₦airaland Forum

elfico:
Technology person with an appetite for Algorithms and a desire for Game programming. Never content with knowing how to use. Always trying to know how it works.

Thanks for stopping by, and contributing, elfico.

eNelo:
Programmers need discipline. People who cant shun distractions and squarely face what they are doing regardless of how many bumps they get along the way(bugs) will become mediocre programmers at best. A good programmer has the ability to focus on what the code, and when they occasionally lose focus, take a break and go right back to having the compiler tell you how dumb humans really are.

I concur!

mexzony:
I can't emphasize on the extra power source.for me phcn almost made me frustrated so had to go and get a power full back up.
Had to purchase this power bank.
Massive 200000mah.
It helps me now and I can program all day.
PHCN is bleeped up.

Wow! Thanks for contributing to this, bro. This is type of input I was looking forward to.

1. A laptop:

This is obviously a no brainer, but its mentioned deliberately here because in Nigeria, learning programming with Desktop computers as opposed to laptops usually wont work; thanks to epileptic power supply. The specs of the laptop is dependent on the type of programming you intend to do.

For Game Programming:
a. Laptop must have 8GB or more RAM memory
b. Laptop must have atleast Core i7- 6820HK processor
c. Laptop screen resolution should be 1920 x 1080 or higher
d. Laptop should come with Nvidia or GForce graphis card . –Never buy a laptop that comes with Intel dedicated graphics if you intend to do gaming.
e. Laptop should have minimum of 250gb hard disk.

For Desktop/Mobile App Programming:
a. Your laptop should be atleast 4gb Ram.
b. Processor should be core i5 or higher
c. At least 500gb hard disk space (for heavy duty IDEs)

For Web Programming :
a. Your laptop should be not less than 2g ram (can be less if you intend to not use localhost xampp/wampp servers.
b. Your laptop processor is not too important. Most decent laptops you will be offered will do except you intend to rely on IDEs as opposed to text editors like sublime text, notepad++.
c. At least 50GB hard disk space.

A laptop that is good for game programming, is good for all types of programming. While a laptop that is good for desktop/mobile app programming, will serve excellently for web programming as well. If you are on a low budget and target the laptop for web programming, you should know that it will be difficult to use it for gaming or for desktop/app programming.

More about laptops: Lenovo laptops are very strong but are harder to maintain (i.e. replace parts). Toshiba/Dell laptops are also good looking and strong, but most usually have battery problems after about 3 years (e.g. Plugged in; not Charging). HP Laptops are more fragile but are very easy to maintain since their parts are sold everywhere in Nigeria. HP Laptops, therefore, while neither the strongest, nor the most asthetically pleasing amongst available brands, seems to be the most pragmatic choice, especially when you are not doing game programming.

Also note that while older laptops are very tempting due to their lower prices, finding their parts (i.e. batteries) may be impossible.


2. Extra Batteries for your laptop:

Not knowing this is one of the reasons why many people are yet to take that leap into programming in Nigeria. You cannot depend on the power authorities in this part of the world for anything you deem “Important”. Hence, you must keep your power source under control by investing in batteries that will keep you going for at least a day after they’ve “taken the light” – after which you could go to the nearest “barber” shop and recharge them – and keep going.
While buying batteries, take the time to test each of them. Insert a cd/dvd in your laptop cdrom and take note of how fast the battery drains while the dvd/cd is playing. If it drains too fast; the battery is likely bad.


3. Atleast 9GB worth of Data each month:

You will need at least 9GB worth of data each month. This is because you will spend a lot of time online. If you intend to rely on video tutorials as opposed to text tutorials, you will need about 30gb each month.
Airtel Nigeria currently offers a data plan of 9G for 3500. This is really good for programmers on a low budget that live in eastern Nigeria and depend on text-based tutorials as Airtel coverage is better than Glo’s in this part of the country.
If, however, you are in northern or western Nigeria, then Glo has a lot of salivating data plans.


