Steve was one of the best technicians within the company.
Dave’s position was ‘Senior’.
Steve’s position was ‘Chief’.
He had a higher position than Dave. And the day after Steve heard YongHo’s story, one strange rumor started circulating within the company.
“I heard YongHo said that he would do better than Steve if he felt like it?”
“From what I’ve heard, apparently he already claims he’s better than Steve.”
“Well, it might be like that seeing what he’s developed now.”
Most of the rumors were those that compared Steve with YongHo. YongHo, who was nearing one year at the company, versus Steve, who was one of the peak level existences in the company.
Although it was a nonsensical comparison, but slowly, but surely, that rumor started taking form.
As if suffering, YongHo couldn’t say anything in front of Jeff. Due to the excitement of having solved the problem, he didn’t explain the situation properly, and that created a misunderstanding between the two of them.
“What I meant is for you to refer when you’re studying or testing alone, and NOT for you to use it for commercial use at your company.”
“I, I thought that you allowed me to refer to it in the project I’m in charge of……”
“…You’re not thinking that what I’m creating is an open-source, right?”
Jeff’s words were as picky as ever, but his eyes looking at YongHo had become one level softer.
After YongHo solved the problem, the program that he was making in Vdec was smooth sailing.
The indefinite time of commercializing the program had started taking form, and the office was also becoming lively.
“……”
“If you’re a programmer, you should know better than anyone else that the program source has a copyright.”
Jeff’s continuous words didn’t allow YongHo to refute in any way.
Clearly, he was at fault.
Even GNU, GPA, MIT, and other open source licenses were differentiated from those to use commercially and those for private use.
Moreover, what Jeff was developing was a program for commercial use. YongHo had suddenly become a shameless fellow who copied another’s source.
“You can’t turn back now since you’ve even uploaded it on the company, so what are you going to do?”
“Sorry?”
“It was me who showed it to you, so it will be hard to make you take legal responsibility, but you should be feeling at least some guilt, right? What are you going to do?”
Jeff pressured YongHo. Like he had said, it was hard for him to ask YongHo for legal responsibility. It wasn’t like YongHo hacked into the company to see the source, or that he had snuck into the company to see it.
Jeff himself showed YongHo the source, and YongHo had only written the source according to his memories.
Just that, his conscience was p.r.i.c.king right now, due to their relationship.
“…What should I do for…”
Due to feeling sorry, he couldn’t find what to do. He had come here to ask for advice, but had somehow become the thief.
It was clearly his own fault, so he couldn’t excuse himself either.
“Come to our company.”
“……”
“Then everything will be solved.”
“……”
He had come here to remove a b.u.mp only to get another b.u.mp called ‘pressure’.
As the distance wasn’t that far, he had gone to Jeff’s company during lunchtime.
Perhaps because he now had an extra worry, YongHo’s expression didn’t seem that good. The one who came to YongHo, who had a worried face, as he came in, was Dave.
He looked as lively as ever.
“YongHo! How is it? Did you get through the problem? Looking at your face, you’re still stuck?”
“Ah, yeah, well.”
“That’s why I prepared this! Here, have a look at this.”
Dave showed him the laptop that he had hidden behind his back. On it was a familiar code.
“Wh, what is it?”
“I also pondered on the source. Just how could I increase performance? I looked for some ways.”
“Ah, yeah.”
He couldn’t ignore the pa.s.sionate Dave. While he was looking at the code that Dave had written, people started gathering one by one.
“What’s up with you guys?”
It wasn’t only Jessie, James, and Na DaeBang. Mark, Lucia, and other developers within the company were making a crowd.
“I also have something to talk about.”
“Even so, this is too……”
It was no wonder YongHo was panicked.
They were politely waiting for their turn in a queue, which was very long.
They were inconveniencing the other employees in the office.
And that inconvenience was attracting even more people. In the end, only when the project manager, Brad, came, did the people go back to their places.
There was once a news broadcast that to have lunch with Warren Buffet, one would need a 100 million won (100 thousand USD).
Jeff Done was the Warren Buffet amongst programmers.
As if YongHo was his disciple, he was becoming a hot topic amongst the people.
That rumor made YongHo’s name even bigger within the company.
Dave didn’t stay away from YongHo all day. That was also true at home.
The thing he liked the most was programming, with the 2nd being figurines and action figures.
He didn’t miss the opportunity to fulfill his intellectual curiosity.
“The performance is dropping in the place where it’s predicting what data would come next to each byte in a file.”
“I know that too.”
“The efficiency isn’t that good either.”
“Probability, probability, eh…….”
YongHo decided to be absorbed in work while forgetting everything else. Accepting or rejecting Jeff’s offer was not something to consider right now.
It was more important to finish the things that he was in charge of within the company first.
“Well, then, let’s start from the beginning.”
