File under: notes to self

Note to self: Not everything has do be done as quickly as is humanly possible!

I tend to want to type as fast as i possibly can, all the time, and code as fast as my brain can do it. Learning Vim has been an excellent exercise in slowing down a bit, thinking of the best way to achieve the effect that i need, in as few keystrokes as possible. I am really loving Vim now. Been using it for about 3 weeks and have no intention of going back to TextMate now. The best thing was when i did some coding at home at the weekend and was just so happy to have the exact same coding environment to work with at home.

Another lesson in slowing down is when coding with someone else. I tend to find my brain goes much faster than i can form words to explain what’s going through my head. It can be a frustrating experience at times. But today i made the effort to slow down, take the time to ensure that my colleague was still following my train of thought, rather than rushing ahead at full speed. It actually was quite a calming thing to do, like an exercise in mindfulness.

I have mentally renamed the toilet as the prayer room. Turns out it’s a great place to say a quick prayer, assess how i’m feeling, recenter myself, pray for peace and mental inspiration, wish blessings upon my colleagues … I have been wanting to be more aware of God in my everyday life, and this is a great way to do it.

I’m feeling great at the moment – really happy! People say that God makes a positive difference in their lives. Whether a divine being is really at work in my personal daily activities, or whether it’s my enhanced state of mind that comes from focus and prayer, i don’t know and i don’t really care. I just know that it’s working out well for me at the moment! :)

I have such a good job!

How cool is it that i can spend the day doing fun stuff like this and get paid for it?!

This is how ykyat.com looks now!

See – you can comment now!

And you can get RSS feeds!

If you’re on Twitter, why don’t you join in! It’s fun! The hashtag is #ykyat – you know you’re addicted to. Think of something you’re addicted to, and something that proves it. E.g.

#ykyat your job when you blog all about it!

Or, go on http://ykyat.com and make some comments, or vote up your favourite addictions!

I do love my job! :)

Addicted – a web app in a day!

Today was a rather different day at work – when we arrived we learnt that we were going to build a web app in a day! Just for fun! This morning there was no ykyat.com. Now there is! We bought the domain, built the app, registered the Twitter account (@ykyat), got it importing data … oh, it was a lot of fun!

The application scans Twitter to find out what people are addicted to, in the form “You know you’re addicted to x when …” It sucks up the tweets, categorises them, lets you vote them up and down.

Being the person with previous experience of the Twitter API it was my responsibility to get the data in and send an @reply to people who use the hashtag #ykyat. My colleagues worked on the models, routes, user interface, interaction, the rating system, and getting it live and working on EC2.

It was great fun all to be working on the same thing together, and the challenge of doing the whole thing in one day! Credit to my colleagues for being so great to work with – it was a bit hectic at times! Huge credit to my boss, @chrismdp for thinking up the idea (yesterday!) conveying it to us, and directing us all to achieve it. I reckon that is pretty impressive!

It looks as if there will be a series on the Eden Development blog about how we did it! :)

On learning Vim

I’m sure Vim is going to be a wonderful thing for me to have learnt – a skill that will stay with me and benefit me for the rest of my life. It’s just getting there that’s so hard!

I started using Vim in earnest this week. On Monday i used Vim in the morning, and switched to TextMate when i got too frustrated. Tuesday was periodic switching between the two. TextMate when Vim got on my nerves, and back to Vim when i found myself missing Vim features. Yesterday and today i have been entirely on Vim.

Yesterday was great – i really felt i was getting somewhere, and gaining speed. It started to be less about me getting around Vim, and more about me doing my work. Today has been a bit more frustrating, as i know it is slowing me down significantly in the short-term, but i’m sure it will be worth it!

I keep finding myself smiling at Vim when i have elegantly told it to do something quite complex. It’s like “Wow, Vim, you’re so clever!” Selecting a block of text and duplicating it, going five words in and changing the text to the end of the quote marks: vapyP5wct" – said as “visual a paragraph, yank, Paste above, 5 words, change till quote marks.

It’s so cool to have Git integration right within Vim, and now that i’ve got the hang of the NERD Tree, and manipulating windows and buffers, i’m coming along a treat! I’ve discovered i have quite a strong perception of the layout of a project – without a project drawer i just couldn’t think what to do or where to find anything! I’ve also decided i really like side-by-side windows so that i can see code and spec at the same time. I’ll do a screenshot when i’m on my big computer.

