Here, I will share my recipe for Kung Pao chicken, a Chinese American favorite.

Ingredients

• chicken breasts, cubed
• garlic, 1 clove+ chopped
• dried chilli, 10 chillies
• 1 1/2 cups water
• cashew nuts, 1 handful
• 1/2 medium-size red onion, chopped
• 3 tbsp. Hoisin sauce
• Chinese cooking wine
• Honey
• Corn starch (for thickening)
• Sesame oil (for taste)
• Cooking oil

Steps

1. In a pan, stir-fry the chicken breasts till half-cooked. Add cooking wine towards the end. Set aside.
2. In the same pan, fry the garlic cloves and dried chillies. Add onions and cashew nuts, and saute till garlic is semi-cooked.
3. Add back chicken.
4. Add in hoisin sauce andwater. Stir and mix. Cover and let it steam in its juices for 10 minutes. Let stand till mixture is reduced to a gravy.
5. Add a dash of chinese cooking wine, and sesame oil to taste.
6. Thicken the mixture by first combining corn starch with a little water. Stir the corn starch slurry into the sauce.
7. Serve.

Dear 20-year old self.

It’s me, your 20-year old self that just turned 30.

Life has not been a bed of roses. Yet, you’re in the peak of your prime. Full of life and vigour. Plenty of energy, ready to change the world. And yet, I sense you are nervous. You’re at the crossroads of life, wondering if the choices you made would blossom into rewards for the future. Having walked through these crossroads of life, here’s some words of wisdom from me, your 30-year old self.

#1. Treat your family well. For, when the ether of life fades, you’d be glad to have them in your life, rather than without. Friends fade, but family is forever.

#2. Invest your time in making friends, for when the busy-ness of life and the rungs of this world hold true, they’ll be harder to find. True friends are like gems in the desert — they’re hard to find, but when you do, treasure them. For there are seasons in our life for doing things, and the best time to find friends, is now.

#3. Don’t be too uptight about finding a life partner. When life happens, and when you are ready, it will.

At the same time, that doesn’t mean you should wait for things to happen. Invest your time in making friends, and expanding your social circle. Go on dates. And, while trying to impress,

#4. Please be yourself.

#5. “To experience success, one must first be prepared to fail. To be accepted, one must first be prepared to be rejected.” Don’t let fear be the reason holding you back. Learn how to take calculated risks, and be prepared to fail. Don’t let fear be the reason for supporting causes you believe in, standing up for what is right, and launching that start-up idea you always had.

And, that includes going on dates.

For you are young, and the consequences of failure are minimal. Learn from your mistakes, and move on.

Don’t let fear, be the reason holding you back.

For the best time to start, is now.

#6. Don’t be afraid of how others perceive you, nor standing up for principles you think are right. Hold on to what is true; Stand up and have an answer for the truth and causes you believe in.

For as you journey through, life, you would find that others, just like you, are fearful of being judged, and are peering just as intently at the mirror — sans you.

— — —

Life in your 20s is full about making decisions, but take them as they come, and enjoy the ride. Take care and God bless you.

P.S., I love you.

Yours truly,

Your 30-year-old self.

Ingredients

1. 2 Tbsp. Tahini paste
2. 2 Tbsp. water, cold
3. 2/3 Tbsp. Miso, white
4. 1 Tsp. garlic crushed
5. 1.5 Tbsp. Dill
6. 1 Tbsp. Dukkah
7. 1 Tsp. Sumac

Steps:

1. Combine tahini, garlic, and miso.
2. Stir in water and blend gradually, achieve the desired consistency.
3. Add in dill, sumac and dukkah. Mix well.
4. Serve. Best served as-is or slightly cold.

Ingredients:

1. 1/2 Tbsp. Allspice
2. 1 Tbsp. Cumin
3. 1 Tbsp. Ginger powder
4. 1 Tbsp. Thyme flakes
5. 1 Tbsp. Ground chilli
6. 1 Tbsp. Smoked paprika
7. 1 Tbsp. Cinnamon
8. 1/2 Tbsp. Pepper
9. 1 Tsp. sea salt

To recap, ACID are properties of databases that guarantee the data stored in the database, is valid. These apply to transactions, which is a single unit of work to read, or modify the database. The following properties as follow:

Atomic

Operations are indivisible, and either occur, or not occur at all. 2 states can occur:

• Commit — Proceed with the transaction
• Abort — Do not proceed

Consistency

Given constraints of the database are invariant, and hold true throughout operations.

Isolation

Multiple operations can occur simultaneously and independently, and yet result in the same predictable state.

Durability

Data persists despite events such as power loss.

#databases #todayiread

I can’t say I was really prepared for all the sessions, but — I’m thankful for the opportunity to make new friends, honing my coding interview skills, understanding what needs polishing, and practising coding questions in a group.

Certainly humbled by the experience — Thanks Facebook for the opportunity.

Here’s my compilation of notes of the past few sessions. I hope you find this useful.