Dave moved the cursor on the source to the beginning and started tracking again.
The principle was simple.
Let’s say that there is a data that goes ‘x.x.xaaaaabbccdddd’.
This can be represented as ‘x3a5b2c2d4’.
15 data was reduced to 10 data.
Let’s express this again as ‘xabcd’. The data was reduced to 5. Through prediction and probability, the computer knows that there are 3 x’s. It also knows that there are 5 a’s and 2 b’s.
File data was reduced in this way.
The problem was the method to extrapolate the fact that there are 3 x’s exactly.
‘I think I’m forgetting something……’
“YongHo, but you know… I think we need some kinda resource to find the adjacent data.”
“U, uh?”
“Isn’t that so? If I want to predict ‘Ho’ after ‘Yong’ then shouldn’t I need a resource data? I think we need to visit the server once to find it.”
At Dave’s mutterings, YongHo felt like lightning flashed in his head.
‘Actually, I might have seen something that said ‘Koogle’ something something……’
He did feel like there was an extra line.
And he felt that that line would be the key to solve this problem.
Vdec.
Jonathan’s expression was one of worry.
“Jeff, is it alright to show him all the source?”
“Of course it’s alright.”
Unlike Jonathan, Jeff didn’t seem to worry that much. As if no problems would arise, he didn’t seem to care.
“But even so, this is a project that Koogle is supporting… can we really show him all of it like this……?”
“In any case, it’s no use without Koogle.”
“R, really?”
Jonathan was worried, but he couldn’t not believe Jeff’s words either. Even Koogle acknowledged Jeff’s technical prowess and daringly invested in him.
His past career was adding weight onto the work he was doing.
“The project I’m doing now at Vdec requires the data Koogle provides as the basis. Although there is a core algorithm, to increase the accuracy of the compression algorithm, the structure has to refer to Koogle’s server, so even if he looked at the source, it will be useless without the library that Koogle provides to access its server.”
Jeff spoke while checking over the source.
The base data to increase the probability during compression was provided by Koogle.
As the world’s best, and the world’s largest search engine, hundreds of millions of data would pile up in Koogle every single day.
Such data was piled up for several years. Countless patterns of data would be stored in its server.
There wouldn’t be many cases where it would be off.
That, was what was increasing the performance of Jeff’s compression algorithm.
“You must be right……”
Even Jonathan seemed to find it difficult as he didn’t ask any more.
‘Even if YongHo applies it to his company, would he get 10%? Or 20% at best?’
Jeff, who was checking the source, cut the link with Koogle and ran the program.
!!!!!Pa.s.s fail!!!!!
Compressibility : 25.2%
This was the limit of the program without Koogle. As there were such limits, he could treat YongHo’s words in applying it to a commercial service as nothing.
20% at best, it would be hard to do more.
Rather, poaching YongHo to Vdec that way would be the best scenario.
‘There are a lot of things in my head that aren’t implemented. If I can do it with YongHo……’
Jeff didn’t plan to stop here.
Vdec was only the starting point.
YongHo was still fixing the source without looking at the Bug Window. As he edited more, he kept thinking that something was missing and he couldn’t concentrate.
“I think Dave’s words are correct……”
There needed to be a server for prediction.
He needed data to base the predicted results from.
He didn’t ask Jeff, but he was sure that his thoughts were right.
“That means… there is a clear limit to this library?”
YongHo ran the program again.
!!!!!Pa.s.s fail!!!!!
Compressibility : 36.5%
There were no increase in performance after 36.5%.
“Is it impossible to go above 50%……?’
He felt that this was the limit without looking at the Bug Window. Time was ticking.
He did say one month to Steve, but if he said that he didn’t want to show it to him within two weeks with a ‘tada!’, that would be a lie.
Chief Software Architect.
He would be acknowledged by a person who was in a position where there were only 20 in the company.
“According to Dave’s words, he looked down on Asian people, didn’t he?”
Moreover, borrowing Dave’s words, he ‘acknowledged people with the skills, but didn’t treat those without as humans.’
He was meritocratic.
He had high pride in his own skills, and was accordingly not so humble. If he considered a person as less than him, he didn’t put that person in his eyes.
He didn’t have a good reputation within the company, but his skills were acknowledged by everyone to the point that no one would object to him.
Many people could be seen leaving the company because they were looked down upon by him.
YongHo heard that Koreans were amongst those people.
As YongHo was in a different department, he didn’t see the scene himself.
“This is my ability now. From now…….”
He did feel that something was coming up on the Bug Window every time he ran it.
However, he was consciously avoiding it. He had already created the program design as well.
The aim was 50%.
If it didn’t work even with the Bug Window, then there was no choice for him but to switch workplaces to Jeff’s company and look into it.
$./run_cmopress_prgm.sh
YongHo ran the program and turned his gaze to the Bug Window which had a new notification.