I would like to recommend checking out /r/ExperiencedDevs/[0] on Reddit. It's a much better place than most other general cs subreddits because the questions are from and geared towards senior engineers.
This comes to my attention at a really convenient time. As a teenager, I initially got interested in Computer Science due to cryptography. Over a decade later, I've gotten into the subject for the first time since then.
For the last few days, I've been writing my own encryption for fun even though it's 100% not secure enough or powerful. My belief is that even though it's not super useful, the experience of attempting to write one is teaching me a lot more than I would have by simply studying it.
Rather than write crypto, what I'd actually recommend is to break it. Schneier put together a block cipher cryptanalysis course a long time ago and while I don't usually recommend his crypto books these days, the course is good: https://www.schneier.com/academic/archives/2000/01/self-stud... (in this case, his crypto book might actually be useful, because it documents some of these out of date ciphers. There's (was?) a mistake in the DES code though iirc).
It is essentially a tour of all the early cryptanalysis literature, complete with suggestions of ciphers to target (e.g. FEAL). This will give you a sense of how the attacks work. Many of the ciphers are old, but I wouldn't let that put you off.
The study technique for this would be a) implement each cipher with toggles to control rounds and any other features, then implement attacks. Most of the papers should be open access by now since the 'course' was written in the year 2000. You could also 'catch up' on the constructions and attacks that have come out since.
I would caveat this with: what I am advising is purely for potential interest. Bear in mind there is little need to implement new block ciphers these days (what I'm saying is: this is a very specialized skill and most people won't find jobs in it).
Take a look at Tiny Acquisitions[0]. I stumbled upon it on Product Hunt a few months back, and is possibly a good fit for your needs. All the best!
[0]https://tinyacquisitions.com/home
Thank you! I appreciate this. I picked up software development to build my startups, but now realize that working at a FAANG has immediate benefits to me - financial and social; as well long lasting benefits - better opportunities, peer network, etc.
I've been looking for something like this. I'd rather read this crass/vulgar document than a 250 page books on algorithms and practice leetcode without a direction. This also seems to be full of insider knowledge and your review makes me feel much more positive towards it. Here's to making this year count.
2. Upload the images to your Github repo in a folder and relatively link them.
3. Edit your README on the WYSIWYG editor on Github itself and paste the images using Ctrl+V. Github will automatically host and link the image in your file.
I'm not the OP but I wanted to reply to a couple of your queries about life in India.
> What do you use when baking sweet pastries? Crushed sugar cubes? :D
When OP says sugar cubes, he doesn't mean the sugar cubes you might be thinking (large cubes of sugar used for tea, or fed to horses), although that is something found pretty ubiquitously out here too. Our sugar generally comes in a grain-like consistency shaped as tiny cubes measuring about 1-2mm squared, in general. A simple Google search for "India sugar" should provide visual reference. This is a personal anecdote but the size of these sugar grains vary in size based on how expensive they are. More expensive = finer sugar.
At my home, we either use icing sugar or powder the sugar in a spice grinder attachment on our blenders. That's how I prefer my sugar, just so much easier to work with. Wish it was more common around.
> Again I don't know what the limits are over there.
We don't have any limits, AFAIK, but that's mostly because without a PIN/OTP, no one is going to get any money out of your debit/credit card. I should mention I've used my card on a few US/EU-based websites and didn't need to input any PIN/OTP so it's still possible.
Interesting! The India sugar you refer to seems to be similar to "Nib sugar" or "Pearl sugar" in Scandinavia[0]. It's basically used for baking (decoration) here. For everything else we use regular "fine sugar". Or well, there's also "powder sugar" ("florsocker" in Swedish, unsure what the equivalent in English is) which is also used for baking. Sounds like you make this yourself!
You can only live in the past for so long. To bystanders, you're falling behind by being cynical and ignorant of newer solutions.
Don't get me wrong. The world still uses the technology you mentioned at large, but the industry has in-fact built upon and grown alongside older technology.
I don't want to seem like I'm defending SpringBoot, ferchrissakes, but still fail to see a big impact of PWAs. Especially a positive one for the user, not mere ad clicks.
In general, the whole rich web app space reminds me of the "You're not making Christianity better, you're making Rock'n Roll worse" meme.
2021 Spring and Maven could buy me chocolates and flowers all day long, I wouldn't forget what they did to me in the past...
But seriously, I'm okay with working with SB when I have to, but quite often in those situations Java wouldn't be my first choice, and it's still all the putrescence of proper Spring underneath. A framework for a framework, with a bit too much magic for me.
Explicit is better than implicit.
While I certainly can fathom that other newer technologies are capable of solving interesting problems, I think my assertion is that the additional value they provide is not worth the risks involved in trying them.
