Day 133

This past weekend was an adventure of sorts. After departing work on Friday, I traveled to Nolan’s house, beginning what can only be described as an odious mixture of beverages, video games, and programming. In an effort to enlighten Nolan as to this programmer’s plight, I started educating him on the most basic theories of programming, and installed JDK on his computer, walking him through his first “Hello World!” program (and the requisite debugging).

In what may be deemed a bad decision, we had placed an XBox 360 in our work area, which led to frequent, long breaks in work. However, the games would re-invigorate us, turning what was usually a moderate work session into a marathon of alternating games and work. Lots of tasks were completed these days, and our skill in the games improved markedly, as well. The games functioned almost as the cliché team-building exercise, improving communication and focus, as well as the increase in confidence that comes after totally pwning those punk-ass noobs.

Familiarity with the language increased significantly. The shining example of this was a follow-up “lesson” to Nolan in which I wrote a script from scratch with absolutely no errors or omissions. The total error rate for this weekend was a lot lower than previous attempts at working, with a lot less experimenting or brute-force programming. I like the progress we’ve made, the rate at which it was made, and I look forward to continued performance, leading to a completed project and the start of major operations for the company.

Day 118

These past couple days, Nolan and I have been working every day after our respective day jobs, and we’ve made a LOT of progress. I’d say that I’ve made more progress in the past 7 days than the past month. I haven’t learned anything new, but my understanding of the architecture has improved, and when I’ve burned myself out, I occasionally streamline the existing code.

The “experiment” of today was with a page to select users for various actions. Instead of just using static links, I presented a nice form with the pictures and names of our users. You select your users and confirm to proceed, but where you go depends on an “action” variable. So, this could be used for selecting recipients for messages, or for invitations, etc. Multi-purpose. Sweet.

Day 103

I’m sitting in my room. This is my third room since starting this project. It wasn’t supposed to take this long. Almost a third of the year has gone by, and we have nothing to show for it. The enthusiasm has disappeared, but the confidence remains. We are on the final leg of the journey, which somehow parallels my life, as the desperate struggle I am engaged in nears its own conclusion.
I am an unassuming individual at this point, who elicit nor solicits pity or sympathy from friends, family, or strangers. The wide-reaching potential is, simply put, staggering. I could be a great success, or this could be my last stand before being driven into a metaphorical sea and annihilated. Extremes, to be sure, but this is how one should prepare for consequences.
The base of the machine is complete. It is operational, needing only to be gift-wrapped for my superior and our clients. Far from complete, but priorities have shifted recently.
I am exhausted.

Day 97

Most of the work done since March has been scrapped for a while, we’re about a month into the redesign/optimization. I have found myself almost entirely incompetent coming to the actual design part of the website, and have asked Shane Strife to help me out. Hopefully, between the two of us, we can get this site up, running, and profitable very soon. Nolan has completed his side of things, having formed Riot, LLC and procured the necessary paperwork for our operation.

My other job is by no means draining, but I find myself unable to manage the load of that job and this project, as well as my familial obligations. Every day I find myself drained and unmotivated. Recent tragedies have only exacerbated this feeling. Things seem to be on the rise. And I’ve learned a lot about myself and my friends in the process…

AND KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE!

Day 20

Today was my first experience working with the Google Maps API. After working with it for most of the day, I have to say that I’m underwhelmed. I was expecting something a little more, beautiful, I guess. Instead I have this clunky framework that I have to seriously handicap my own skill to work with. I know lots of people worked a lot on this, and the API they’ve provided is designed to be easy for anyone to use, but idiot-proofing it has also genius-proofed it. Not that I’m a genius, but I’m not a bottom-level programmer, either. There is not a lot of support for dynamic inputs, which is to say, it’s not there, but I was able to work it into my page.

Other than the problems and disappointments of today, I made a lot of progress, and I think today was definitely a milestone in the project’s development.

The Project

I guess I can make this a development blog now. I’m just starting a new project, one that hasn’t even been named yet. I’m not sure my computer is up to snuff. I hope it is. It’s been painless so far, but who knows. I’m venturing into new territory with this one. Luckily, I’ll be dealing with the one language that I have been classically trained in, Java. More on this as it develops, naturally.