Hash maps are an incredibly useful data structure that map unique keys to potentially non-distinct values. They have a constant O(1) lookup time and come in handy for a variety of situations. However, a common drawback of hash maps is that you usually can’t sort them. Modern programming languages are making attempts to make hash maps sortable in some manner, for example Python versions 3.7+ allow sorting a hash map via a lambda function.

In Go, we leverage the common use of interfaces and the sort package to elegantly sort our own hash maps in a few simple steps. There…

Binary search trees (BST) are a notoriously tricky but useful sub-field of computer science. Leveraging BSTs requires the programmer to be fluent in recursive functions and the various algorithms used to manipulate the trees such as insertion or deletion of nodes. If you can learn to be fluent in binary search trees, you are well on your way to tackling many other fundamentals in computer science as I personally believe BSTs are some of the most difficult data structures to start learning (but also some of the most rewarding!).

Before we get started, what exactly is a binary search tree…

Combining projects into a single mono-repository has become an emerging trend in software engineering that has a wide range of benefits across the developer workflow. When you hear the term MonoRepo, you may think of the dreaded monolithic architecture with highly coupled services — but this has nothing to do with a MonoRepo! A monolithic repository is a means to consolidate multiple projects into a single codebase in order to share dependencies and standardize project workflow for any contributing team.

In this article, we are going to discuss some of the traits and tradeoffs of a MonoRepo as well as…

Scheduling can be considered to be one of the most annoying forms of busy work, one that many people choose to forego entirely. After all, a schedule just restricts you from having the freedom to do what you want when you want, right? Wrong. Creating a well though-out schedule removes the ambiguity from your life. In fact, I would argue that a schedule is the closest you can get to a direct reflection of who you are as a person. Ideas of where you want your life to go only get you so far if you don’t plan to take…

The validate subsequence question is an easy problem but introduces the important concept of a sequence in which order matters. This can be compared to finding a subset of an array where the order is irrelevant. In this article, we will understand the subsequence question itself, write tests, and finally develop a solution along with it’s big O time and space complexities.

Coding Pomodoro starts now!

Note: This article assumes you know how to setup a Go workspace and install program dependencies.

Understand the Problem

Validating a subsequence involves the input of two separate arrays. One of the arrays is a sequence, while…

The modern day internet is a complex behemoth that faces increasing demands on security, standardization and — fairness. Today a dozen tech companies such as Google and Amazon control a massive amount of data centers, web services and more that all power the internet for its approximately 4.7 billion users worldwide. Love em or hate em, these tech giants aren’t going anywhere and they have unprecedented control over what we mentally consume each and every day.

The current state of the internet goes directly against what many of the first pioneers hoped and dreamed of. The internet was meant to…

Technology is evolving at an exponential rate across the world. The number of transistors that fit into a microprocessor was 10,000 in 1971 — in 2017 the number was more than 10 billion. This is known as Moore’s Law, which can be synonymous to the vast growth that technology sees on a daily basis. Today’s software engineers are left with no other option than to make learning a daily practice in the industry. But with so much to learn, how can you know where to start?

That’s where a mentor comes in.

Whether you’ve been in the tech space for…

You don’t have to look far to find fearful headlines that Bitcoin is a danger for not just speculative consumers, but the climate of the world itself. Reports that Bitcoin mining uses more energy than a small country, or that a single Bitcoin transaction uses more electricity than two dozen American homes in a single day. Major news outlets have had no shortage of the flaws of the Bitcoin payment system — but is their critique really authentic?

Before we can address the concerns of Bitcoin mining, we need to understand how mining occurs in the first place. Bitcoin uses…