Plans for summer

Now second semester is over officially. I have best marks on all subjects as in first semester :). During next 2 months I think my main activity will be work. I want to buy a laptop. What is bad, is that, as I think, there is no real need in it for me. I only *want* it... But in the end of summer there will be my birthday and I want laptop as a present :). Moreover I have some other plans for summer:

• Read some dialogues of Plato
• Study C# (I have a choice between two books. I've already decided which I'll buy, but I think, in future I will buy also an another, because these books cover different parts of language and software development)
• Study UML (I've also found a book about it)
• Write Egnoly: text editor on C#. Main aim of this project for me is to to study development of Windows applications and practice in C# and in programming in whole
• Write application with codename UP: now it's just an evaluator of arithmetical expressions. That's also a practice in programming and it is rather interesting.
  

My programming

So good to have a rest from study! Now I can make what I want to do. :)

Today I worked a little with some C++ headers that will be useful in different applications so a named them ksvlib (from KoleSoV :). Moreover I'm planning to write now two applications: UP - that is something that could be a computer language in far far future and text editor. The former I write on C++ to enhance my skills in it. The latter I will write on C#. At know I almost don't know C#, but I think I could learn enough fast. I want to start this project to learn programming with GUI not on console.

I think this summer could be rather productive for me in writing software. :)

Launchy

I have a very nice desktop — I've removed all icons from it. Now it is clear and rather beautiful. Moreover I've set Start Menu of Windows to auto-hide. Because I'm needed it in very rare cases. To call applications I now use Launchy.

It's a free utility that scans through set directories and remembers all executable files and shortcuts. When you start in typing in Launchy name of application you want to start Launchy automatically suggests it and if it is right you don't need to type full name of application. Moreover Launchy remembers your choice and when you again type this part of application name Launchy suggests it firstly, so starting frequently used applications is an easy task. Although starting rarely used applications is also rather easy.

You can download Launchy from its site: http://www.launchy.net

Yeah... Relax...

Today I've passed physics exam on best mark. I'm really pleased with that. Now there is only exam in programming, but, to be honest, I know programming enough well to be sure that there won't be any problems with it. I'm rather tired after exams so need some rest... some programming... :) and play "Battle for Wesnoth"... :)

And what is more: Google has its Summer of Code, so why I can't have my own? That not be a contest (at least at first time) and in this year there will be only me, all in all this name will be much more symbolic than the representation of real matters... But why not have some fun with names? :)

Where time goes?

Not very original name for the post, but that is the question I've asked myself today. On Saturday I will have an exam in physics. So I had some plans on preparing to it... but there is evening now, but I still haven't made even half of planned work! And I couldn't understand what I was doing today that the all time went out without remarkable result...

Bad! Very bad! May be I need some rest?..

Microsoft Visual Studio Codename "Orcas" Beta 1 (VS 2008)

MS have released first beta version of its Visual Studio Codename "Orcas". Officially it will be Visual Studio 2008.

For a long time I was of bad opinion about MS & its products. However while writing programs I've realized that it is not an easy work & bugs always appear & and in such a complex structures as e.g. Windows it's almost impossible to find all bugs during beta testing. So now my attitude to MS products is not so bad as it was in the past.

I've decided to try MS Visual Studio Express Edition. At first I've used VS 2005 and now I switched to VS 2008. It's my trait — I love to be on the front edge of technology, though I'm not always able. :( Of course sometimes VS crashes, but this is not common case and I haven't got significant problems with that, in spite of Safari... At first I've used Express Edition which is free, but now I've decided to try Pro version which is free while in beta. Of course after beta period will expire I would have to return to EE, but now I want to understand "What is pro version and how it differs from EE and my favourite PSPad Editor". I think it will be good to compare VS and PSPad. However, to be honest, these are products of different types: VS is an IDE, while PSPad is a text editor, which can be used as an IDE. So to make comparison richer I think it will be useful to add to it Notepad++ and may be Netbeans:I haven't got much experience with it, but little portions of work in it make me feel that it is rather good IDE.

So... It seems I've found a good source of posts for this blog: write about software I like and don't like and why. All in all, I think PSPad is worth giving him a chance. :)

Mathematics exam

Today I've passed an exam in mathematics on best mark! I'm really pleased with that, and now I have only 2 exams left and one of them is programming and I haven't got any problems with it. Another is physics. I'm not so good in it as in programming but I think there will be nothing too difficult for me.

