Coder Lee YongHo – Chapter 65: Algorithm Study (2)Posted on August 17, 2016 by Chamber — Leave a reply
Greetings happened later.
After entering Shinseki, they rarely saw each other so although they were delighted to see each other again, they needed to focus on the study.
The study leader who gathered this study started explaining.
“First, we will go through one book in one month, and we will go on to a harder book. Our objective is to partic.i.p.ate in Topcode or Coder Jam later.”
Topcode and Coder Jam was, in a sense, a programming compet.i.tion.
Coder Jam, which was begun by Koogle for its new employees, now turned into a global festival where programmers from all over the world partic.i.p.ated.
Topcode was similar but had differences. In Topcode, award money was given by companies, when the problems they put on there was solved. 150 dollars to 300 dollars, 500 dollars, etc – There were various prizes, and the person with the most efficient code would take the money. And a person’s on-site rankings would go up as more people selected that person’s code.
Other than that, they could to algorithm implementation training, and there were algorithm compet.i.tions.
The final objective of this study was to partic.i.p.ate in those.
“It seems some people know each other already, but shall we introduce ourselves?”
At the kind looking study leader’s words, they introduced themselves one by one.
Their ages and places of living were all different. Their commuting companies were all different as well.
After the greetings, they solved a simple problem as a test. The problem the study leader brought was a queue algorithm.
A queue was a data structure with a First in, First out structure where the first one to be inserted into the data would be ejected first.
‘This is quite easy.’
Perhaps due to having experienced only hard questions, YongHo felt that the question was easy. Of course, it was also because he studied a lot in his university days.
When he lifted his head after quickly solving the problem, most of the people were in thought while their hands were placed on their laptop keyboards.
‘Is it supposed to be hard?’
Looking at other people’s expressions, it seemed that they were having a hard time. SungGyu, who YongHo followed like a G.o.d in his university days, also didn’t solve the problem yet.
As he was looking around, he met his eyes coincidentally with Ji SuMin’s. YongHo expressed his greetings by slightly nodding.
Swoosh.
When he saw that Ji SuMin turned her head away quickly, he laughed a little thinking that she was the same as ever.
‘I should treat them to a meal after this.’
Unlike his university days, he now had enough leisure to treat them. He now had enough ability to stop leeching on Kang SungGyu and his juniors.
“Is there someone who would like to explain at the front?”
A freelancer in his early 30s who called himself Jeong JinSup, came forward. Stubbornness could be seen from the eyes behind the horn-rimmed gla.s.ses on his just over 170 cm stature.
While explaning, he gave glances from time to time towards Ji SuMin or Choi HyeJin. YongHo remembered that Jeong JinSup emphasized that he didn’t have a girlfriend when he introduced himself.
“Any questions? If not, then we will end today’s session here.”
Jeong JinSup said to the people who were trying to leave since the study session ended.
“We will study together for quite a time, why don’t we have dinner together?”
It was dinner time.
The 7 headed to a meat restaurant.
The seating was naturally divided into 2.
“Hyung, it’s been a really long time.”
“Yes. I’m… delighted…to see you…”
After declining the offer from Mirae IT, they never contacted each other again.
YongHo didn’t do it, and SungGyu didn’t either.
Perhaps due to that incident, SungGyu had an awkward expression.
It was not only that.
The lively figure from university times couldn’t be found anywhere. The face that had wrinkles slightly made him look like he aged in a short time. Compared to that, Choi HyeJin’s personality was lively unlike her university days.
“Whoa, s...o...b..e, it’s been a really long time. It seems big companies do live up to their name? Your face looks so well.”
“Really? You too.”
“When I listened to the people who moved to Shinseki from here, they all say it’s quite difficult. But when I look at you, it doesn’t seem that difficult as they said.”
Choi HyeJin spoke while smiling brightly. That figure was good to look at. It was completely different to Kang SungGyu’s heavy expression.
“Hey, I do have a hard time, you know?”
“You don’t look like that at all… By chance, is there a place there? I want to try going to a big company too.”
At her question of ‘is there a place there?’, the people’s gazes all turned towards YongHo. Even Ji SuMin quietly put down the piece of meat she was going to eat.
“They will pick soon.”
At those words, Jeong JinSup interfered.
“Is a big company so good? They were all absorbed in management so their programming skills were all bad though.”
“Haha, well, there are departments like and not like that.”
“I also partic.i.p.ated in Shinseki’s project once, but the majority didn’t even know how to make an instance of tomcat……”
Jeong JinSup quietened down while sneaking a look at YongHo. His pride as a programmer was great.
However, if you say ‘why are you so bad at studying?’ to a person who can’t study well, they would get angry, but if you ask the same question to a person who is smart, then that person wouldn’t care.
That person had leisure and confidence. YongHo was like that.
“Is that so?”
“Are they management personnel or developers? They only know how to scold people. All they know is how to say ‘performance is too bad’, ‘why did you code the query like this?’ while they don’t even know the ‘C’ of coding…. Ha! They’re so absurd.”
Jeong JinSup poured out his grumbles as if he was really annoyed and he drank a gla.s.s of beer. Then, he kept complaining as if he had a lot piled up until now. A big company was such and such – The talk which began from there spread to the Korean IT industry as a whole.
However, it didn’t end there. He grandly preached a sermon about the att.i.tude a programmer should have, or how he studied, etc.
YongHo, who wanted to converse more with the people he hadn’t met for a long time, couldn’t listen to that story anymore. He took out his phone, and secretly messaged Kang SungGyu.
-Hyung, if you have time, shall we go for a 2nd round?
-That will be quite difficult.
-Oh, is that so, then there’s no helping it.
At that moment, a message arrived from another person. It was Choi HyeJin.
