Progress Chart With A Twist (Or Pattern!)

My beloved helped me to create a handy stencil for my white board, with which I make a chart like this:

The chart works like this:
Black = Study, i.e reading about Ruby, learning the concepts.
Green = Code, i.e. working on code that goes to Github.
Blue = Blogging.
Red = Job search, i.e. applying for jobs, calling recruiters, etc.

This is literally a progress chart, in the sense that it represents my progress, rather than how much of a goal I have completed.

The twist of setting up the 10x10 table with a repeating pattern of four colours, instead of a neater set of coloured columns, is that gaps are unsightly.  Each of these four aspects of my mission is equally important, and the discomfort of seeing an uneven distribution of filled cells induces me to turn my attention to activities I have been neglecting.

To be honest, I do not enjoy looking for work, and would much rather be busy coding and studying.  Blogging isn't too bad, but coding is more fun.

Nevertheless, until I get my first gig, my job is looking for work, and so the red cells have to be filled in first.

So far, so good.

State of the Mission: Friday, 9th December 2016

At some point I'd like to build my own blogging tool, or help to improve an open source one, but in the meantime Blogger gives me what I need and does a good job of formatting the posts for mobile devices as well.  In the long term I'd like to become independent of Google's services -- it's heading in the same, invasive, politicised direction as Facebook and Apple, so it's important but not urgent yet.

My first task is to transfer the contents of my Pastebin to Gist.

My first major project is a career research tool composed of a web scraper and an analyser.  It'll start by parsing job ads for key words, and ultimately seek out a variety of data points to give a complete overview of what professions are in demand, what skills are up-and-coming in said professions, and what the prospects of someone starting out are.  It can be done in various languages -- Python comes to mind -- but I think Ruby and Rails will give me everything I need.  Maybe some JavaScript too.

I'm up to Chapter 38 of Learn Ruby the Hard Way, and find it to be one of the best resources I've come across.  In fact, I've suspended my Code Academy account until I've got everything I can from Learn Ruby the Hard Way, it's really as good as that.

On Monday, I had a very encouraging catch-up with a local technical recruiter, and he laid out the Three Ps that in his experience are the key ingredients to success: Passion, presence, and projects.

As you can see, I'm putting everything to do with this mission on my blog, which is a big part of answering the question: What do I have to show for my efforts?

I've been thinking, tinkering, reading, deliberating, and pondering since July, and the more good stuff I have to show for my efforts, the better my chances.  As soon as practicable, I want that to be my Github repository, but in the meantime it's my blog.

Kanban Ticket Layout

Breaking Down A Large Task

I wish to fill a journal with handwritten entries by the 7th of January, 2017.
I have 94 pages left, and at the time of writing, 34 days in which to do so.
I will start by writing four pages per day, Monday to Friday, and two or three per day on weekends; if I stick to this for long enough, the average per day required to accomplish this task will drop to two pages per day, which can be done fairly easily.  If I can coast on two pages, or even one page every other day in the final fortnight, I shall consider this schedule a success.

Thoughts on Refactoring Code

http://www.ben-morris.com/wp-content/library/refactoring-vs-rewriting.gif

I'm working on my CareerCoach job research tool, and I'm finding it very tricky to refactor the code.
There are too many moving parts, too many variables.

I'm trying to convert blocks of code into functions, which means that I have to turn variables into global variables, and that gets confusing.

I think I need to map out in more detail what I'm trying to achieve and then work on each component separately.

For now, it's time for a break.