Coder Lee Yongho - Chapter 82

In a quiet cafe, a pretty girl and an ordinary man was sitting and conversing. The stuttering English skills of the man was even pitiable.
The pretty girl’s English was fluent, and from some time, she even spoke Korean well.
A little rest time, while they were all looking at their own phones, the ordinary man, YongHo, called the pretty girl, Jessie.
“Jessie!”
At his call, Jessie lifted up her head. YongHo excitedly held out his phone.
“Here, it does say that he will meet me, right?”
Jessie was now at a level where she could understand YongHo’s Korean. Although she had difficulties in writing or speaking, listening wasn’t a problem for her.
“Yes. He’s asking for your phone number.”
Wow!
YongHo exclaimed. He was half-skeptical even when he left the message. He had only gave a short greeting. He had no confidence that he would still remember him.
Jessie, who checked the Fadebook, also seemed surprised as her already wide eyes widened even more.
“Is this person perhaps Jeff Done?”
YongHo nodded a few times in agreement. Then, Jessie hurriedly asked YongHo while putting her head forward.
“How do you know Jeff?”
Jessie also seemed to know this man. YongHo calmly explained the things that happened at the Koogle Design Award.

***

In about a 30 pyung (100m^2) office, 7 people were gathered. The 7 desks had their own individuality. A desk filled with food, a desk with a mountain of books on top, and a neat desk.
Jeff’s seat was the neat desk. Jeff called for Jonathan who was sitting to his opposite.
“Jonathan, I’ll leave first for today.”
“Why? Did you get a girlfriend or something?”
Jonathan looked at Jeff in curiosity. The clock was pointing to 5 PM. Normally, when Jeff left work, it would be about 9 spaces further from now on. (T/N: Meaning 2 AM)
“No, I have someone to meet.”
“Oh lord, please let the person Jeff meets be a girl!”
At Jonathan’s joke, Jeff laughed and left the office.
Vdec.
This was the name of the company that could be seen behind Jeff as he left the company.

While YongHo was drinking coffee silently in his seat, Jessie, in contrast, seemed uncomfortable.
At that figure, YongHo, who was sorry, coughed emptily.
“I’m sorry Jessie, I had no one else but you. Dave, as you know, can’t speak any Korean. And I repeat, but please don’t mention it to Dave.”
When he thought about that he would meet Jeff alone, he was pressured and in the end, he asked Jessie for translation. In addition, he reminded her many times to not mention it to Dave.
For some reason, Jessie, who rejected many times, accepted as if she had no choice.
“It’s alright.”
She didn’t look alright at all, but YongHo only thought that it was because she was nervous to meet a new person.
Just in time, Jeff, wearing a backpack, arrived at the scene.

YongHo found Jeff first and waved his hand. However, the person Jeff was looking at was not YongHo.
YongHo thought that Jeff had perhaps not recognized him as he waved his hand even stronger and called Jef.
“Here!”
Was it due to YongHo’s voice being too big? Jessie also stood up and looked at Jeff.
Jeff also looked at Jessie. His pupils were trembling as if there was an earthquake.

YongHo expressed his gratitude that he had met him. However, the awkward atmosphere didn’t disappear at all.
Jeff took out a laptop from his bag, put it on the table and turned it on. Finally, his trembling pupils also found their peace.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. YongHo.”
“Thank you so much. She’s my friend Jessie, and I called her today because my English is lacking and asked her to translate.”
At YongHo’s words, Jessie nodded her head.
“Yes.”
A short answer. Jeff turned his gaze to the laptop monitor immediately after he answered. As if the screen will calm him down.

After a brief exchange of greetings occurred, YongHo went into topic. Jeff shook his head while listening to YongHo’s story.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t make any time for you. Shouldn’t that time have some merit for me as well?”
YongHo was also expecting this. In Korea, people didn’t tell anyone the things that they knew about, easily, even if that person was from the same company.
He didn’t think America would be that much different.
“Please tell me anything.’
“I had a look at your submission in the Koogle Design Award. It was optimized quite well. And so… do you know about the Huffman algorithm?”
Huffman algorithm. (T/N: Wow, something I actually know about, lol)
As one of the most widely used compression algorithms, it was one of the algorithms used in file compressions. It’s the process of assigning each unit of data, expressed using bits(binary digits), based on the frequency of appearance of the data, to express it using a less number of bits, and decreasing the number of bits used to express the whole data.
Simply, it’s needed to decrease the size of a file.
Of course, YongHo knew vaguely about what it was.
“Oh, I do, but why……?”
“Then, first have a look at this.”
Jeff took out some paper from his bag.
Security Pledge.
YongHo was confused why he needed to write something like this, and wondered just what kind of thing he was going to be shown, but as he had nothing to lose, he signed with a light heart.
The influence of Jessie saying that it didn’t have anything special, was very big.
“Have a look at this code.”
Jeff Done showed YongHo the code which was written in the development tool on the laptop.
“Here, when it’s searching the entire file……”
YongHo stopped Jeff when he was about to explain. Then he told him, through Jessie, to run the program.
It was strange that Jessie twitched every time she spoke, but trivial things like that weren’t important right now.

