What I've done and haven't done

Firstly, I had written this post to my software blog, but then I've decided that it isn't software-specific and should be posted here. However I'm too lazy to revise it and remove "programmisms" from beginning part.

It is useful sometimes to take a pause and look at what you wanted to make some time ago, what you have done, what you are doing, what's the progress on it and what you want to do.

What I've wanted and what's the result?

• I've wanted to pass all these labs in different subjects. Success.
• Successfully finish study at courses of databases. Success.
• Daily read news from internet. Successful in whole, thought I've sacrificed some news-feeds because it is too hard to read 'em all. Success (may be not full, not sure)
• Regularly write to my blog (now I have two blogs). Not very good results: I don't write much to them. Thought I haven't dropped and forgotten them, so Partial Success.
• I've wanted to read a lot of books. From those in list I've read only "Code Complete". But I've read two another books: about C# and "Pragmatic programmer" (Aahh, I haven't written about that! Need to fix that in near future!). And now I'm reading "Design Patterns". And I really want to read any book about UML. Result: All in all I think that's a success, however not following first plan.
• Write some software to practice. During summer I worked on Egnoly text editor. And now I continue to work with .NET Framework, have some projects in mind and write some code for libraries on C#. Success, not 100% but about 90%... :) Or I'm not objective and too love myself??? May be...
• I still haven't got a girlfriend. It isn't programming of course but has an effect on mind and mental condition.
• I still have got chaos on shelves I don't use regularly. Terrible, but there is a relative order on my desk :)
• I haven't made my programming language. May be I'm too young for that. But this idea still in my head and don't want to go away, instead it becomes stronger and stronger after reading Pragmatic Programmer.
• I wanted to use Test-Driven Development, nut still don't use it actively. However I regularly try to write tests for my applications. And they give the result! So I think that's a matter of time. May be I'll not become a TDD programmer, but the one who actively and properly uses tests. Result: 40% of Success.
• I've taught myself to actively use scheduling. Now I use not a calendar but a Todoist and I often don't follow it but I've already have a place where my wishes and plans on this day are written.
  
• Something more that a achieved and haven't achieved. Couldn't remember all of them.

What I'm doing by now?

• Studying
• Writing some soft on C#, not very useful, but some practice
• Also reading Design Patterns: useful book, sure I'll write review about it!
• Participating in open source project Battle for Wesnoth as a translator.
  

What I want?

• Make such list and judgement of results rather regular.
• Follow schedule that I'm making for myself. And make this schedule more wisely and realistic!
• Develop my relations with human beings :). I don't want to communicate only with computers.
  
• Still want to make scripting programming language.
• Write software on C#: develop Egnoly, common stuff for .NET, and something new, i.e. tool to synchronise my desktop PC and laptop.
• Study well in university.
• Continue and develop my participation in OSS projects. May soon I'll be able to contribute to Wesnoth as a programmer? Or contribute to another project either as a programmer or translator.
• Start project with my fellows. There is no concrete plans on it, now it's a long-distance target.

And again: I want to make this list more clear. At least more clear for me :) And update it regularly.

[Update] Add target to communicate more with people. Just forgot about it :(.

Some major tasks for close period finished

During last week I've spent much time visiting hospital and passing some physical examinations. It took rather a lot of time especially because of long distance between my home and hospital.

During last weekend I've made a lot of study work and for now has lesser major tasks to do. I've done functionality of my coursework on programming and now need to make program look good and make report for it.

Coursework is one of big projects that lasts more than a few days. What other big projects do I have? At first it is reading books. Now I'm reading "Design Patterns" about programming. My programming projects got some attention on last week but on this week they have lacked it. Hope I'll correct this in next days.

Eh... No any ideas more for now, I'm going to sleep... I've slept rather a small time during last days.

Again and again: where is time?

So I've recently written that I have a lot of work and now I've realized that now I couldn't find time for my own activities, i.e. programming. I was constantly working during this week and made a lot of work, but it all was about university. And next week doesn't promise to be different. What to do? How to make all university staff and made something for yourself? Again I meet this problem. Of course "myself" isn't only programming, it is also other thing but this is the first about which I think. Tomorrow I will visit big book market with my friend. It is better than sitting at home all day.


What to do?