4. A good smartphone:

During your programming journey, every minute counts. When you are on the bus or waiting for someone at a park, you should be able to take out your phone and read a programming article or two. Also, you should keep in contact with good developers (like myself of course) using whatsapp.
As time goes on, you may also decide to go into mobile programming (a very sought after field) and your phone will come in handy then too.


5. Time…Lots of Time

We all have 24 hours a day and there’s nothing we can do to add anything on top of that. However, we can maximize our time by trimming our schedule greedily. My recommendation: Put off all social interactions till weekend. That alone should give you a 30 percent hike in available time. Trim your budget too so you don’t have to work anymore than you need to.

I believe every newbie should immerse him/herself in code for at least 4 hours each day. It can should be much higher, but 4 hours is minimum in my opinion.

Do you think I missed some tools? Kindly express your thoughts in the comment section. And please come back again tommorrow for another Nigerian Based programming article.

Source: https://larisoftng..com.ng/2016/05/tools-you-need-to-start-programming-in.html

dhtml18:
Na which category me i come belong so? there should be a subcategory for 'troll programmers somewhere there - that is my own genre.

lol...u eh...

thanks so much guys. Am glad you enjoyed reading it

lol! If someone had told him he would become what he is now only a few decades later, I imagine he would have told the person he is nuts.

Thats why I dont believe in Forbes 30 under 30 crap. The guys that will define the future are currently living in oblivion.

So many new guys are getting into programming in Nigeria these days. Problem is; programming is a very wide field and it is shameful that people lump it all into one field that fits their prejudice depending on whom they are. Job descriptions are not helpful either. You see people demanding for 5 in one ALL THE TIME! This article, tries to discuss the different paths available to programmers, (as I perceive it) so that beginners can identify early on, which suits them, pursue it, and become good at it. Rather than stretching themselves thin, trying to master everything.

GUI Guy:
A graphics User interface programmer is important in every software team. Without him/her, your software will always look incomplete. Not only do they know how to use graphics tools like photoshop dexteriously, they also know where to put images, understand the process of making 9 patch images, and once you describe a software to them, they visualize how it will look…and visualize something beautiful too
Graphics programmers know html and css in and out. You may think you know these languages too, till you meet a graphics programmer. I once met a guy that wrote a page solely with HTML and css. The things this page was doing! No one would have believed javascript was absent on that page. Javascript and jquery are usually under their belt too.
Aside from the web, they have GUI technologies like Swing, Windows Forms/WPF, android xml e.t.c under their belt. All you need do is visualize it and they will bring it to pass.
The interview process for a graphics programmer should be VERY VERY DIFFERENT from other types of programmers. The competitions for graphics programmers are different too.

Hardware Guy:
This guy programs microcrontrollers and they dare not disobey. His toolset includes C and assembly and raspberry spi etc. This guy knows his platforms in and out. He knows the tiny differences between Windows machines and Linux machines. He shies away from high level langauges and stops at C++.

The interview questions for this guy should be clearly different too as he will be best suited for server administration duties..

Technology Guru:
I see a lot of them on nairaland programming section. They know about 13 languages, know enough graphics design to get by with templates, know and code on several platforms. This type of programmer is very productive.

They know several ready-made technologies. That is their strength. Once you ask them to foray into virgin fields, they flop. For instance, they know how to use the internal sort function in their languages of choice. But can they implement it? They understand arraylists well but can they create one on their own?

The technology guy has too keep learning as his relevance is tied to his toolset which is always changing.

There is nothing wrong with being a technology guy. In fact, most business will do great with just these category of programmers. But this is the reason why many African coders will never get employed at google. They are great coders. But core-tech companies like google do not need technology-conversant guys. They need guys that will define the next generation of technologies which brings us to the next category.

Competitions for this category of programmers should be different than that of other types of programmers.

