The developer experience of tackling PHP internals

Inspired by Python’s functools.partial, I wanted to bring partial function application into PHP. This is already supported by Haskell, and other languages as well. It is similar to the concept of Currying. Partial function applications are a very powerful concept, and as such, it provides a new way to build abstractions.

Recently, I decided to spend some time working with the Zend API. In this blogpost, I will document my journey.

Impressions of my first Daily Chess game

I recently played my first Daily Chess game with one of my friends on Chess.com, and I noticed that Daily Chess is a perfect format for improving one’s chess skills. It basically gives you 24 hours to make a move.

I loved the concept of conditional moves, which allow you to define a few “if-then”s depending on the opponent’s path.

All this gives you much time to do analysis without the time pressure. The most important bit is that you make a move when you feel in the mood, and each move you make can be treated like its own puzzle – this allows you to maximize your performance where for example, my accuracy was 88.1%.

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. b3 Nc6 4. d4 exd4 5. Nxd4 Nxd4 6. Qxd4 Qf6 
7. Qxf6 Nxf6 8.
Bd3 Be7 9. Bg5 h6 10. Be3 O-O 11. Nd2 d5 12. e5 Ng4 13. h3 Nxe3 14. fxe3 Bb4 15.
O-O-O Ba3+ 16. Kb1 f6 17. Nf3 fxe5 18. Nxe5 Re8 19. Ng6 Re6 20. Rhf1 Bd7 21. Bf5
Rf6 22. Bd3 Rxf1 23. Rxf1 a6 24. e4 dxe4 25. Bxe4 Bb5 26. Bd3 Bxd3 27. cxd3 Rd8
28. Kc2 Rd5 29. Kc3 Rg5 30. Nf4 Rf5 31. b4 a5 32. bxa5 Bd6 33. g3 g5 34. Rb1
gxf4 35. gxf4 Rxa5 36. Rxb7 Rxa2 37. Rb5 Bxf4 38. Rf5 Bd6 39. Rh5 Kg7 40. Rh4
Rg2 41. Kd4 Kg6 42. Ke4 Kg5 0-1

Introduction to Psychology overview

Recently I wrapped Yale’s Introduction to Psychology course at Coursera. I will post my notes/overview here. The certificate can be downloaded here.

The Courage to be Disliked overview

I bought this book recently and went through it in a single weekend. It reads very easily. The book is a dialogue between a philosopher and a young person; naturally, in the beginning, the young person is very skeptical about what the philosopher has to say. They discuss philosophical and psychological concepts in five days, and each day is a separate chapter, whereas each chapter is 40 pages on average.

The authors are mainly inspired by the psychologist Alfred Adler and use many of his concepts/ideas, but they also find inspiration in Socrates, Platon, Aristotle.

Some thoughts on recent self-reflections

As I reflect on my pattern of thoughts lately, I noticed how I often “step out” and think of things at a higher level, e.g., trying to justify some justifications, etc. Where does this change come from? I’d assume it has to do with me reading a lot of philosophy lately 🙂 I’ll post some brief random thoughts here about this matter.