yet another source of inspiration…
A Personal Moment of Disruption Last week, I downloaded Google’s new development environment: Antigravity. After decades in software engineering, I’ve learned to be skeptical. I’ve seen countless hypes come and go — new languages, new frameworks, new paradigms, new tools. Some changed the industry, many quietly disappeared. So after reading Antigravity’s glossy marketing material, my… Read more Antigravity and the End of Gravity in Software Engineering?
It all started on a rainy afternoon when my kids asked a very dangerous question:“Dad… can’t we turn our own pictures into pixel art?” That question triggered what every developer-parent knows too well — a new side project was inevitable. A Small App with a Big Creative Goal So I built a small pixel image… Read more A Geek’s Love Letter to Pixels
I recently hacked together a delightfully simple micro:bit app that converts ambient light into sound. Think of it as a poor man’s photodiode oscilloscope — or, more accurately, a light-controlled Geiger counter for photons. The idea is straightforward: more light → faster clicks. What the Code Does (in Human Terms) The micro:bit constantly reads the… Read more Turning Light into Clicks
In this post, I present a solution to the Rush Hour problem appying A* algorithm developed with ChatGPT. A human programmer would typically use more descriptive data structures to make the code easier to follow. The initial solution didn’t work because the problem instance itself was invalid, but the algorithm was correct. Attempts to prompt… Read more Solving Rush Hour using A*
Over the past few months, I’ve shared a couple of Sudoku solvers here — some built with Dynamic Programming, others with Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP). Both approaches work and are great learning exercises, but they each have their quirks when it comes to constraint formulation: This time, I wanted something cleaner — so I turned… Read more Solving Sudoku with Constraint Programming
For years, my Android unlock pattern was my fortress — a carefully chosen sequence of swipes that I thought only I could remember. Unfortunately, I underestimated two things: (1) the persistence of children, and (2) their uncanny ability to casually “observe” without being noticed. One day, I realized my long-guarded pattern had been compromised. My… Read more Mobilephone Unlock-Pattern Generator
In this post, we’re developing a Happy Cube solver using a mixed integer linear program (MILP). Previously, we tackled this problem on a micro:bit using dynamic programming and backtracking. Now, we’re trying a different approach by creating a mathematical model to solve this combinatorial challenge. The idea is to structure the MILP so that it… Read more A MILP based Happy Cube©® Solver
A common problem in production scheduling involves distributing jobs of varying durations across multiple identical machines to minimize the time when the last job finishes. In other words, the goal is to minimize the makespan. Production Planning Problem Instances The following list presents some instances of the makespan minimization problem. It involves a set number… Read more How to Construct Solutions to the Production Planning Problem
In this post we will learn how to optimally solve the TSP problem using integer linear programming using Google OR-Tools for mathmatical modelling in Python. In previous posts I have already presented two ways of solving the TSP using heuristic approaches: Construct solutions using the Nearest Neighbor construction heuristic and improve solutions using the 2-opt… Read more Solving TSPs to Optimality with Integer Linear Programming in Python
In this post, we’ll learn how to improve TSP tours using a well known and approved local search improvement heuristic approach. These improvement heuristics start with an initial solution and iteratively improve it until no further improvement is possible, then return the best solution found. Previously, we discussed how to generate initial solutions for TSP… Read more How to Improve TSP-Tours Applying the 2-opt Neighborhood