Algorithms Guy:
This guy’s way of thinking is greatly different from every other person’s way of thinking. Given a set of problems, they examine them, run through them in their computer brain, and churn out answers that work, then they go on to recreate the process using code.

These guys are usually very good with mathematics too. Their skills are language agnostic. They may even work with only one language.

Algorithm guys are never out of employment. All they have to do is head out to topcoder.com, establish a reputation, and WALAA! top notch tech companies are after them!

Algorithm guys do not need to be constantly under fire to learn new languages. Many coding competitions are based only on determining who is best at algorithms but this is not fair. You cannot expect a GUI guy to beat an algorithms guy at his own game. No one ever compares the GUI of an algorithm’s guy to the UI of a GUI guy.

Most software designed exclusively by algorithm guy’s are usually console based, or have shitty GUIs.


Games Guy: For some reason, everybody seems to understand that these guys are different from other programmers. No one ever mentions it, but the demarcation is there. I wonder why?
Anyway, these guys do what their name suggest:…make games. They work with Unity and other game engines. The advanced ones amongst them know a lot of math and can inplement their own game engines.

A Games Guy will beat you hands down any time the competition is about fluid graphics or simulation.

In conclusion, these groups of programmers are all talented and respectable. Lets stop mixing them up and making some people feel deficient while they are actually good at what they do.

Have i excluded or mixed up certain categories? I will love to know what senior devs in here think via comments please!

source : http://larisoftng..com.ng/2016/05/categories-of-programmers-by-areas-of.html

As a newbie to programming today, one might say you came so late to the industry that there’s just so much…probably too much catching up for you to do. In your journey to become a great programmer, these are some of the technologies you may find very challenging to learn, why they are challenging, and steps to take to make them easier.

Read on!

1. Javascript:
The world was probably a perfect place before Brenden Eich realized that web pages had to have a lot of noisy elements, dancing around them. Javascript is a language that is difficult to grasp even for programmers that are already used to other object oriented languages like PHP, C, Java, e.t.c.
Of course, the language is not difficult in itself. Enlarging your programming world view to accept that functions are variables and objects are arrays, is what is difficult most of the time.
For newbies, this language is difficult because:

1. As a first language, it seems really boring. All you can do is output dry text to a bland white page. You cant create or read files, create the next facebook (isn’t that why you became a programmer?) nor can you write a desktop or android application-not as a beginner anyway The language just has no spine till its mixed with HTML and css.

2. The language’s error reporting is just weak. When something breaks, you can’t tell what happened. The script just dies on you. There is firebug of course and google chrome console…but these are going to require another tutorial, right?

To Continue: visit larisoft blog where I will be posting atleast one programmer-related article everyday. Thanks!

http://larisoftng..com.ng/2016/05/some-of-most-challenging-technologies.html

@OP... your questions are real brain heaters. I love them! But would you please provide the solutions after each of them has been unsolved for hours?. Many of us attempt them for hours and it will be nice to finally know the solution after trying so hard!

teampregar:
Ah ah nobody fit contribute again, we really have programmers in nigeria indeed

My dear, your algorithm will be correct only if the number of 'hads' increases arithmetically after each correction. Unfortunately, it doesnt. the first no of 'had' occured once. The second twice. The third 10. The fourth 11. The fourth 38. Find the constant between these numbers and the algorithm is solved.

And there are great coders in Nigeria(though very few) . But algorithms are not just about rushing to your keyboard to type. Its about
1. Understanding the problem (so that you can solve it if you had all the time and no computer)
2. Understanding its domain (what other problems like this have already been solved?)
3. implementing a solution

Source (Skienna, the Algorithm Designs Manual).

The major obstacle in solving this is the first step. which is not even computer-science based - not whether we have great coders or not.

@Op, can you please explain the grammar rule here?

Febup:
@larisoft You are the LAW on the this programming section

lol...thanks, bro.

uhmm...nice try bro. But this does not a search engine make.

