I’ve been doing coding for myself this week, which was a surprising thing. I’ve been mostly all work for a while now, and downtime rarely involves coding for my own pleasure.
While I have several old projects that really need some time and attention once more, I ended up revisiting my Villanelle Bot project. Which, after some recent changes at Heroku, stopped working.
Decided to take a break today, which means spending time on the computer doing coding stuff that’s not related to work. Because that’s what apparently relaxes me.
It’s funny in that crunch time isn’t the week prior to launch, but actually right around now: 4+ weeks before launch. We need time for QA and review and revisions, all of which means that things need to be closer to done now (ish).
The thread on Twitter is about game development, but I think it easily extends to software development (particularly when you’re talking about multiple apps and services, all talking with one another). Silly and fun.
It’s a nice reminder that there is still playfulness and whimsy out there, but it definitely feels like there’s not nearly enough of it.
I’ve tried to do some of these in my spare time, outside of work. Sadly, I’m a bit behind and it’s been harder to keep motiviated the further behind I get. I also realize that my “outside of work” relaxation involves code for imaginary problems that don’t exist. It’s technically me “unwinding from work,” but kinda not?
As I played more, I had this realization: this game is remarkably similar to coding. I’m trying to optimize repetitive tasks (functions), and enable processes to build off one another (composition). And there are literal freaking bugs that you have to squash, to prevent them from messing up your hard work.
The way Arduino code works, there are two main functions: setup() and loop(). Setup is run once at the start, and loop is run continuously… well, forever. Add this to the fact that I really don’t know C++ at all, and it makes for some gnarly code. At least for now, in my first passes.
Honestly, most of day was just setup. Getting ESLint and Prettier up and running took a lot longer than it probably should have. I should probably set up TypeScript but part of me just wants to go go go.
Today, it actually felt more about my desire to keep working. I was enjoying having the time to focus, and didn’t want to stop. And enjoyed continuing on until I got more completed.
While I was on “vacation” this last week, my main focus was to get work done on the house (and the outside driveway work). When I did have some downtime, I spent it… surprise, surprise… on the computer, coding on a personal project.
Our team at work has started to read “Clean Code,” by Robert Martin. Several other teams in the company have done this as well (reading it collectively, and scheduling meeting times to discuss each chapter). It’s a bit like homework, but I’m actually really glad we’re doing it.
More than any other step so far, this decision seems to really alter and shape the tone of the Twitter posts I allow into my program. Rather than simply allow all legal two-letter words according to Scrabble, I’m finding by excluding some words… it results in more readable, self-contained sentences. They’re less informal.
Had the luxury of spending the day doing nothing really, beyond just noodling around on my side project. It’s been a long while since I’ve had this kind of time, and it was a very indulgent, lovely day.
It’s been interesting to compare my process now, versus me from a year ago. While I’m still struggling with my own sense of competency, I do notice myself working faster than I have before. Quicker to make certain decisions, quicker to know what the next best step is. That’s been a somewhat nice surprise, in addition to having the luxury of time today.