Episode 5: Something to Do

Note: I originally posted this article on a personal blog I ran when I was in my late teens and early twenties. I discovered in May 2020 that the Internet Archive had preserved the contents of that blog in its entirety, including some of the media. That blog was an important part of my personal history, so I reposted all of that content on this website for archival purposes. While my politics, opinions, and outlook on the world have changed radically since I wrote those posts between 2009 and 2011, it’s good to know that I was as much of an idiot then as I am now.

First things first. Python and Django programmer for hire this summer (June and July). If anybody in or around New Delhi needs something built, I’m your man.

Now, on to the trivialities.

The results for Google Summer of Code 2009 came out on April 21, and I failed to make it. According to my mentoring organization, I was one of their top picks, but failed to get in because I didn’t submit as many patches as the other students. No GSoC work means I have no commitments this summer. Akshay is trying to get a RoR job somewhere, and I think Apoorv has something planned, too. I feel I ought to start making my own TODO list now.

I have spent the past few weeks thinking about how much time I waste on worthless activities (something which led to a fight between me and Apoorv - he’s absolutely certain he’s not wasting any time). The agenda for April is to cut out all the time-sucking activities from my routine. I’ll probably read up on time management and check out what the GTD hype is all about. Also part of the agenda is keeping my workspace clean. Right now, I have a single table for everything - study, web browsing, movies, programming and food. I’m going to have to try and keep my work and fun areas segregated so that when I sit down in my work chair, my mind goes, “Okay, time to work. No more distractions.”

lut4rp tells me I need to get some code “out there”. A lack of Objective-C knowledge is preventing me from delving deeper into Cocoa, so I will be spending some time writing ObjC code and putting it up on GitHub for everyone to see (and laugh at). I really wish I could spend more time with Python, but I want to go indie with a few desktop apps and that’s something which Python fails to do well (at least on OS X). I want to push the limits of ObjC, just to see how dynamic it really is (so far, I’ve used it like a spiced up version of C). In my experience with the language so far, I have felt it is nothing compared to heavyweights of the dynamic world - Ruby and Python. I sincerely hope I’m wrong.

The next logical step after Objective-C is to sharpen my 1337 Cocoa skillz. The strategy this time is to leave the more advanced technologies for later. What’s the point of getting into CoreData or Keyring Services if I never plan to use them? As an aside, the Hillegass book is awesome, but I don’t think it’s written for people new to Cocoa. It reads more like a cookbook than an introduction to OSX programming. I’ll be using Apple’s docs + online tutorials (and refer to Hillegass if the need arises). Since I’ve already covered more than 50% of what is required to write decent OSX apps, my next steps are mostly going to center around getting familiar with the libraries available to me.

My one-post-a-day idea bombed, mostly because exams kept me busy. I had two weeks of exams, followed by a week of semi-rest, followed by a week of practical exams. Another round of practicals begins on Monday, which will be followed by ten days of semi-rest and another two weeks of exams. The last two months of the semester are always like this at IPU. I’m used to it now, so no worries :p