Notes on codes, projects and everything
Traversing a tree structure often involves writing a recursive function. However, Python isn’t the best language for this purpose. Therefore I started flattening the tree into a key-value dictonary structure. Logically it is still a tree, but it is physically stored as a dictionary. Therefore it is now easier to write a simple loop to traverse it.
In the previous post, I re-implemented Annoy in 2D with some linear algebra maths. Then I spent some time going through some tutorial on vectors, and expanded the script to handle data in 3D and more. So instead of finding gradient, the perpendicular line in the middle of two points, I construct a plane, and find the distance between it and points to construct the tree.
Recently I switched my search code to Annoy because the input dataset is huge (7.5mil records with 20k dictionary count). It wasn’t without issues though, however I would probably talk about it next time. In order to figure out what each parameters meant, I spent some time watching through the talk given by the author @fulhack.
Implementing a Information Retrieval system is a fun thing to do. However, doing it efficiently is not (at least to me). So my first few attempts didn’t really end well (mostly uses just Go/golang with some bash tricks here and there, with or without a database). Then I jumped back to Python, which I am more familiar with and was very surprised with all the options available. So I started with Pandas and Scikit-learn combo.
I am currently preparing myself in applying a postgrad programme and is looking for a research topic. At first I wanted to do something that is related to cloud computing but after some discussion with people around me, they suggest me to do something on semantic web. While posting my notes here, I realized that I had posted something on semantic network that looks like the base of semantic web here (Post still “Under construction” as of writing, will post the diagrams later tonight).
Not sure about the others, but the obsession to my coding tools is probably more than I would admit. I have just managed to do a dirty quick hack to manage my VIM configuration settings. While I am sure there are other people doing this, I would like to show my reinvented wheels.
Just survived a job interview, so I should probably celebrate this despite the outcome. Well, considering I was off the job market for a couple of years, I probably has all the reason to be nervous. Anyway, like most geeky serious job interview, there are a test given by the company to the attendees.
Writing a usable form and database library has always been a painful experience. So why bother re-inventing the wheel when there are so many to choose from already? I am writing one mostly for learning purpose. After numerous attempts, I finally get my form and database library in shape. It is nowhere complete, but nor it is perfect, but it is currently the implementation that is closest to my original design. I will keep working on it so it can be used in my personal projects in the future.
Recently I am being assigned to work on a FSM based workflow system to enable my other colleagues to use it in their application. I am rather impressed with the simplicity of the workflow system (initially designed by my Technical Director) and decided to post some notes here. The workflow system was developed for CodeIgniter PHP framework and Drupal CMS.