Plus the fact that you are trying to make money off something this ...under developed... makes me wonder if you are in this for the love or for money?

larisoft:
Here...Just got this off the top of my head. I know it has flaws but till I get a better solution and I will:

public static int solution(int[] nums, int n){

if(sum(nums)==0) return 0;

int index = 0;
int i = 1;


while( i < nums.length){

int[] left = Arrays.copyOfRange(nums, 0, i);
int[] right = Arrays.copyOfRange(nums, i+1, nums.length);

//1, 2, 3, 5, 1, 2, 3, 0

if( sum(left)== sum(right)){
return i;
}
i++;
}

return -1;

}

private static int sum(int[] arr){

int a = 0;
for(int i: arr){
a+=i;
}
return a;
}

This runs in O(n).

public static int solution2(int[] nums, int n){

int sum = sum(nums);

int i = 0;
int left_sum = 0;

while(i < nums.length){

int right_sum = sum - left_sum - nums[i];

if(right_sum == left_sum){
return i;
}

left_sum+= nums[i];
i++;

}

return -1;

}

private static int sum(int[] arr){

int a = 0;
for(int i: arr){
a+=i;
}
return a;
}

Here...Just got this off the top of my head. I know it has flaws but till I get a better solution and I will:

public static int solution(int[] nums, int n){

if(sum(nums)==0) return 0;

int index = 0;
int i = 1;


while( i < nums.length){

int[] left = Arrays.copyOfRange(nums, 0, i);
int[] right = Arrays.copyOfRange(nums, i+1, nums.length);

//1, 2, 3, 5, 1, 2, 3, 0

if( sum(left)== sum(right)){
return i;
}
i++;
}

return -1;

}

private static int sum(int[] arr){

int a = 0;
for(int i: arr){
a+=i;
}
return a;
}

pls, just being curious... why female?

GregJo:
Hi larisoft, i see you developed the last two, do you have more of these utilities s/w?

also, do you do just traditional desktop apps or are u into mobile and web apps development?

I developed all, bro. And yes; am into mobile, web, and desktop development.

Like mbatuku has said, I suggest you find out software problems you will like to solve that preferably, no one has. For me, it was an android GP calculator specifically for my university back when I started learning programming. Just anything you need but cant find.

Goodluck, bro.

Here is a game:
Sourc code: https://github.com/larisoft/bubblebrainer
App Download: http://tfellow.com/larisoft/bubblebrainer.zip

Here is an app that monitors your system's network, preventing background data applications:
Source code: https://github.com/larisoft/thisnonsensemuststop/
App Download: https://github.com/larisoft/thisnonsensemuststop/releases/download/secondrelease/thisnonsensemuststop.zip

Here is an app that keeps your desktop tidy by moving every file on it to its appropriate folder once you drop it on your desktop. E.g. if you place a picture on your desktop, it is automatically moved to pictures folder:
Source code: https://github.com/larisoft/cleandesktop
App Download link : http://tfellow.com/cleandesktop.zip

Good luck, bro.

Febup:
Well done mate. Though I was expecting it in the format below, but with your code I'm sure you can do that easily.
[{
"Country": "Nigeria",
"State": "Lagos State",
"Town": "Lagos"
}, {
"Country": "USA",
"State": "Texas",
"Town": "Dallas"
}]

well I aim to please:
public static String solution(String s){


//get table rows;
String[] rows = s.split("\r\n " ) ;

//header rows are at index 0
String header = rows[0];
//break header into columns
String[] header_rows = header.split("\t " ) ;


//append each subsequent word to its corresponding header
//note that we start at 1
StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder( ) ;

//just making the json valid
builder.append("[ " ) ;
int counter = 1;
for(int i = 1; i < rows.length; i++){

//get this particular row
String[] thisRow = rows[i].split("\t" ) ;

builder.append(" { " );
for(int j = 0; j < header_rows.length; j++){

//where the job is done
builder.append( "\""+header_rows[j] + "\" : \"" + thisRow[j]+"\"" ) ;

