Archive for the 'Personal Development' Category

Resisting the Allure of Instant Gratification

February 4th, 2007 Posted in Personal Development | Comments »

My sister received a 25USD Borders gift card that she intended to use for another medical dictionary. I persuaded her to regift it to me, and I have been carrying it for weeks. I’ve been to Borders multiple times, and only the appeal of instant gratification kept me coming back. I have been wanting Richard […]

Struggling with Perfectionism

January 24th, 2007 Posted in Personal Development | Comments »

The question about my greatest weakness has been raised in almost all my job interviews. Many books on job interviews discourage people from construing a strength as a weakness. One of my greatest weaknesses is my drive for perfection. When I perform a task, I want its completion to approximate perfection. Paying attention to details […]

A Hint for Enhancing Software Dev Agility

January 16th, 2007 Posted in Personal Development, Software Engineering | Comments »

Just know that when it comes down to the wire, it’s just garbage in and garbage out. Reducing the implementation of software to the practice of accepting data from somewhere and preparing it to be used elsewhere has certainly helped me hit the ground running and get up to speed with existing projects.

On the Poor Showing of US ACM Contestants

April 26th, 2006 Posted in Personal Development | Comments »

A post on slashdot.org notes The Continuing American Decline in CS as evidenced by the dismal performances of US students at the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest.
The original story at businessweek.com suggests that the poor showing of American students at the competition is A Red Flag in the Brain Game. Of particular interest are […]

Paul Graham’s On Lisp

February 2nd, 2006 Posted in Personal Development | Comments »

A book on the Lisp programming language has been made available on Paul Graham’s site. Lisp, not-so affectionately known as Lots of Infuriating Parentheses among undergraduate students, is a programming language that I have always wanted to learn but was never motivated enough to make a book purchase. Unlike most popular languages, which are either […]