|
|
February started off pretty well. I went to Westport with Colleen and stayed in the very nice Boffin Lodge for the weekend. The town seemed to me to be a slightly bigger version of Enniscrone. And it snowed.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we had a Post Mortem discussion (read "Bitching session") where everyone got to air their views on how the company was going and get any gripes they had off their chests.
5/2/01 I'm starting to try and take this "eOghaN..." thing seriously. I'm halfway through the placement and by now I should have a reasonable enough handle on things to be able to have a good go at this xml ==> multiple formats rendering. The "Log" page is a simple example of an XML file given a html rendering through an xsl stylesheet. The idea is that I'll be able to do different stylesheets for different markup languages. I found a pretty good site which recommends documentation, scheduling and debugging records (linked to elsewhere). I'm going to try and stick to the recommendations made there, as I see that some of these are not practised in my company, and this can have an effect on productivity and morale. Hopefully I can start to pick up good programming habits by doing all this.
Weekend Carnage in Portstewart
14/2/01 I finally got round to organising a weekend in Portstewart with my friends. I brought one of the Danish lads from work - I had a great laugh winding him up that he would need his passport to get across the border - and we went out in Derry and then Portstewart. Although Portstewart wasn't as good as I had hoped (rose tinted glasses etc), overall it was a good weekend with plenty of alcohol consumption!
This week I haven't really had a chance to do any of the "eOghaNLINE" stuff since I've been up to my eyes in work. I have written another Python script which takes a list of browser user agent strings and checks for the resulting mark-up when these browsers 'log on' to our product. Fascinating stuff.
I also downloaded loads of tutorials on Python, Java and OO programming in general. Since I'm getting no real training here, I thought I'd start to teach myself. I spent this time last year doing as much Judo, running, circuit training etc... as I could, and just enough studying to 'get by' in my degree modules. Now I've got an opportunity to change my focus slightly and really try and learn useful stuff.
I don't like being looked down on simply because I haven't dedicated my whole life to computers - I'm as intelligent as the next geek. I mightn't be able to write a complicated number crunching algorithm in assembly language yet, but I can work out the best strategy to bust someone's arm in a Judo contest. These are two completely different tasks, yet they both involve problem solving. I can see a great deal of relevance for applying things I've learned from Judo to my intended career in Software Development. More later in my forthcoming book: "Learning Java through Judo".
I moved flat this week as well, which took up a bit of my time. I'm now closer to work (and the pub) and have a bit more floorspace for all the XML, RDF, ASP, Zope, Python, Java books and tutorials to take up. I really should set out a specific task to do, or language to learn and stick to it - but there is always something else that looks interesting.
Week starting 19-2-01
This week was a bit of a blur. I'm writing this on the Friday morning, and I REALLY have to try and think back to what I've done over the past few days. On Monday I tried a bit of XML-RPC programming with Python using a tutorial from IBM's Alphaworks site. Tuesday I was off 'sick'. Wednesday I installed Partition Magic in preparation for adding Red Hat Linux to my PC. Thursday I regressed a selection of bugs (Yawn) and then got involved in some security testing (pretty interesting actually). Thursday night we all went Karting in Castelbar and had a meal in an Indian restaurant. The food was very nice, and there was loads of it - I couldn't even finish a pint when we went to a bar afterwards. Friday (now) my head is very light, possibly because of the 'Lassie' non-alcoholic-yoghurt-and-fruitjuice drink I had last night that is probably restoring my kidneys/braincells/digestive system instead of destroying them.
In terms of the website and miniproject, I've moved the goalposts again. This time hopefully a bit closer. I'm not going to bother with an IIS version since TBH I couldn't be bothered. The (limited) Zope documentation I've read seems a lot more straight forward and easier to grasp, and gives me the impression that Zope does everything IIS does and more (although I'm probably wrong about that). I'll try and keep a running commentary going about my progress, not because I think anyone is particularly interested, but because it gives me a chance to practise writing other than emailing. This is another part of my plan to improve my writing/documentation skills.
Week starting 26-2-01
I just spent a geeky weekend at home. Once I (eventually) got to Derry on Friday night (after Bus Eireann outdid itself yet again with a 40 minute late service from Donegal Town) I got stuck into setting up the Path variable on our Win98 machine so I could happily play with Java and Python all day Saturday. After I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed on Sat morning, I started working through part of the XML for Java book I borrowed from work, and then I worked through some of the IBM Charming Python articles which dealt with XML processing (through xmllib, DOM and SAX modules) and HTML/XML generation. I think I'll end up using Python for my final year project. Although I was taught Java and Prolog at Uni, I think Python is pretty easy to use and apparently can do most things that Java and Prolog (see Charming Python #13 by David Mertz) can do. This eOghaNLINE thing isn't really happening at the minute - I'm always too tired to be bothered going back into the office at night. One thing I have done a bit on is the XML version of my CV. Hopefully I'll finish it this week and have an XSL sheet to display it by the start of March.Today (Monday 26th Feb) I found some articles published by my boss on xml.com and played with the code examples provided. I've already read his XML Processing with Python book, and I found it quite interesting.
I have seen the light...
This article by Eric Steven Raymond has given me direction. Although I'm not bothered about 'Status' or any of that, some of the points in this How to Become a Hacker article rang true for me - especially the part "7. Points for Style", where I can identify with some of the desired Hacker qualities. I tried to pin down some of my thoughts while reading this - eOghaNHACKING.I've changed direction (yet again) with my approach to learning, and have come up with the following strategy to improve my programming: eOghaNEDUCATION.