Month: December 2021

A Number Of Numbers

A Number Of Numbers

Back in my math major days in college, I was introduced to the Online Journal of Integer Sequences. It’s exactly what it says on the tin. As part of a class we were encouraged to contribute, which I did.

A few weeks ago I had another idea for a submission, and to my surprise no one else had added it, so once again I had opportunity to contribute a little piece of Internet history.

Here’s a complete list of the sequences I’ve authored over the years:

If the above isn’t enough online notoriety, check out my only published mathematical work, A Probabilistic View of Certain Weighted Fibonacci Sums. I was only a mild contributor, but still got an authorial credit, which is pretty cool.

Putting Pen To Paper

Putting Pen To Paper

I spent some time today chatting with an early career colleague who’s looking towards a future career in the dark arts software development. Being the kind of person that enjoys the sound of my own voice, I enjoy these opportunities to pontificate. One piece of advice I routinely give is that good engineers write well, and developing this skill will pay itself back with copious dividends.

However, that shouldn’t be read to mean that quantity trumps quality. Far from it, keeping things brief is usually more difficult than not (I know I’m bad at rambling, kinda like I am now). Which is why I found this little article on the value of the humble readme such valuable advice.

The other day I published a blockchain solution on Github, and while I’m pretty proud of the code, the readme is in bad shape (as of today at least). For my next project (a refactoring of the core of this solution into a reusable CDK construct) I think I’m going to write the readme first, as the above article suggests. We’ll see how it goes!