Tag Archive for 'fairIsaac'

Yet Another Transition

Published on May 29, 2009 in Anu. 1 Comment

After 4 happy years of coding in compiled languages of C and C++, the time has come to make a transition to the interpreted language of Java. The change is more of an imposed one than desired. And I am not getting drawn into the subject of compilers vs. interpretors, mainly because of my lack of experience with the latter category.

Starting the next week, I shall join the FICO, Bangalore. I am quite excited about the oppurtunity as I have received excellant inputs from my seniors and their friends regarding the kind of work that people do over there. Also I need a change from an university-like environment.

Now at Fair Isaac, apparently, people prefer Java over C++. Navin sir said that there are a group of people using C++, but the bulk of libraries and code is in Java. So it will be easier if I switch over to Java than C++, though it shouldn’t be a lot tougher sticking with it. And after giving it a thought, I have decided to learn Java. Learning a new programming language is all about going through its libraries and adapting them. It should be an easy enough task. Also since I have a basic understanding of objects, classes, inheritance and theior abstract nature, it should be easy enough.

The only thing I shall miss are the pointers. Sadly Java does not allow pointer access to programmers like the C does. I do not know the reason behind this restriction, but it sure makes me sad. Of late, most of my variables were being referenced by address and I was really getting into the habbit of using pointers. They make complicated things so easy to manage.

And then another thing is the usage of WIndows. I would really prefer Ubuntu for coding. I do not thing there should be any problem with using ubuntu. I just do not want to START to TURN OFF windows :P .

Tags: , , .

Fair Isaac Prelims Question 1

Published on December 8, 2008 in Miscel. 0 Comments

As I mentioned earlier, I have been offered a position at the R&D department of Fair Isaac. This was through the campus interviews. 

The first round was a mathematical test that we had to pass in order to be shortlisted for the interviews. I did not do the test that well. However, I have been thinking about a few of the problems, and shall be publilshing the soutions here as and when I get the time.

I was returning from Kharagpur to Hyderabad. The train journey always is the most boring part of the holidays. However, this time it wasn’t so. You have lots of free time to think, and i was thinking about the conversation I had with Pooja. She had asked me about my performance in the second module of the Fair Isaac test, and I replied that I had taken a few calculated smart risks.

It so turns out that I did indeed make a fool of myself. Here I am posting the question and the right solution. Never ask me for the smart logic I had applied in the test. Obviously it back-fired.

Question:

Given that a, b, c, d are all integers, find the number of solutions to the following set of equations:

a + b + c + d = 0

1/a + 1/b + 1/c + 1/d = 0

|a| + |b| + |c| + |d| = 2008

 

Solution:

From the first two set of equations we can conclude that a = -b, and c = -d.

Using the third equation, we get that

        2a + 2c = 2008

=>     a  +  c = 1004

Now, a or c cannot be 0. So the possible set of solutions to this eqation is

{ (1, 1003), (2, 1002) , … , (1003, 1) }

The size of this set is 1003. So, the solution to our original question  is

{ (a, -a, c, -c), (a, -a, -c, c), (-a, a, c, -c), (-a, a, -c, c) }

Thus the number of solutions to the given set of equations is 4 x 1003 = 4012

 

I hope this solution is right.

Tags: , .
Theme Tweaker by Unreal