- wrote a long update on Recurse Center Zulip
- reached out on RC Jobs thread to get hooked up with mock interviews
- came up with one solution to this LeetCode (Group Anagrams), as I work my way through the top of NeetCode
- started re-reading Interview Cake
- left off near the end of linked lists
- implemented a Linked List in Python, plus some helper functions to print one and insert data into one
- collapsed a lot of chaotic files and dirs into a single markdown file for the six-month journey of getting a FAANG job
- instead of doing leetcode I've been reading about lichess, which is open source and services a lot of users. It's slick, I can't remember why I used chess.com over it.
Really have fallen off the algorithm horse. Feeling like I'm not meant to be a full-time worker bee, and instead would like to resume my independent life while also going deep on computing. Ideally I'd enroll in a Comp Sci program (undergrad/grad) but can't see how the $ could work currently. Very interested in falling back to Averbach Transcription and spending a lot of time on machine + human interfaces/processes.
I never returned to algo questions, instead diving into C++ then C. How I arrived at C: I have a case of FOMO regarding Rust and low-level programming, but I want to know what problems Rust is solving (memory management) in a hands-on way. Also, I bought the Python programming interview book and there are a bunch of bit-shifting and bit-masking maneuvers happening there, which are totally foreign to me. That led me to buy "Write Great Code, Volume 1: Understanding the Machine" which gets you down to binary, assembly, and C.
There is of course a tension between this sort of deep dive and the goal of getting a new job. I feel the tension but I also really enjoy exploring C, and I'm excited at the prospect of being able to understand and contribute to things like cpython, neovim, Arduino, etc.
Ah, and to continue the thread from October, I did build a back end for a new, fully automated transcription company, and about half of a front end. I'd like to return to it, which is another source of tension. The pull is stronger towards "understanding the machine" and C for now, and I'd like to explore building something useful as soon as possible using C, including possibly something related to transcription.
Going for the Teach Yourself CS path, with some additions (see this doc)