GSoC Day 68

This will be short

• I am extremely stressed out, and I don’t know why. Today I had a faux-panic attack and asked someone for a bunch of information for something that wasn’t urgent, because I’ve just been used to plumbing through work every day and strict deadlines. I need to learn to relax a bit after this is over. Sadly, I had to cancel a sailing trip to Emerald Bay (d’oh!), but it’s all, as they say “for science” LOL. I don’t feel short on time or anything (so it’s not like I’m stressed out about GSoC or anything), but I just feel “on edge”. Constantly.
• I did get a fair amount of work done today, though. I think I’m officially on Chapter 10 in Hbook now. I went back and redid some exercises. So from here on, it’s now new material. A lot of things are clearer, having gone back. But it probably means I’ll have to move ahead and then go back again, as I did most recently.

This article warmed my heart

• I’ve read it in the past, but this. I thought today, “you know..why am I killing myself trying to learn Haskell? I could have just done X language and I would have been making apps by now and have a job doing that”. For some reason, it’s important to me to work in Haskell. This article is the closest to summing how I feel, along with this.

This in particular stuck with me

• “In functional programming, our proofs are not by contradiction, but by construction. Learn that ethic.”. I love this.

Things I need to work on

• Accuracy
• Precision
• Proofs

So that’s my next goal, when GSoC is over

• Yeah yeah..why should the average developer care? Maybe they shouldn’t. But I do need to get better at it, based on the direction I’m heading, my interests and the kind of developer I want to be.
• These are important to me and I have a serious weakness right now, not in the generalized developer sense (because the truth is, depending on the kind of dev you want to be, you don’t need to be great at these), but certainly in the kind that values this sort of thing. And, since programmes are proofs (particularly in FP), to strengthen this skill is to strengthen programming skills and an ability to reason about code.
• I’d like to get to the point (at some point in my life) where I can make a judgment before code compiles as to whether it’s correct. I definitely am not at that stage right now.

A couple suggestions

• Working through the Coq Assistant Book
• Working through Lean Prover
• Working through the How to Read Proofs book
• Working through “The Design and Analysis of Computer Algorithms”
• Also, getting help so my work is checked. I have a couple mentors who are willing to help me with this.

That’s about all I have for now

• It’s a bit late and I have some work to do in the AM. Pushing through the last few weeks here.