What I learned this month

Two days ago, @jrop published an article What I learned this week.

I also started writing similar weekly update about anything I did the whole week on my blog. It really helped me see where my time went. But I think it would be better to share it on here too. So here goes - some of the things I learned and some amazing stuff I found online:

One day while coding, I noticed that a main file in my project had about 1000 lines, and a lot of it was repeated due to having different types. So I introduced generics, and my code reduced to about 300 lines. The logic is now clear, code is more maintainable, easy to explain and expendable. I would recommend java/android devs to use it at appropriate places where logic is repeated for different types of data. Here is a good resource to learn about generics.

Also while doing some UI smoothing work, I found that mathematical equations work miracles. Calculations done using them produce smooth results which look natural and very eye-pleasing.

Memory usage is a pretty important thing too. I used android profiler to analyze the Java heap dump, then filtered the classes via package name to check memory footprint of my app and library. The retained size shows the amount of memory that will get free if this particular object is garbage collected.

Tech articles and discovery

1. Awesome use of machine learning - Compressing and enhancing hand-written notes
2. Git messages are important, very important - How to Write a Git Commit Message
3. Who doesn't want to look cool - Hackertyper
4. Understanding zygote in android - What the Zygote!?
5. Who doesn't love this - Linus Torvalds slams CTS Labs over AMD vulnerability report
6. People at google are amazing - Making music using new sounds generated with machine learning
7. Google strikes again - Making amazing games like Pokemon Go with Maps
8. ML again - Implementing IphoneX faceId using deep learning
9. Stack Overflow developer survey 2018
10. Block compressor in Java, Go and C++.

Mr. Robot soundtrack

Mr. Robot soundtrack is a great piece of music - specially while you are coding. Highly recommended to put you into the flow quickly.
Oh and quick fact - Sam esmail, the creator of Mr. Robot was himself a hacker (a pretty bad one but still) - that explains why the show is so good and close to actual hacking or computer culture.