The biggest problem in fact is not the super-amazing-cleverness of Vim and its plugins. I’m getting the hang of them pretty fast. The hardest thing is just learning the basic commands – like – moving around! I still get j and k mixed up, and it requires so much brain energy to remember whether i want to type a or i, o or capital O … even to remember to press <Esc> to come out of insert mode. Invariably i get it wrong and have to undo all the time. Either that or i’m undoing when i don’t want to, because i think u is for up. Fortuately i discovered on a Dvorak keyboard, k is underneath u so that sort of reminds me that k is up.

I just hope it is not my dyslexia making it hard to learn the basic movements. Most of Vim makes a lot of sense to me. I like that it uses mnemonics and mostly pressing one key at a time. I love how you can combine keystrokes in sequences to achieve really powerful effects. I hear that when you get really good at Vim you’re not even aware of exactly which keys you’re pressing. You just think about what you want to do, and your fingers do it automatically. I’m sure i can get to that level of proficiency … it’s just a case of being patient with myself whilst i’m still learning.

It was like this when i was learning Dvorak, but i’m glad i did, and my fingers do just type without my having to think about where the letters are. I type at around 80 words per minute, which is pretty nice, so i’m sure with the power of Vim, i could be truly awesome!

So long, 2008

Approximately a year ago, you may have wished me a happy 2008. If you did, thank you! I had a pretty awesome year!

Reading back in my blog, it feels like a long year. In fact, i noticed a stark contrast between the two halves of the year, pivoting on the moment i got my new job. I was amazed by how much of a difference it made in my perception: the first half of the year feels much longer than a year ago, but everything since my new job feels very recent. Yet the two halves are separated by just one weekend! I also noticed how many more blog posts i made in the earlier half of the year compared to the latter.

So it’s new year’s eve again, the time when i get all retrospective and nostalgic. I actually quite like staying in on new year’s eve and blogging. Here is a summary of the year.

Cucumber!

cucumber
Originally uploaded by viZZZual.com

I’ve been sent home. I’m too ill. I’m not *that* ill … i managed to get a decent bit of work done this morning, but it made me very tired. So i’ve come home with a fascinating book to put me to sleep keep me occupied: Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by Gamma, Helm, Johnson and Vlissides. Nearly 400 pages – yikes!

I like cucumbers. Sometimes i think a nice fresh cold, crisp and juicy cucumber tastes almost like a watermelon! Depending on my mood i might prefer slices, chunks or strips. I like cucumber grated in salad, and it makes a tasty and refreshing juice. Wow, cucumbers are great!

Today i discovered another Cucumber that i like – the feature runner that supports behaviour driven development. We switched over to Cucumber at work today. Just like that! We converted two of our projects to Cucumber and already gained the benefit of having ambiguous steps pointed out, and enjoyed the pretty colours and helpful information in the output.

One thing i like about Cucumber is it is multilingual. I have been thinking about writing my features for MyChores in LOLCAT! I’m not quite sure how it’s going to work, but i think it would be pretty funny^[0] to pretend i have a team of cats testing the code! Maybe it’s a bit impractical, i don’t know. Perhaps i’ll give it a try this afternoon.

^[0] My interpretation of the word ‘funny’ may not be the same as everybody else’s!

At my parents' home

Just a quick post to say, hello, and celebrate the fact that i’m on my netbook at my parents’ home! :)

Predictably, they didn’t know the password for the wireless internet. I thought it would be written down on a piece of paper somewhere, but no, it’s worse than that … only my uncle in Yorkshire knows the password! Happily i managed to poach a network cable and use that. It’s nice to have my own machine, with my email and calendar, and internet preferences and keyboard and everything just the way i like it! :)

This has been a tough week at work, and i was feeling rather overwhelmed yesterday, but several things all came together nicely today. It was a good day. I’m also very happy and relieved to say that my brother, who has been very ill for some time, is significantly better now.

I’m going to bed in a minute … i’ve been given some Nytol sleeping tablets which will hopefully help me to sleep better. I’ve had a lot of nightmares and sleepwalking lately. I can feel the tablets kick in as i type this (or maybe that’s just psychological?!) … i think this is going to be a nice relaxing weekend.

Lack of a plan

I am waiting for some inspiration to occur to me about what to do for the rest of the afternoon. I know i have some chores to do (don’t i always?!) but not too many today. I might watch The Bill which my sweetie kindly recorded for me in the week. I might work on the MyChores API a little bit … or i might just continue lying in bed. Blogging from my bed is the best thing, haha!

