Understand behaviors of hash tables in C++ so we can use them more correctly. People often talk about how one type of data structure is better than another, such as hash tables. It has operations such as insert, retrieve and delete which have O(1) time complexity and O(n) space complexity…

Get a deeper understanding of how hash tables work under the hood by implementing them in C++. Introduction One of the most important data structures that is widely used is the Hash Table. All major programming languages come with hash table implementations that we can work with. Usually, we don’t need…

A software framework to learn and test AI algorithms — In my old articles, I talked about various AI Planning algorithms, such as search algorithms, Refinement Acting Engines, Hierarchical FSMs, and Behavior Trees. The articles use the Pac-Man game framework to implement the algorithm. Some of those articles are linked below: Plan-Space Search Designing AI Agents’ Behaviors with Behavior Trees …

Avoid beginner’s mistakes by understanding what is constexpr and how it differs from const in C++ — Overview The constexpr specifier was introduced in C++11, for beginners it is confusing because it is similar to the const qualifier. constexpr stands for constant expression and is used to specify that a variable or function can be used in a constant expression, an expression that can be evaluated at compile…

It is very important to understand the details of const qualifiers to help improve the quality of your code and the efficiency of your coding — C++ const The C++ const qualifier is one of the first things you learn about C++. You usually start by understanding that we should use const for constants. …

Understanding what actually happens when we use static local variables and when we should use them — C++ Storage Duration One of the basics we often miss when learning C++ is understanding the details of storage duration. The storage duration of an object determines its lifetime. It also determines in which segment of memory the object will be stored, whether it be on the stack, heap, or data. There are…

Curiously recurring template patterns can help us write common functionality by combining templates and inheritance — What is the CRTP Idiom? CRTP stands for Curiously Recurring Template Patterns, a name coined by James O. Coplien in his 1995 paper. It is about specializing base classes using derived classes as template arguments. It looks like the following: This is a very common example that we can find on the internet when…

Writing Inter-Process Message Passing Framework to improve the expressiveness of our code and make our code more elegant. — Inter-Process Communication Processes — a recap We often read online that a process is a program in execution, but wait a minute, what exactly does that really mean? For some, it might not be very clear what that means. Wikipedia provides a hopefully clearer definition: A process is the instance of a computer program that is…

Fighting boredom in a hotel room. Travel Restrictions Still Everywhere Travel is still restricted worldwide. Many countries have changed their regulations to use multiple tests instead of asking visitors to stay in hotel rooms, but not all. Some countries still require people to be quarantined in hotel rooms. For short quarantine like 2N3D, that’s…