Wednesday, December 30, 2015

So, what to do in 2016?



I have a hard time deciding what to do.  There are so many options. Waaaaah!

Should I learn a new language? A new programming language? Some frameworks? An instrument? Juggling? How to solve the rubics cube?

The possibilities are nearly endless.

So, what is really important to me?

My family is. Getting better at things I love to do. Getting my shit together. Living a healthy live.

So, my priorities for the upcoming year:
  • I want to live healthier than the passing year. I want to look at the mirror and not think about the beer belly I have to look at. Hence I want to lose weight. Not something too crazy. But by June 30th, I want to weight 75kg. (Last time I stood on the scale, it showed something like 86+ kg).
  • I want to build stairs in my garden so that the front part is not just a piece of mud anymore. I want to finish that project by 30th of September. Wake me up, when September ends.
  • I want to clean up my house. Yep. I want a clean basement. I want t clean living room. Yes, I know I have kids. Yes, I hate hate hate hate messy places. Anyway: The rules that seem appealing for me are:
    • Nothing lies on the floor
    • Every item I am responsible for has a designated place to "live".
    • Cleaned up before 28th of February.
Actually, those are the first three items for this year. There's a lot more at my "to do later list". See last year's resolution. See my "watch later" playlist on YouTube. See "to be sorted" folder on my Desktop. It all can wait. First the things I wrote here.

2015. My year of unfulfilled resolutions. And my some thoughts on my new years resolution.


Sigh. I wanted to learn so much stuff this year. Exiting stuff. Great stuff. Of which I accomplished only a small fraction.

Let's take a closer look at all of those items I wanted to learn.

Programming languages:
  • Python
  • Rust
  • Go
  • Ruby
  • Haskell
  • Prolog
  • Scala
Frameworks:
  • Ext JS
  • Spring
  • Spring MVC
  • EmberJS
  • Express
  • Ionic
  • MongoDB
  • Docker
  • Node.JS
Let's look at the programming languages one by one. I have learnt Python a little bit. So much, n fact, that I was able to write DubbelVla. But not that much, that I would apply for a job demanding Python experience.
Rust, Go, Ruby, Haskell, Scala weren't touched by me at all. My progress in PROLOG resulted in writing some half-assed code failing to load contents from a file.

Now let's look at the frameworks. I haven't touched Spring. I wrote just a little bit code in Spring MVC, just enough to get some stuff done on the job. EmberJS, Express, Ionic, MongoDB, Docker I haven't touched at all. I used NodeJS to write some mini script for some special task I don't even remember any more. The framework I learnt best is ExtJS. I know ExtJS pretty good today. The others not so much.

So, how do I go from here? First, I have to realize, I was waaaay too ambitious. I thought: Hey, that would be cool to learn. I would be cool if I knew Docker. Perhaps comparable to some teenager boy who thinks he would be cool if he learnt to play the guitar.

The problem is, it had no real value for me. Being cool for the sake of being cool just does not cut it.
Another problem is: If you want to do so much, there's alway some shit that you don't do. When I learn ExtJS, I can't learn Docker. I completely lacked any priority.
But that's not enough of problems: My resolutions also completely lacked any scope. What the heck does it mean to "learn Ionic"? Read some shit about it? Surf their website? Create a multimillion code-line app with Ionic? I had no clue and I still don't.

So. Now What? Avoid all new year's resolutions? Nah. Don't want to.

I have to come up with some new year's resolutions. Some that are meaningful. Some that are scoped.  Some that are well chosen and not just a bunch of random items. I will do that tomorrow.