• Firstly, now I'm actively using Todoist to manage my tasks and time arrangement. I still couldn't use calendars or organizers but I found a good use for that simple webapp.
• On next week I'll try to find time to do something that is not-university. Surely it will be some programming (and what you awaited from me? :).
• May be found some non-computer activity? Or at least non-programming? I couldn't guess what it can be.

And also about my current activities: some of my time is spent on working with book for one of our professors. He has a book about his subject but it exists only in one instance. So I've scanned it and now make text recognition. Rather dull work because my OCR is rather simple (but free).

And idea of a day: Do something meaningful :)

"Old new" pace of life

Now when I'm working there are serious changes in my daily timetable. I'm at work for about 8 hours every day and I still haven't adopted to this. Of course I want to perform some programming as usual, but after the work I now haven't got enough energy for this. Today I've read two articles in Spectrum magazine and pieces from "The Republic" of Plato. That's not very much and moreover I've realized that I don't remember almost anything from most philosophic books I'd read... :-( I think I should reread some of them...

Furthermore as I've already mentioned I want to buy a book about C# and then about UML, but I still don't decided when to buy first of them.

And I want to sleep very strong for now..

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.
  

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?..

Attack problems

The best way to defend is to attack — common aphorism that we often hear. But what is in it? "Those who need to be on the alert everywhere has a little strength, those who make another to be on the alert everywhere has a lot of strength". That is from Sun Tzu "The Art of War". Recently I watched another part of "Samurai Jack". Main hero ran away from big monster, who shouted at him with strong laser beam. The only thing that Jack was able to do was to run. He even hadn't chance to watch what is happening behind his back. So he couldn't fight or even defend in any way.

Of course Jack found a way to defeat his enemy. But what is in real life? Could anyone be as a main hero of cartoon film? I think no. Sometimes situation is very bad and beats come from many sides and it is even impossible to solve the situation. And the best way top solve problem is to avoid it. Or solve it in its beginning when it is weak. So the problem is a red flag to attack, to attack it. Of course that not mean that you must go forward your problem with naked sword, this can lead more damage than usual waiting for bad news.

First thing to do is to dig problem, understand and classify it. It is also useful to make a formal description of the problem. On this stage it is needed to understand with what fight will be, what will be a condition of win and even is there a necessity of fight.

After that plan to defeat problem can be created. To be formal, plan is a sequence of actions that will lead to the win condition. It is very useful to study solutions for similar problems happened in past. In general, I have to say, studying history is a good practice, that helps to prevent mistakes of predecessors.

And then comes the most interesting part: attack problem with your plan. Defeat it. Celebrate victory...

...and don't forget that problems and enemies doesn't sleep.

And don't wait when your problems will defeat you.

Big targets and small details

On the last week I saw a part from cartoon film series "Samurai Jack". In that part main hero lost his shoes. He wanted to punish bad guys who broke his shoes but couldn't because he felt uncomfortable without his wooden sandals. He tried different contemporary shoes but he didn't felt good in them and couldn't beat enemies. After all he found a man who made him new pair pf sandals. After that hero beat his enemies.

I think there is a couple of themes to discuss that can be extracted from this film, but I want to mention only one: the importance of small details. No, I don't want to say that big picture is useless and we should concentrate on small details, but inattention to such a small piece of stuff like shoes could break any great plan!

So what to do? How to organize small routines with big plans? How to make them fit together?

As a programmer I could give only one advise: divide and conquer. What's your shoes? It's your equipment as pen, suit and computer. It's not your target activity. You pay attention to your equipment not because they exist, but because they are mean to your target. If your main target is to have pretty shoes and the most advanced computer in the world it's not very good as I think. Main target should produce something or it should be cast out. For what to do something without using it's production?

So in fact only main targets and productive activities make sense. But they are made of smaller pieces which also could be divided on parts. So then you state new task your should understand that "write new computer application" is not a something that make a computer application. It's a bundle for activities that make something, what form new a computer application. You shoes couldn't make a computer application? but they allow you to go on the street without problems and make computer application instead of healing your legs. So is with many different things in your life. That's a stuff that is made on "auto-pilot", without deep thoughts on it meaning. But if over-focus your attention on drawing "great plans" you could fail because of small detail, that you have forgotten...

Forgive my strange linguistic construction and lack of relation between phrases... Just my thoughts...