• Facebook Singapore ABCS Session 1: Proactive Communication
• #3: Session 2: Recursion

Session 3: Missed due to trip overseas. Does anyone have the notes for this one?

• #5: Session 4: Trees
• #6 Session 5: Linked Lists
• #7 Session 6: Test your code / Heaps
• Facebook Session #8: Increase your coding speed

Your imposter syndrome can make you:

• Make you give up when you hit a snag
• Make you go silent for fear of asking questions

Here’s the good news. You are not an imposter!

Imposter syndrome is the psychological experience of seeing yourself as an intellectual fraud and the fear of being exposed.

You might feel:

• Being brilliant is a prerequisite for developers.
• You’ve tricked other people, and you might be exposed.

Like you don’t really know that much (only a tiny sliver of all the stuff there is to know), and if something is easy for us, must be easy for everyone else.

>70% of people experience imposter syndrome.

Practising more mock interviews helps accurately gauge what you need, and what you lack.

Never quit the interview.

A few tips to tackle imposter syndrome

• Familiarity will calm your nerves.
• Be sure to simulate the experience with mock interviews from peers
• Use Glassdoor to review interview questions
• Your internal dialogue isn’t reality.
• Hard work > perfection.
• Nobody knows everything. Set realistic expectations, goals, and celebrate progress!

First, know the content

• Know your data structures and algorithms
• Use your most comfortable language
• Specific questions about concepts are rare

If you remember nothing else,

1. Don’t start coding away; ask questions!
2. Communicate your design tradeoffs
3. Focus on getting a working solution first
4. Keep calm and think out loud
5. Practice, often, at the whiteboard

Finally:

• Failure is okay, everybody screws up
• It might not be fun, but it’s okay; there are lots of positions in and you still belong in the industry
• Every interview is a learning opportunity
• And no matter what, think out loud.

See:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCl9kvQGHPI
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UWDyJq8jZg

1. Clarify solution
2. Do example
3. Walk through example
4. Complexity
5. Plan in advance
6. Explain before coding; code
7. Test
8. Test comprehensively

System designs interview — Write down the constraints. Else, it is not needed.

Time complexity of graph traversal: V + E

Google for Geeks for Geeks even tree

Tips for graphs:

• How to convert the problem, to a graph problem, is the crux of the problem.
• DFS / BFS / Djistrika.
• Memorize DFS / BFS / Dijstrika. Use it to fit into your solution.

Why test your code?

• Running your algorithm with a few examples will help catch bugs
• You may come up with an original algorithm your interviewer didn’t think of; testing will demonstrate how it works
• Testing your code will help catch edge cases

What to test for

• General cases
• Extreme cases
• User error

Test both positive and negative test cases

Before you write the code, explain the code before you write it down.

• So you don’t waste time writing code, before realizing that is not what interviewer wants

Think about a heap as a potential solution

Notes from Facebook’s ABCS Programme.

Remember, aim to solve 2 problems in a 45 minute interview

If you’re not at your most comfortable pace yet, that’s okay. There are multiple ways to increase your coding speed.

How to increase your coding speed

Practice:

• Deepen your understanding of your programming language
• Write more code
• The more practice you get, the faster you’ll get with implementation, getting your code right, or avoiding trivial / or non-trivial bugs
• After solving the problem once, try solving it a different way

Try to write code with fewer lines

• Find the source code to projects and frameworks you already use, and read the source to see how it was written and the choices made
• Figure out what is minimum viable code and try solving problems with the least amount of code possible.
• Challenge yourself to solve the problem again in 50% fewer lines of code.
• Think first, code second.
• Practice while tracking your time.

So last Thursday, I attended the 6th session of Facebook’s ABCS. Besides covering Linked Lists, we covered tips on tackling the coding interview. Here are some notes again!

Workshop 5: Talking through your solution

Linked lists are more of a C++, C Java concept where pointers and references are involved.

How do you think about and tackle hard problems / communicate about code

• Evaluate your problem-solving skills to evaluate if you can translate thought into reasonably correct, well-structured code

How do you consider engineering tradeoffs (memory vs time)

• Limits of what you know
• Communicate verbally to demonstrate how you tackle hard problems
• Talk to the interviewer to give active feedback to the interviewer, to know what and what not to code
• Talking through your solution will help you avoid careless mistakes or catch them when they do happen

See interviewers as collaborators

• Use “We” instead of “I”
• Look up from the whiteboard and talk to the interviewer

Keep calm and think out loud

• Walk through your interviewer through your solution approach and code.
• Tell them you’re not sure, if you’re not sure
• Don’t try to appear like you know something when you don’t
• Ask questions, don’t ask for hints

Don’t rush

Reiterate the bounds

• Summarize the big-O of your solution and why it’s less than ideal
• Remember you can:
• Annotate chunks of your code with their various time and space
• Explain tradeoffs made with regard to time — and — space complexity in your current approach VS alternative approaches

Do mock interviews — like 30 of them

• Identify the crux of the solution, and do the obvious parts of the code later