mgroves

CodeMash is over.

On day 3, I spent some time in a LINQ session, a TDD session, and even a Cloud Computing session (which I found really boring--not the session, just the topic).

I went to an IronRuby session. The presenter asked who was a web developer, and then told us that this was not a session that will have anything to do with the web. It was for those people "in the trenches" with desktop applications. It just seemed like a hostile-to-webdev session, so I left. That's what CodeMash is about, baby!

That turned out great though: I joined Joe in a session called "Test Infecting the Legacy Organization", which may have been the best session all CodeMash. It really changed my perspective on how to introduce better practices to your shop: ninja-style. "It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission."

Speaking of ninjas, Amazon's recruiters were at CodeMash, and they posted some "coding brainteasers" in the hallways. If you solve one, you get a ninja-coder sticker. I got two right! Here's the first one, see if you can figure it out:

What's a better name for this function?

 unsigned int greaterNinja(unsigned int a, unsigned int b)
 {
     if(b == 0) return(a);
     return(greaterNinja(b,a%b));
 }

And here's the second one:

For what two values v does this function return "true"?

 bool ninjaPair(int v)
 {
      return(v+1 < v-1);
 }

I got the first one in about 20 minutes, the second one in about 5.

In the wrap-up raffle session, I won a book (More Effective C# - the writer of which gave two sessions that I sat in on). Everyone (literally) at my table won a prize.

Ali & I are hanging out at Kalahari for a couple extra days. Matthew has started saying "da da" like crazy. I've learned a couple harmonica songs. The Candy Hut has an amazing treat called a "butterscotch porcupine" (chow mein noodles covered with butterscotch). Am I having a good week? No. I'm having a great week.