Summer is coming

Summer is coming... And session follows it... However history has been already passed for best mark — teacher gave me mark without exam on the basis of my participation in seminars. Moreover I've already finished studying English language and Engineering graphics. On physics and discrete mathematics I have only last test works to be done. So now there aren't any problems on my way to the session.

Moreover I continue to work on CodeExplorer. It's rather interesting to develop it, study new features of language and having more ideas on implementation of different solutions. I'm exited with this work!

I think "Code Complete" graved it's mark on my programming style: now I sometimes see new abilities to resolve solution or to implement it better. For example now I'm not using i, j and k as an indices of arrays. I left only them only for prototype code that will be used only once. Furthermore now I'm trying to develop my new habit: writing tests for code before writing code itself. It is called Test-driven development. It is broadly used in Extreme Programming. I think practice of TDD is useful in almost any model of iterational development process. I'm sure it will be useful for me to develop my new habit.

And one more thing... For times I was trying to arrange my time to have a schedule of making tasks. I can't say that I've reached a full success in war with time, but I'm sure that something is changing inside of my mind during my attempts to change myself...

Todoist

I've discovered new very useful web-tool — Todoist. This tool helps you to organize you tasks and todos.

You can create projects and put into them tasks and subprojects. Moreover you cam embed tasks into another tasks. So you can structure your tasks as a tree withmany branches. Furthermore you can assign to task date on which it should be completed, make it everyday task and set priority. Todoist have a nice set of shortcuts to reduce amount of clicks. What is more while typying your task you type some special marks and it will tell Todoist to make something with this task. For example typed mark !p2 tell app to assign to task priority #2. Moreover there are basic facilities for formatting text.

Also Todoist have been integrated with GMail — you can delegate message to it from GMail and it will be setted as a task. Moreover developer of Todoist provides API of his webapp, so programmers can integrate Todoist into their own apps. For example into Firefox extension.

Hope this application will be usefull for you.

Links: Todoist, GMail

A few words after long silence

Do you hear it? It is silence. Silence of time when I didn't wrote anything here. Now I again make some buzz in the blog.

I continue to read book "Code Complete". Good book. I get some new knowledge from there I more structured appearance of information I've already know. I think soon I'll try to use this knowledge in programming.

What is more I started to develop CodeExplorer — application to create documentation for source files. For example make description of class interface. I write it on Python, though in future may be I will rewrite it on other language.

Moreover I have in my head project of developing computer language! Optimistic idea, I have to say. Now I couldn't give time for it — still in war with arranging of time. However I try to use Scrybe.

And some piece of wisdom — just switch on your head!

Finding time for all you need

The result of my ideas, which I have written in last posts: don't put all perspective projects on shelf, try do do them. So I started to read new book try to make my own software project. So I need to split my time between studying, self education, reading news, implementing some software projects and of course... living an interesting life! Not an easy task, I need to properly set priorities and to find useful activities, which should be dumped.

Recently I finished work on lab #3 on programming. It was big: about 45 pages. So what will be in future labs??

Moreover I've started to read "Code complete" by Steve McConnel. Hope this book will help me improve my coding skills.

Moreover I periodically think about my own software project. There were some ideas like on-line RSS reader. However it needs from me to know how to interact with databases. So now this project is going on the shelf but I've decided to restart studying of PERL and get another attempt to learn MySQL. After I learn to use them in one system I will try to make something like RSS reader.

But now I have in mind another big project — my own programming language!!! Sounds like a buzz.... And now it is really only a buzz. But I think in next few days I will start little steps on road of developing this project. I should start with an mission, aims and roadmap. I will implement project on C++ of course. I don't have a name for the project, to be honest I don't sure I will make something interesting, so now I will call this like P1. Good codename, don't you think so? :-)

Another day

This is a respond to the last article: what I've done today (or yesterday in some terms :-).

• of course had a classes in university. Moreover I've done some homework
  
• read a lot of news, also from the Monday
• bought a new book: "Code complete, Second Edition" by Steve McConnell. A heard good feedback on this book so I've decided to buy it.
  

Parallel tasking

In the last post I said that the one should do what he want now without postponing his wish to the future. But what what to do if you have a lot of wishes and passions? I.e. I want to read a lot of books. Should I read all these books simultaneously? Of course not, but putting all tasks in one queue will set me in situation, when I want something, but haven't enough time or resources to do that. So, I think, what I should do is to divide my wishes and passions into groups and form several queues. Items from one queue are performed simultaneously, while queue itself are performed in parallel mode.