I now haven't got much time for my own activities and paused my programming work. Moreover I'm experiencing some internal conflict: I have a lot of things I want to do, but time goes as a sand from hands without any significant result... But I think exams are legitimate reason not to be enough productive.

Lumosity - reclaim your brain

Brain is like muscles — to be in fit it should be trained a lot. While performing intellectual operations brain trains and one of the best things about this is that it trains in something while doing this, so the best way to learn play chess well is to play chess, the best way to learn programming is to write programs. However just performing some operation can train brain to do this operation well but to boost progress in training and learn even more techniques than just from self-studying it is important to get information from another sources, not just own experience.

In article on lifehack.org I've read about Lumosity — training program for brain. It consists of different games to train brains memory, processing speed, attention and cognitive control. I've tried it and found it very interesting to play some these games. Of course without serious study I couldn't say that my memory was improved by Lumosity, but I can say that at least I've trained in these games and now I can play much better than at the beginning. And what is more games are rather exiting, so I advice to try Lumosity while it is on beta and free.

up

I'm writing an application to evaluate numeric expressions and in future I want to expand it to perform much more complex operations, even to programming language.

0.0.1a1 - that is number of first version that was doing something. In fact it takes from standard input binary operation with integer values, calculates result and prints it.

Now i'm working on refactoring object model in this application. At first I've made a template which was a wrap to existent classes and types. But than I've understand that it will be much better to create exact classes for types, so instead of Value<> I'll have class IntType. Moreover I will soon add an ability to parse multiple binary expressions from input and (of course) print version number if there is specified flag --version. After that I plan to add parsing of expressions of any number of operands. And after that... my plans are not very clear...

Safari web browser

Recently Apple released beta version of it's web browser Safari. What is cool is that now it is available not only for Macs but also for PC. So I've decided to try Safari.

However my attempt wasn't successful. Browser installed normally but on many sites it doesn't show web links! Only an underlined empty place. I've experienced this in GMail and Google Reader. And that are vital web apps for me, some months ago I switched from Opera to FF only because Opera didn't work properly with some AJAX websites, for example Google Reader. Of course I can replace GMail and Reader with other apps, but does it worth the price? I think not, because Safari bugs with links are on many different sites not only Google. I've read on Digg that some people have problems with Yahoo!.

I think problems with links are connected with font rendering, because some links are shown normally, while problems are usually with bold links. And moreover I've read a blogpost about problems with font rendering on CodingHorror. And on Digg discussion there are two main lines of opinions: "Font rendering on Safari looks awesome!!" and "Font rendering on Safari looks terrible!".

So Apple tries to expand it's market in Windows apps. iTunes has been downloaded by 500 millions of Windows users. Will be Safari? Life will show. All in all it is beta version and it is made to find bugs in application, so I couldn't strongly criticise Apple for Safari that doesn't work good. And that beta shows that there are serious problems with porting of Mac look-and-feel on Windows.

Beggining of the summer

So it's a June 7, day of the first exam in this session. So good that lecturer gave me best mark without any exam! :)

During these days I can stay at home and make a lot of different stuff. At first I need to prepare to exam in mathematics. I think after it I will have an allergy on mathematics...

Secondly I'm programming between studying mathematics. I made some progress with my app CodeExplorer which works with source code and analyses it. Though now there is nothing interesting in these app. Just some stuff from a young programmer. But now I also made an app which should work with mathematical expressions and evaluate them. Now it can only perform addition on integer numbers, but it will be much easy to add another operations. Thought adding another types of data will be much harder and what is more I'm not pleased with code that was written. I think I'll add to it common arithmetic operations, some features, write tests and then will try to refactor this awful code. At least I'll try to think of approaches of how to represent in program different data types.

Furthermore I think now I'm giving too little time to my mental study (or how it better to name?..). I haven't read any book than tech books since January! In except of some periodic reading of Confucius. I should think of that and return to this reading. At least one non-tech book must be read by me during this summer!


What is more during these summer I sometimes play in computer game called "Battle for Wesnoth". It's a free strategy game with fantasy entourage. I like it.