Design pattern - is it for real?

Today I read a book on design pattern - after hearing about it for quite sometimes. A lot of good and bad things have been said about design pattern. I guess I have to experience it myself before making any judgement. I'm quite sure design pattern is not the holy grail to all programming problems. But with a little bit of effort in understading when to use and when not to use, design pattern could probably be useful.

Passed another 2 tests at Brain Games

I took another 2 tests namely, HTML 3.2 and Linux Administration (General) today and passed both. As for the Linux test there were a number of questions on NFS, a subject which I'm not really fond of. I just hope I could sit for a couple more tests before 31 May.

My transcript is viewable at http://www.brainbench.com/transcript.jsp?pid=873436

Logic

Logic is, at best, correct but not always the truth.

Rise in electricity tariff in Malaysia

Two days ago Malaysian government announced a hike in electricity tariff commencing in June 2006. The government also claimed that the price increase will not affect approximately 3 millions. I didn't quite understand by that statement though but I guess this got to do with the direct electricity bill. The real concern with this price hike is whether the price other goods will also go up as well - just like during the incident the fuel price increase. Personally, I feel the likelihood is high based on historical patterns. How this will have any impact on common people like you and I remain to be seen.

Learn to program in ten years

The first time I read Peter Norvig's essay titled Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years, I don't give much thought about it. Today, I've re-read and started to ponder my own progress over the years in achieving hacker's enlightenment.

The one that struck me was the similarity in my own experience in attempting to learn and grasp what I've learn. Like him, I've read numerous books, howtos, FAQ and other documents, yet I still feel like a novice. So what really went wrong? Why I'm still feel I'm at the same level as I was 2 or 3 years ago? Well, Peter Norvig certainly had given all the pointers but I failed to recognize them 2 years ago.

However, in my effort to learn, it's better late than never. The pointers he had laid out in the essay must be taken seriously.

Life of a programmer

7 bug reports and 11 feature requests: That will keep me busy at least for the next 2 weeks.

I know this basically translates as: no Math challenge; no exploring Google Pages and updating my little homepage; no other activities that require rigorous thinking.

Python 1.5 Certification Test at Brain Bench

I took the Python 1.5 test for Brain Games last night and passed. As a token of bragging the transcript is viewable at http://www.brainbench.com/transcript.jsp?pid=873436. To be honest, I never consider my Python skill as good. I only started to seriously code in Python for the past 2 years - and still learning.

PHP Certification Test at Brain Bench

I've passed my first test for the Brain Games - and it's the PHP4 Certification. The test was not that hard - I even managed to juggle between doing the test and doing something else (you can do the same provided you know PHP well enough). There are few questions asking about some build-in functions which I've used once or twice and couldn't seem to recall how to properly used them. Those are the question I flunked.

As my right to brag for passing the test: you can view my transcript at Brain Bench. Just fill in my transcript id 873436.

Free Certifications

I've just learnt that Brain Bench is conducting another round of Bench Games - what this means is that all certifications test will be free - starting from 15 May 2006 till 31 May 2006. Silly me for ignoring the offer email for too long.

But I guess I should try to take advantange of this offer. May be learn a few thing along the way. Certification in Linux, Bash Shell, Python, PHP, (X)HTML and CSS come to mind as top in my priority list. However I better have a look at the whole list of certifications over there - which was claimed to be more that 500 certification tests!

Elementary school placement examination

Yes! You heard it right. My daughter just finished the placement examination to enter elementary school. Out of 352 candidates, only 185 will be chosen for the 2007 academic session. She was quizzed on 8 subjects over 2 hours - with no break. Personally I think it's a little bit too much for a 6-year old. Her result is expected to be out on 29 May 2006. Well, I guess it's tougher nowadays to get a good education.

Personal website

I have just created an account with Google Page Creator for my personal website. It's accessible at eafaisal.googlepages.com. Mind you the content is still alpha :)
I guess for the next couple of weeks I'll also be busy exploring Google Page Creator.

Mathematical puzzles

Just over two weeks ago, a post at IT Tutor attracted my attention. It was about Project Euler at mathschallege.net. To quote from Project Euler introductory page:

Project Euler is a series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems that will require more than just mathematical insights to solve. Although mathematics will help you arrive at elegant and efficient methods, the use of a computer and programming skills will be required to solve most problems. Please be warned that the problems are challenging and you are unlikely to make much progress if you have no knowledge of programming. Having said that, this is both the perfect environment and opportunity to learn new techniques and refine your programming skills.

At first I wasn't quite enthusiatic about it. But after solving 2 problems I thought, "Wow! I could learn a couple of things if I continue solving the given maths problems". To date, I've solved 21 problems using Python as my programming language of choice. There are a lot of difficult maths questions which I've yet to figure out how to solve - which I believe require a good understanding of mathematics fundamentals - and my last encounter of mathematics academically was during my schooling days :)

A few subtle fixes

Instead of laboriously reading Help, I decided to just quickly scanned certain topics to make a few quick fixes.

Below is my Changelog:

• Changed NavBar to use silver theme
• Fixed the links - no more Edit Me
• Minor changes in few setting options

For now I'm pretty OK with the new changes. Probably I'll leave the settings as they are for next 1 month or so.

Time to explore...

Now that I've figured out how to post, it's time for me to explore Blogger features. Probably I'll start with "Help", then browse through the knowledge base.

The first thing that needs to be resolved would be: try to comprehend what those settings mean :)

My first post

This is my first post. Ain't it something :)