//if this is not the last item in this row, add a comma
if(header_rows.length-1>j){
builder.append(", " ) ;
}
}

builder.append("}" ) ;

//if this is not the last json bracket in this string, add comma
if(rows.length-1>i){
builder.append("," );
}


}

builder.append("]" );

return builder.toString();

}

that will produce :

[{
"Country": "Nigeria",
"State": "Lagos State",
"Town": "Lagos"
}, {
"Country": "USA",
"State": "Texas",
"Town": "Dallas"
}]

public static String solution(String s){


		//get table rows;
		String[] rows = s.split("\r\n" ) ;

		//header rows are at index 0 
		String header = rows[0];
		//break header into columns
		String[] header_rows = header.split("\t" ) ;

	
		//append each subsequent word to its corresponding header
		//note that we start at 1
		StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder() ;

		//just making the json valid
		builder.append("{" ) ;
		int counter = 1;
		for(int i = 1; i < rows.length; i++){

			//get this particular row
 			String[] thisRow = rows[i].split("\t" ) ;

 			//we add a counter to produce valid json
 			builder.append("\""+(counter++)+"\": {" ) ;
 			for(int j  = 0; j < header_rows.length; j++){

 			//where the job is done
 			builder.append(	"\""+header_rows[j] + "\" : \"" + thisRow[j]+"\"" ) ; 
 			
 			//if this is not the last item in this row, add a comma
 			if(header_rows.length-1>j){
 				builder.append(", " ) ;
 			}
 		}
 			
 			builder.append("}" ) ;

 			//if this is not the last json bracket in this string, add comma
 			if(rows.length-1>i){
 			builder.append("," ) ;
 			}


		}

		builder.append("}" ) ;

		return builder.toString() ;
 
	}

this will produce:

{
"1": {
"Country": "Nigeria",
"State": "Lagos State",
"Town": "Lagos"
},
"2": {
"Country": "USA",
"State": "Texas",
"Town": "Dallas"
}
}

Nice try if you are a beginner. If you are not; I dont really see the big idea. I mean; look at this:
https://play.google.com/apps/publish/?dev_acc=03020631692002170684#MarketListingPlace:p=com.larry.universitiesgpcalculator.unilorin

dhtml18:
This kind of challenge get K-leg.

lol

Thanks a lot, bro

Pls i need u guys suggestions.

Wow... Nice games man

If you are having any problems with "This Nonsense Must Stop", the first version, like all software had issues which have been fixed in this new release.

Some of them were
1. Some background data programs were not completely closed. This version closes every program that sucks data in the background forcefully except you add it as an exception. It is a touch and die situation.

2. heavy memory usage meant the first version could slow down some systems. This version is as light as it is agile both in size and in performance. You wont even notice its there.

3. There are background data programs that if closed, affect the core functionality of windows systems. Rather than closing them, this version blocks their connections.

If you downloaded the first version, please uprgrade now to this version. If you have not started using "This Nonsense Must Stop", download it now and reclaim your system from the hundreds of applications phoning home 24/7 in the background at the expense of your precious data.

Depending on whether your .net framework version is upto date, you may have to install .NET Framework 3.5 or above for this program to run but I assure you, it is worth it.

new Downlaod link: https://github.com/larisoft/ThisNonsenseMustStop/releases/download/secondrelease/thisnonsensemuststop.zip

Source code : https://github.com/larisoft/ThisNonsenseMustStop/

Thanks, guys.

dhtml18:
Oga larisoft (you don turn my oga be that o), i am just seeing this thread now, this is very good o.

Mmm... Dhtml? Na heavy endorsement be this ooo. Thank u my brother ooo

I can do it but 100 dollars is so poor i wonder what type of developer you ll end up with.

I ll pay attention when you are read to pay 400 atleast.