Vijay Talks Tech

macOs grep -f Is a Nested Loop Join; Use ripgrep or mawk Instead

Vijay Varadan — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 09:00:00 -0700

BSD grep runs every pattern over the whole file, at 6.5 ms per pattern per mebibyte. ripgrep, GNU grep and mawk each build one lookup structure and make a single pass.

Review: Brief: Make a Bigger Impact by Saying Less

Vijay Varadan — Wed, 30 May 2018 20:51:00 -0700

For a book on being brief, it's thrice as long as it needs to be. Only chapters 1-8 are worth reading.

Raise the Bar: Ennobling Habits

Vijay Varadan — Wed, 23 May 2018 20:34:00 -0700

"We function best when our habits ennoble us."

Review: Kanban in Action

Vijay Varadan — Mon, 14 May 2018 13:50:00 -0700

Highly recommended. An excellent Kanban resource.

Review: The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up

Vijay Varadan — Sat, 04 Mar 2017 18:58:00 -0800

Recommended, but be ready to filter out some strange anecdotes and slightly whacky techniques.

Review: Getting Results the Agile Way

Vijay Varadan — Wed, 08 Feb 2017 18:58:00 -0800

Recommended, but only chapters 1-4.

Review: User Story Mapping

Vijay Varadan — Tue, 07 Feb 2017 23:58:00 -0800

Recommended: In-depth treatment, good writing style makes it easy to absorb information.

Review: Software in 30 Days

Vijay Varadan — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 23:50:00 -0800

YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary). The book is primarily for executives & decision makers.

Review: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Vijay Varadan — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 23:50:00 -0800

Recommended. Well worth the time.

Review: Start with Why

Vijay Varadan — Sun, 29 Jan 2017 13:50:00 -0800

Watch the 18 min TED Talk instead - there, I saved you 5 hours.

Python Mixed Metaphors

Vijay Varadan — Sat, 30 Jul 2016 22:50:00 -0700

Python violates 'The Priciple of Least Astonishment' when using a mutable default value as a function parameter.

HOWTO: Develop a Prototyping Mindset

Vijay Varadan — Sun, 20 Mar 2016 23:22:00 -0700

Lessons from prototyping games and other software while running my own company.

C++ Standard Library Gotcha: Include Headers Explicitly

Vijay Varadan — Sun, 24 Jan 2016 08:47:00 -0800

Compiler errors aren't all that informative even in 2016. Case in point.

PowerShell HOWTO: Pass Command Line Arguments From One Script to Another

Vijay Varadan — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 20:10:00 -0800

It's a bit harder than the baton hand-off in a relay race.

[SOLVED] Cocos Studio: 'Cocos Framework is not installed' Error

Vijay Varadan — Sat, 16 Jan 2016 14:45:00 -0800

Tearing my hair out trying to get Cocos2dx to work.

PowerShell: Dot Sourcing Scripts Quirks

Vijay Varadan — Tue, 05 Jan 2016 08:17:00 -0800

Solutions to some PowerShell quirks when dot sourcing scripts.

Organization of Build Environment Scripts

Vijay Varadan — Mon, 04 Jan 2016 10:42:00 -0800

Layout and invocation of python scripts to set up my Scons based build system.

HOWTO: Scons - Remove Extra Build Output Files

Vijay Varadan — Sun, 03 Jan 2016 20:57:00 -0800

Getting SCons to correctly deal with 'extra' (ILK, PDB, etc) build output files.

Software Atrophy: An Example

Vijay Varadan — Thu, 10 Sep 2015 12:51:00 -0700

Internal tools need regular maintenance, just like all other software systems.

Object Model of My SCons-based Build System

Vijay Varadan — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 08:18:00 -0800

SCons, a python based build system, is what we use at Axham Technologies.

A Tour of C++ / Bjarne Stroustrup

Vijay Varadan — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 12:57:00 -0800

Highly recommended. Great book to get started with modern C++, especially for those with prior C++ experience.

Weekly Planning

Vijay Varadan — Sun, 21 Dec 2014 12:18:00 -0800

From Laura Vanderkam's 'What the Most Successful People Do at Work'.

Habits - Anthony Trollope

Vijay Varadan — Sun, 21 Dec 2014 10:28:00 -0800

Chip away at the block, one bit at a time.

3 Steps to New Habits

Vijay Varadan — Sat, 20 Dec 2014 06:51:00 -0800

Make it tiny. (2) Find a spot. (3) Train the cycle.

My Fingers Thank Me - Profusely!

Vijay Varadan — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 03:48:00 -0700

Your finger health - yes, it's time to talk about ergonomics.

Mercurial Diffs with vim on Windows

Vijay Varadan — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 07:31:00 -0800

Banging my head feels soooo good compared to getting vim, dirdiff and mercurial to play nice on Windows.

Building Ogre3D 1.8.1 on MinGW

Vijay Varadan — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 15:26:00 -0700

Jumping through hoops of fire to get Ogre3D to build on MinGW.

Building boost Binaries on MinGW

Vijay Varadan — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 17:14:00 -0700

Jumping through hoops to get boost libraries built on MinGW.

Compression is not a UI decision...

Vijay Varadan — Tue, 12 May 2009 19:24:00 -0700

Architecture non-dilemma: Is compression a UI theme responsibility? Hint: NO!

Linux - Always a bridesmaid, never a bride...

Vijay Varadan — Tue, 05 May 2009 06:09:00 -0700

My misadventures trying to use Linux as a desktop OS. Facepalm time.