-s...o...b..e, I don’t want to listen to that person anymore, shall we go for a 2nd round by ourselves?
-Yes, shall we?
A 2nd round without Kang SungGyu started. At YongHo’s words of ‘you can choose anything’, Choi HyeJin rejoiced and YongHo could listen to the various things that happened in Mirae until now.
The story YongHo heard from Choi HyeJin was sufficient for him to feel that the world change fast.
‘Director Kim ManHo was fired, and Kim WonHo also……’
According to what Choi HyeJin said, Not long after director Kim ManHo was fired, Kim WonHo, who had poor skills anyway, was put into the same situation.
Their actions of treating people as they wanted had boomeranged back at them.
‘Times sure did change.’
Choi HyeJin was adapting to company life in her own way. Her ability was starting to get recognized to apparently, a lot of teams wanted her.
The cute and pure outer appearance also had a part. In contrast, Ji SuMin was starting to lose interest in coding.
According to Choi HyeJin’s words, she was considering leaving the company.
The most unpredictable one was Kang SungGyu.
‘SungGyu-hyung is the problem…’
He commuted to the company quietly without doing anything big but not too small either. This kind of situation would be unimaginable in his university days when he was recognized by everyone.
‘The work of men is sure unpredictable…’
When he thought of the events that happened until now, he could only say ‘how did something like this happen?’.
But even so, he was living a satisfying life due to his hard efforts.
‘I sleep on a bed like this too.’
There was not enough s.p.a.ce for a bed so he didn’t even think about buying one. However with the prize money from the NetFlax Prize, YongHo now had a bed in his room after his family moved houses.
A more comfortable life was beginning.
The estimated price for the server that the planning team calculated was around 30 million won (≈26,000USD). Considering tens of millions people as customers, they set the minimum image storage as 2 megabytes.
Just the hard disk required 20 terabytes at least. If they considered a backup, then it would be 40 terabytes.
A tera was 1024 × 1024 times bigger than a mega.
It was a huge amount of data.
If they considered a server to provide the service, they would need a lot more than 20 million (≈17,400USD) so they requested for 30 million.
However the result was denial.
“It still wasn’t approved?”
“Yes. It was denied with the reason that the price for the server was too much.”
“Welp, everything’s not going as expected……”
Jeong DanBi sighed and said. Every time she tried to do something, nothing went smoothly. Either there was an interference from the company or there was a problem with personnel.
“Why don’t we use an outside CDN(Contents Delivery Network) service?”
Heo JiHoon put out an idea in his own way. However, Jeong DanBi disagreed right away.
“If we use an outside service when we have an IT subsidiary… Bad rumors will spread inside the company. We need to use inside resources as much as possible.”
Jeong DanBi never considered using outside resources.
“Then I will look for a place where I can buy it at a cheaper price.”
“I want to just buy it with my own money…”
“…Of course, team leader has that ability but I’m not sure if the company would allow that.”
“Yes. Please look into lower prices.”
Three foreigners were lost and were looking around in Incheon International Airport. Their exceptional figures attracted the surrounding people’s gazes.
The woman amongst them, who boasted of blond hair and white skin, seemed dissatisfied with the current situation as she had a creased face.
“Where are you planning to go?”
“We need to go to YongHo.”
“Did you contact him beforehand?”
“Friends know each other’s hearts. YongHo should be waiting for me.”
Dave said with an exaggerated expression. Jessie creased her face as she thought that such a figure was so disappointing and asked blankly.
“So, did you contact him?”
“No, I even lost the contact info.”
“…Hey, you f*cker. WHY ARE YOU SAYING THAT NOW!”
In the end, Jessie shouted in the middle of the airport. James on the side, was smiling at the new environment known as Korea.
Dave asked James without minding the shouting Jessie.
“How is it? Isn’t it heart-pounding?”
At Dave’s words, James nodded his head. Unbefitting of the muscles which covered his entire body, he had a naïve face.
“Well then, shall we go?”
“*Sigh*… where are you going?”
“We can go to Shinseki. Let’s go!”
Dave confidently walked forward. Jessie followed Dave as if she had given up.
In the end, Jeong DanBi went to the finance team herself. Even though she decreased the request by 10%, the funding wasn’t approved.
Their hardware was cheaper than the hardware at the same level that other teams used.
“Why are you saying you can’t approve it?”
“We’re short on money.”
“What?”
“Producing the Shinseki’s Magic Mirror took most of the funds so we can’t approve of hardware purchase requests.”
The neatly parted hair showed the personality of this finance team leader. Even though Jeong DanBi, the direct descent of the chairman, was speaking, this man didn’t even twitch his eyebrows.
“So, how low is possible?”
“If it’s around 50% of what it is now, then it’s possible.”
“I’m not joking.”
“What a coincidence. I hate jokes too. Or you can wait until next year for the funding.”
Jeong DanBi’s breathing became rough. Then she spoke words that she should have never said.
“Why, did president Jeong JinHoon tell you to do this?”
“No.Way.It.Isn’t.Like.That.”
The finance team leader broke his words.
“Then it doesn’t make sense that we aren’t even allocated 30 million!”
Jeong DanBi couldn’t control her emotions and she let it all out. The people’s gazes inside the room all turned towards Jeong DanBi.
“Are you keep going to do this?”
Jeong DanBi then realized her mistake. She was in the middle of attention. She judged that any more conversation was meaningless. Then she left the office.
‘How should I tell them about this…’
Chaos would probably ensue if she talked to Son SeokHo about it. The trust in a team leader who couldn’t even get 30 million won funds would also plummet in the hearts of the team members.
‘*Sigh*… It’s not like I can hide it either.’
Jeong DanBi’s agony became deeper.