On Dynamic programming...struggles...

I understand the term 'Dynamic Programming' comes from the initial days when Richard Bellman coined it to mean a tabular method (Programming) with the spice of Dynamic added to it to make it sound interesting. The source of this being the section title 'Dynamic Programming' course from Udacity called "Computability, Complexity & Algorithms'. This Udacity course gives a nice introduction and refers 2 interesting books: 

1. Algorithms by Dasgupta, Papadimitriou, and Vazirani

2. Introduction to Algorithms by Thomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson, Ronald L. Rivest, and Clifford Stein

I started reading those books coupled with the tutorial on topcoder. Am struggling to get ahead and solve problems, especially the coin change problem on Hackerrank. Right now, it looks like recursive thinking is a huge problem for me :-)

Nevertheless, i will not give up and will try to make a video once i am able to solve it.

My subscription at Lynda.com

One learning site that impressed me a lot is Lynda.com. Initially, I took the $25 basic plan (without download of the exercises/ project files.) and after 2 months (and $50 spent :-) ), I got this email which said that at $256, I could get a full year premium access and I signed up :-). This is one service that I think is pretty useful and worth the money spent on it. Some of my friends also have subscribed by paying about $75 for 3 months of basic access. What are the courses that interested me:

* Foundations of Programming series

* Series on Networking

* Code clinics in C++, Java, Python

* Many courses on Leadership (one thing to mention - Intelligent disobedience), Management

* CentOS, SSH

* Web services

* Databases - Postgres, MySQL, CouchDB

* iOS (getting started, gaming)

and many more...just pure awesomeness. Thank you lynda.com.

Tribute to a top coder who called himself humblefool...Harsha Suryanarayana

Some leave a lasting impression after just one meeting

Some don't even after many meetings

There are some who leave a lasting impression even when you don't meet them

They inspire by their deeds and philosophy towards life

One such person that i heard of recently went by the handle 'humblefool' on topcoder. His name - Harsha Suryanarayana.

He was a Red coder in topcoder, one of the firsts from India.

Sadly, he was recalled by God on June 15th 2014. He was just 32.

Here's a tribute published on him.

Look for his answers on Quora here.

His friend Animesh writes about him here.

Here's the youtube channel that he and his friends started. Just watched a few videos and I am guessing that this video on maximum sum sub array could have been his. Beautiful videos - thank you humblefool, Animesh and gang!

He was fondly called 'The Lord' and may 'The Lord' live in the great code that everyone writes.

Introduction to Big Data by Gopal V at Foss.in - pure awesomeness

Watch it here on HasGeek.tv or on youtube. Just awesome!

CodeChef JULY long and cookoff problems

My performance was bad in July. Could solve 2 problems in the long contest:CSUB, RETPO and 2 in the Cookoff: RRCOPY, RRSUM.

Got stuck with FROGV in the long contest and FRNDS in the Cookoff. Need to do better.

Read Anudeep's blog to get more inspiration: 
http://blog.anudeep2011.com/ioi-and-acm-learning-community/
http://blog.anudeep2011.com/when-2-guys-talk-its-not-always-about-girlssports/

Neat introduction to Combinatorial games

I was looking to solve Hackerrank w7 challenges and one problem was about the game of Nim. After that, I started to look up good introductions to Nim. I found this one interesting: comb.pdf

I found it very useful to understand the game.

This one talks about Backward induction, P-positions and N-positions. Just what is required.

Udacity.com : CS101: Introduction to Computer Science done :-)

Got my CS101 completion certificate. Awesome learning and Prof.David Evans rocked the students for sure. 

Next will be start off my project (more later). 

Also, started the CS212: Design of Computer Programs by Dr.Peter Norvig.

Sad part is that Udacity is discontinuing the issue of certificates for the free courses :-(

CodeChef May 2014 Long challenge problems...

I have always regarded CodeChef very highly for the kind of problems they come up with and the tutorials after the contests. May 2014 has quite a few interesting problems of which I have solved 3: OJUMPS, RRSTONE and COMPILER. Attempting the Strange Matrix now (CHEFBM)

The name in CAPS are the problem codes.

Feels blissful to solve problems :-)

32 Most important algorithms...

Got to this link: 32 most important algorithms from Stefan Buettcher from Information retrieval: implementing and evaluating search engines and got here: wumpus-search.

Book: Elements of Programming Interviews

Elements of Programming Interviews (EPI) is an an amazing book. Here's the official link for the book. I tried solving one of the very first problems about maximizing the profit of buying and selling shares. A very interesting problem indeed. Strongly recommend this book for people interested to sharpen their algorithm skills.

I also have their previous version: AFI (Algorithms For Interviews).

A big thank you to the authors for a superb book.