Jeff ran the program and YongHo looked at not the laptop screen, but the bug window.
‘Hm……’

Title : Logic Error finding video screen for compression.
Content : The performance of the search algorithm predicting similar video frames for compression is O(N^2). It needs to be tuned to O(N).

YongHo thought up of something from his past.
There were a total of 7 indicators when evaluating algorithm performance.
O(1), O(logN), O(N), O(NlogN), O(N^2), O(N^3), O(2^N) – and the performance becomes worse as you proceed. Performance meant speed, meaning the speed of processing work,
‘So the tuning is the problem.’
YongHo nodded towards Jessie. He meant that he could solve it.
And that was passed onto Jeff.

YongHo was coding right in front of Jeff. And not even 1 hour later, he took his hands off the keyboard.
Jeff, who built the program and ran it, became speechless
“……”
Jeff, who was looking at the monitor, stiffened just like that. He couldn’t believe it even though he was looking with his own eyes.
Jeff couldn’t understand it so he took out a memo from his bag this time. Then, he held out the pen towards YongHo.
“How did you do it?”
YongHo shrugged his shoulders, as if he didn’t understand. Jessie, at his side, interpreted for him. (T/N: But that’s like… elementary English though?)
“He wants an explanation as to how you did it.”
Now, Jessie could speak simple sentences fluently as if she had become used to Korean. At those moments, YongHo always thought that there were a lot of geniuses in this world.
Unlike a fake genius like him.
“First, please ask if he can tutor me in algorithm.”
YongHo had the things he needed. Jessie passed that on to Jeff.
“He says he’ll do it if you tell him how you did that.”
“Then tell him that I will explain him using the source.”
YongHo didn’t have the confidence to write mathematical formulae yet. The memo that Jeff took out wasn’t even A4 paper sized.
To make him write there means for him to explain simply. It was a method that YongHo couldn’t do.
Jeff tilted his head as if it was strange, but he soon immersed himself in YongHo’s explanations.

Jeff, who finished listening to the explanation asked in doubt.
“Why me?”
In Jeff’s view, YongHo had sufficient ability even without him having to teach him. However YongHo’s view was different.
He wouldn’t be able to solve it without the bug window. Just that was enough of a reason to request help from Jeff.
YongHo, who couldn’t talk about the details, could only repeat his words.
“Please keep your promise.”
As he felt that he became one closer to the peak, YongHo could stand up from his seat light heartedly.

***

Even after YongHo had left, the other two people couldn’t leave.
“Jessie……”
Jeff’s words contained sadness. Longing and disappointment, one one hand, it even contained hatred – with all those intertwined, he was chaotic.
However, Jessie wasn’t. Just one, she only showed sorriness.
“It’s been a while.”
“Is Dave doing well?”
“Well, he’s as ever.”
“Yes. He never changed.”
Jeff already knew of Dave. Jessie also accepted Jeff’s such reaction as if it was obvious.
“How is it? Is work going well?”
“Work, well……”
Jeff swallowed his next words. The time he concentrated in work in order to forget passed by him like a film.
When he started working, not just 1 or 2 hours, but 5 or 6 hours passed by in a flash. And he started forgetting with that.
“It was nice to meet you. I forgot about you so… Let’s contact each other some time.”
“……”
Jeff couldn’t reply to Jessie’s words. Although Jessie might have forgotten, Jeff was still in the process of forgetting.
The project he was doing now was also on that line. Jeff thought that he wouldn’t be able to go back home again that night.

***

While looking at Dave who shouted as soon as he entered the house, YongHo had a sudden burst of bad premonition. Perhaps thanks to the English tutoring until now, communication happened faster than before when he used his hands and feet, even though his English wasn’t that good yet.
And perhaps due to that, the emotions contained in those words could be more easily felt.
“YongHo!”
“Y, yeah?”
“Why did you look for one outside!?”
Dave was now holding on to a pair of toy twin swords. He reminded YongHo of Luffy’s comrade, Zoro, from One Piece.
“Wh, what do you mean?”
YongHo stumbled backwards. And Dave stepped forward by just that much.
Passing the straw hat to YongHo had a big meaning for Dave.
Acknowledgement as a friend, and as a comrade.
And he even passed on the heart to support each other.
Dave was angry because he felt disappointed that YongHo had hidden something from him when YongHo had believed in him when coming to America.
Dave’s twin swords crossed and he swung them.
“Is this the time to pull out!?”
Although it was a toy, it looked quite painful to be hit by it. YongHo nimbly dodged Dave and ran to the living room.
“No, I just needed to study for a bit, and I did plan to tell you!”
YongHo, who ran to the living room, could only resent Jessie.
‘And I told you so much to not to tell him.’
He had told her that because he was expecting this reaction.
Dave, who was chasing YongHo, who ran to the living room, stopped and muttered in place.
“Yes, I can just become the world’s best programmer. I…I, until the day I beat that guy and become the top coder I definitely…definitely won’t lose……”
Dave, who muttered a line from one piece, powerlessly put down the twin swords and went upstairs.
“I, I’m sorry, Dave!”
While chasing Dave who was going upstairs, YongHo thought.
‘Relationships are harder than coding, eh…’
Relationship between people, which was unpredictable was several times more difficult than coding where a fixed result would be produced.
A few more days were needed for Dave’s anger to calm down.