I went to church again this morning. It was perfectly fine. I met a few more people, including many of the musicians. I keep dropping hints that i’d like to join their band, but i haven’t yet spoken to the people i would need to in order to join! I felt very content this week, and happy to be at the church. I love it that there are so many South Africans at the church. They are friendly and kind … and i love their accents! I’m probably going to pick up a bit of Afrikaans if i keep on going!

Work was good this week. I did a good job and i knew it. There’s no doubt that the work i’m doing now is the hardest i’ve ever had to do. I’m not used to finding my job difficult. But hey, it’s so rewarding to overcome a challenge and know i did it really well. I feel proud of myself. It’s tiring, though. I had a lovely relaxing day yesterday, but i still feel like i need a bit more time to relax before going into another busy week of hard work.

Yesterday afternoon was spent with nyecamden who came to Winchester to meet me. We had a good time together. Visited the library to have a go on their wifi with our netbooks! :) Went to my favourite cafe, The Sanctuary for a delicious hot chocolate. We walked down to the cathedral green to idly pass the time. On the way we found several messages written in chalk on the pavement of The Square. I don’t know who started it, but they were interesting to read. Many of them began with “This is …” and contained recollections of Winchester and happy memories.

I added to the messages, with “This is my favourite place to live”. It’s true, i love Winchester. Such a beautiful city, steeped in history and culture. I am very happy to live here.

Thank you Nye for the picture! :)

Ahh, Friday! :)

I’m happy it is Friday. Lately Fridays seem to have been coming around about every 3 days, but this week felt a lot longer.

It was my turn as ‘sweeper’ at work, meaning i pick up the extra little things that need doing, to avoid disturbing the rest of the team. It means that i had a much more varied week, with little odd things here and there. I had quite a varied week out of work too, so i guess all these things made the week feel longer.

I have re-designed and re-launched a website for a friend of mine who owns a business in Winchester: The Medical Aesthetic Clinic. Cathy is going for customer service award, so we’re updating the site with more information, pictures and testimonials in anticipation. It’s quite exciting.

Last night i went to a WinACC meeting as a follow-on the Low Carbon Champions initiative. Tomorrow i’ll be meeting a new-found friend to discuss what we shall do together as Low Carbon Champions in spreading the message to our friends, families, neighbours and associates. It’s quite exciting.

But for tonight i’m going to put it all on hold and take time to relax. I have a pasta bake in the oven, and the plan for tonight is Eastenders, Little Britain USA and Ugly Betty! :)

Happy Weekend, everybody!

Another boring post (probably)

Married life suits me well. In some ways everything feels pretty much exactly the same. We’ve lived together for 4 years, after all. But in my heart i just *know* something is different, and i like it a lot. We’re not just friends who live together anymore; there is something more to it. Something that everyone can know and recognise and celebrate!

But at the moment my beloved it at a geography conference, and i’m at home for another boring night with meaningless Twittering and blog posting! I do apologise!

I had a very good day at work. I got a few tricky things done in the morning, and lots of little easy things done in the afternoon. So it was a productive day, and i was complimented on a few things i’ve done lately, which always makes me feel very good indeed!

Tonight i have become a ‘beta’ reader for a Harry Potter fanfic. I’ve never done this before, but i loved the start of the story and it’s nice to get a sneak preview of the next chapters! My job is particularly to translate the dialogue into British English where necessary! This is fun and easy for me to do, because Americanisms in Harry Potter fanfics always stand out for me like numbers on a colour-blind test.

The author send me a Microsoft Word document with ‘Track Changes’ enabled. I was delighted to find that OpenOffice knows all about tracking changes. What’s more, when i sent it back, my author was able to open it in MS Word again and see what i had changed. I love it when technology works! I was half expecting Word to throw all the toys out of the pram because i’d dared to look at it in a rival word processing application!

By the way, what colours do you see in the bubbles above? I see a 57, which is normal. Some people see a 35 instead. I used to love these tests whenever i went to the opticians when i was little! I thought they were so clever! I always got them right so there was no point in testing, but i thought it was such a fun game! :)

PS here is a very sweet video montage from my favourite film, “Beautiful Thing”. I can see Ste saying “I’m gonna stink of mint!” The Body Shop still make Peppermint Foot Lotion; i got some as a free sample the other day! :)