Oct. 31, 2022

Handling Date and Time is Complicated

Today, a new commit was made to the Python tzdata package. What package is this and what was the change? Here is the story.

Python's tzdata module contains the timezone database which has all the different the timezones for each region as well as information on the start and end …

Oct. 31, 2022

My new Corne Keyboard

Corne Keyboard

My new keyboard. A 42 key Corne v3 split ergonomic keyboard with colemak layout.

I was surprised to learn that there is a large community of keyboard DIY in India. They source the parts and build the keyboards from scratch, right from soldering the diodes onwards. Some even design their …

Jul. 22, 2022

Learning the Colemak Keyboard Layout

One of the things that I believe is that a programmer should type at a decent speed.

Not because typing speed is important -- the essential skill is thinking, and a programmer spends far more time thinking than typing. But typing is an interruption to thinking, and you want to minimise …

Jun. 22, 2022

How do you accelerate learning new technologies?

How do you accelerate learning new technologies? Well, a lot depends on your preferred learning style of course. Some learn by listening or reading. Maybe reading a book or article, or watching a video on youtube or a MOOC site.

You can supplement it by performing some hands-on activity. Maybe …

May. 09, 2022

Apr. 17, 2022

When do you need to define your own data types

All programmers are familiar with the common data types found in many languages like integers, strings, floats and so on. After we learn about them, we go about our work, using those data types in our code. But have you ever thought about defining your own data types?

An Example …

Apr. 16, 2022

How do you become better at programming?

You get better just at programming just like how you get better at anything else -- by practicing. The question is: how to practice in an effective way?

There are two ways to practice of any skill. One is practicing individual techniques, the second way is to practice putting it all …

Nov. 03, 2012

Oct. 21, 2012

Is there such a thing as a bad idea?

I'm doing the online Technology Entrepreneurship course offered by Stanford this semester. For the first assignment, all participants are grouped with random team members into teams of 10. The assignment asks the teams to brainstorm 5 good startup ideas and 5 bad (eg: selling ice cubes in Alaska) ideas and …

Aug. 11, 2012