by key which didn't come out too badly, however I have installed resharper ( yay student discount ),
resharper does heavily push linq.
The linq solutions are terse relative to my own explicit solutions.
namespace boredbasics
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
var aDictionary = new Dictionary<string, string>
{
{"d", "a first value"},
{"z", "a Second value"},
{"a", "a ThirdValue"},
{"n", "a forthValue"}
};
DictionarySorter.PrintDictionary(aDictionary);
Console.WriteLine();
//sorted by key
DictionarySorter.PrintDictionary(DictionarySorter.SortByKey(aDictionary));
Console.WriteLine();
//sorted by value
DictionarySorter.PrintDictionary( DictionarySorter.SortByKey(DictionarySorter.KeyValueSwap(aDictionary)));
Console.WriteLine();
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
}
namespace boredbasics
{
public class DictionarySorter
{
public static Dictionary<string, string>
SortByKey(Dictionary<string, string> aDictionary)
{
return aDictionary.Keys.OrderBy(k => k.ToString()).ToDictionary(key => key, key => aDictionary[key]);
}
public static Dictionary<string, string> KeyValueSwap(Dictionary<string, string> aDictionary)
{
return
aDictionary.Keys.ToDictionary(key => aDictionary[key]);
}
public static void PrintDictionary(Dictionary<string,
string> aDictionary )
{
foreach (var key in aDictionary.Keys)
{
Console.WriteLine("key: {0}, value: {1}", key,
aDictionary[key]);
}
}
}
}
Apart from all of that found a good link on Hanselman's blog for good applications
GitHub for windows and Windows memory tester being news to me, so I will give those an install and see how they go. As using github via the command line does make it a pain to use. Must give linqpad a go.
Had a browse around interview cake I like the site, anyway I got this weeks free practice problem. I did a recursive and iterative solution. I would change a few bits looking back at it now, as it is lacking any guard conditions for inappropriate input.
namespace boredbasics
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
for (int i = 0; i <= 10; i++)
{
Console.WriteLine(fib(i));
}
for (int i = 0; i <= 10; i++)
{
Console.WriteLine(fibRecursive(i));
}
Console.ReadLine();
}
public static int fibRecursive(int nthFib)
{
if ( nthFib == 0)
{
return 0;
}
else if ( nthFib == 1)
{
return 1;
}
else
{
return fibRecursive(nthFib - 1) + fibRecursive(nthFib - 2);
}
}
public static int fib(int nthFib)
{
if (nthFib == 0)
{
return 0;
}
else if (nthFib == 1 || nthFib == 2)
{
return 1;
}
else
{
int first = 1, second = 1, temp = 0;
for (int i = 2; i < nthFib; i++)
{
temp = first + second;
first = second;
second = temp;
}
return temp;
}
}
}
}
Playing about with async so a really simple example partly ripped from illustrated C#.
namespace boredbasics
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Task<int> t1 =
countCharsAsync(1, "http://stackoverflow.com/");
Task<int> t2 =
countCharsAsync(2, "https://news.ycombinator.com/news");
Task<int> t3 =
countCharsAsync(3, "http://www.bbc.co.uk/");
Console.WriteLine("call one:\t{0: 20}", t1.Result);
Console.WriteLine("call two:\t{0: 20}", t2.Result);
Console.WriteLine("call three:\t{0: 20}", t3.Result);
Console.Read();
}
public static async Task<int> countCharsAsync(int id, string uri)
{
Console.WriteLine("Starting count chars {0}", id);
var wc = new WebClient();
string result = await wc.DownloadStringTaskAsync(new Uri(uri));
Console.WriteLine("char count complete {0}", id);
return result.Length;
}
}
}
A few things to add to my list, don't make me think has been ordered for uni reading, ASP.Net MVC book arrived yay!
If any other job seekers are reading, I was hanging around imgur lots are seeing the same things with junior tech jobs.
Reading about the gingery furnace and found a few places to order a good metal bucket for the furnace and a smaller bucket to create the void.
http://www.oipps.co.uk/
http://artisanfoundry.co.uk/
Can't wait to get setup and build a lathe.
OU courses are finally starting, a lot of the reading material no longer comes on paper, which is not great for me as I like a break from the screen and humming machines. There is a good tool to convert into kindle compatible format which is currently free, http://calibre-ebook.com/ .
Part of the units being studied cover web development, I am usually pretty keen on firebug and the in built chrome tools, for quick validation and good features the plugin for firefox https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/web-developer/ works well.
Car and 3d printer video of interest, a model transmission, when I first looked at it I thought it would be quite basic however it supports six forward speeds and reverse, youtube.
Interviews are tough going, I think it is worth being aware that the developers doing the hiring may not have all the input into job specification.
Practical tests, I did mess up more than once, keeping things simple and being able to justify what is written is more important than a poorly implemented feature.
Being asked to do a black jack implementation, although not perfect, left as is because I know it gets used for homework, link to sln.
Still reading Agile principles, patterns, and design practices in c#. The explanation of design patterns although not going over all the gof, being able to understand template and command in a practical sense is useful. In the other pattern books at the end being left with so what, how does this help me.