Not difficult idea, it was formed long times ago... But I in someway walk through this way of organizational principles and getting them for me and trying to use them.

All in all unless you are child it's you who are shaping your mind. It's you who decide what to read, what to do, who to respond on this new knowledge, how to use it.

What came from last week?

Good news: I passed 2nd lab on programming, created a program for 3rd lab, and now working on report for it. Another series of nights with a small amount of slumber :-(. Moreover I passed 4th lab on engineering graphics.

Furthermore I have one history for you: one of my friends reads book. Some time ago I asked her about that book, its author and content. She answered that she is only in the middle of book. After that I asked when she will finish reading. She answered that now she has a little time, so will read it during her spring holidays. So holidays came and on Wednesday I again asked about book, but she still hasn't continued to read :-(. Now scholar holidays are coming to the end, and I again will give her my question. Interestingly what will be the answer?

While we live we always have some passions and often we say that "we haven't enough time but then we will have holidays or finish some important work and will have free time to realize our passion". But time is flowing, and we still haven't enough time because some other duties are coming to us... And as a result our passion becomes a dream that will be never executed.

And now I'm publishing a diagram with some my passions. It's rather rough by now, but it may be publishing it will give me impulse to make clearer? Hope in this. The higher is branch on diagram the more it is long-term. And in the bottom you can find some short-term activities: i.e. laboratory works.

Next big step — Programming lab #3

Now I'm working on next lab on programming. It is much harder than previous and as I think report will also be much harder to write. What is more I need to make this lab until April 5 to pretend on 5 in programming. Another series of nights without enough time to sleep... :-( Furthermore I started to log time I'm working on lab. So in the end I will now how much is time to get best mark on programming. I'm still trying to deploy core of rational organization into my processes.

Moreover I've found, that don't like Perl enough to continue to study it. I think I'll take a break on this now. May be I will return to Perl very soon, or may be not... The next I'll try to read web-book about data structures. I think it will be useful. And the next book in my list is "Code Complete" by Steve McConnel. And after that there are some books from Tannenbaum and other authors which I plan to read.

To add more, now I'm reading book about money and becoming richer and less dependent on others. To make your money grow and work for you, you should invest them in actives not passives, what most people do. What is actives? This is something, that is profitable, eg. shares, bonds, bills, real estate and intellectual property. If you invest your time and money into them, your actives and profits are growing, but if you invest in passives, grow your expenses and passives, which isn't good.

So find actives and invest you into them.

Two articles

I've read some articles on being proactive person:

• Get out of the information technology reactionary rut

• Strategic thinking is the key to proactive management

And the idea I get from one of this is that may be useful for my struggle with time arrangement. It is that for success you should have strategic thinking. It includes that long-term duties are more important than daily routine, so it will be good for me to spend some time actively working on my time-table. It is hard to live by the time-table for me, but I think it is possible, this the question of time and habit. So may be today I'll try to make something with my affairs?

Ha, this is question for me, not to others, but... Do you try to have a plan of your affairs? No, I don't mean full time-table for every minute, but a list of main goals and deadlines for them? I still haven't... But may be this is a good time to make it for me? And may be it is good time for you, if you also don't have it?

Know what you want, and when you want it to be done. I think it's a good phrase.

Idea!

Hey! I've got an idea! I'll try to count how much time I spend on labs for programming :-) It's rather interesting to find how much time does it take and moreover may be it will help me to arrange time. ;-)

try {
countTimeSpentForWork();
} // end try
catch( couldntPerformThisTask &exception ) {
std::cout << "Bad boy!" << face="arial">:-)

>>> "Me vs Myself"

What's a punishment for me: I still couldn't arrange my time... This is frustrating me. So much things to do, so little time for this... I often create a time-table, but couldn't follow it... :-( This is disgusting. But... I will continue my attempts to discipline myself!! I won't stop my efforts! Who is stronger? Me lazy or me active??!! Is one one of my friends says: "Me vs myself".

And one more... Programming on High-Level Languages... Ough... In Thursday I want to defend report on lab#1 and show report on lab#2.... But I couldn't express my feelings about this subject and its annoying reports on labs. Thought, may be it will be useful in future?..

Best wishes!