“A good mentor hopes you will move on. A great mentor knows you will.” - Higgins, Ted Lasso
Hey all!
I just got back from my vacation to Meghalaya last week. It felt like a much needed break and I’m all excited to start on the projects I had put on hold before leaving. Here’s a picture of the famous living root bridges in Meghalaya :)
Interesting links for the week
Instead of sending a bunch of random links your way, these are all things I’ve read or seen and found interesting and relevant enough to share!
Something that sparked my curiosity
I’ve been studying vector databases recently, and it’s been a really fun topic to explore. Vector databases store data as vectors, which is particularly useful for tasks like searching for similarities between the data stored in the database and the user’s input query. Because of this, they’re increasingly being used in AI applications to store context. I’ll write a blog on this soon, once I’ve studied the topic in a bit more detail. Until then, here’s a video to help you get started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbLa0KBW-jY
Golang puzzle of the week
Superman is flying over Metropolis, but Kryptonite sources hidden in different locations are draining his strength. If his strength drops to zero or below, he will crash! However, Superman has one chance to avoid any one Kryptonite hit, allowing him to skip exactly one source to maximize his chances of survival.
Your task is to determine whether Superman can safely reach his destination by strategically skipping one Kryptonite source if necessary.
Rules:
Superman starts with an initial strength of S.
There are N locations, each containing a Kryptonite source (negative effect) or a Solar Boost (positive effect).
If his strength ever reaches 0 or below, he crashes.
However, Superman can skip exactly one Kryptonite source of his choice.
Example:
locations := []int{-10, +5, -20, +10, -15}
initialStrength := 25
Superman starts with 25 strength.
Location 1: -10 → Strength = 15
Location 2: +5 → Strength = 20
Location 3: -20 → Strength = 0 (Crash!)
Skip the worst Kryptonite (-20)
Recalculating:
Strength = 25
Location 1: -10 → Strength = 15
Location 2: +5 → Strength = 20
Location 4: +10 → Strength = 30
Location 5: -15 → Strength = 15
Superman survives! ✅
Here’s some code to help you get started:
package main
import "fmt"
// Function to check if Superman can survive with one Kryptonite skip
func canSupermanSurvive(locations []int, initialStrength int) bool {
}
func main() {
locations := []int{-10, +5, -20, +10, -15}
initialStrength := 25
if canSupermanSurvive(locations, initialStrength) {
fmt.Println("Superman survives!")
} else {
fmt.Println("Superman crashes!")
}
}
You can write solutions to this in the Go Playground and share the link with me on LinkedIn to get a shoutout in next week’s newsletter!
Who’s hiring?
Harness is hiring a Developer Relations Engineer in India
Spectro Cloud is hiring a Software Engineer in San Jose, US
CircleCI is hiring for a Software Engineer in London and Toronto