Too hermity.
Hey folks. I didn't go to Origins; the Andys didn't wanna and the timing just didn't seem right. I am giving myself another day or three to decide if I wanna go to Gen Con. I don't have a really solid reason to go, since Volity is in such a weird transitional state. Networking is good, but until the web client's in full beta it all feels uncomfortably premature.
In any case, the Great Work continues. Today saw classicaljunkie off to Houston as I have for the last N Sundays (which means I stand in my doorway and wave bye-bye as she schleps her stuff away) and then turned to work on the web client. Right now the going is rough, and unavoidably a little frustrating, as I'm finally starting to interface my crazy library stuff with the website. Who knew, for example, that you can't make AJAX calls to a host other than that of the website making the call? Er, well, you probably did, sure, but the issue's never come up for me before, and since prototype.js treats this with silent failure[1] I got really hung up on it. A phone call to daerr resolved this.
I think I need to mix up my life a little more. Monomania is expensive, especially when you're working alone (or have the unavoidable perception that you're alone, even if you're not really). Focus is great, but there's a subtle gradation of diminishing returns, and sometimes the march can turn into a slog hours or even days before you notice. There's a constant assumption that whatever you could do is less important that The Project, and so you keep working on it, even when you really don't wanna. (Or worse, and too frequently: you really really don't wanna, and so you do something truly time-wasting instead.)
Right now I enjoy some variety because of the contracting job that I'm obligated to do, and I have no trouble letting myself context-switch into it three days a week. But that's still a task with the morphology of sitting on my ass planning and typing code, and anyway, that's my day job. It's also the only part of my week-by-week schedule from a couple months ago that I've stuck to; since writing that plan, I have spent exactly zero Sundays on video projects, for example.
OK, listen: Tomorrow, monday, after work, I'm gonna map out a plan for the next two months. On the Volity blog I called a shot that had me hitting a certain milestone with the web client by September 15. I'll scatter some subgoals between now and then, and then see if that doesn't show some places where I could fit in some other activity as well.
[1] No, I didn't try setting up an onFailure handler. But really, this seems like a job for exceptions. And now you'll explain to me how the architecture makes that impossible, sure, sure.
In any case, the Great Work continues. Today saw classicaljunkie off to Houston as I have for the last N Sundays (which means I stand in my doorway and wave bye-bye as she schleps her stuff away) and then turned to work on the web client. Right now the going is rough, and unavoidably a little frustrating, as I'm finally starting to interface my crazy library stuff with the website. Who knew, for example, that you can't make AJAX calls to a host other than that of the website making the call? Er, well, you probably did, sure, but the issue's never come up for me before, and since prototype.js treats this with silent failure[1] I got really hung up on it. A phone call to daerr resolved this.
I think I need to mix up my life a little more. Monomania is expensive, especially when you're working alone (or have the unavoidable perception that you're alone, even if you're not really). Focus is great, but there's a subtle gradation of diminishing returns, and sometimes the march can turn into a slog hours or even days before you notice. There's a constant assumption that whatever you could do is less important that The Project, and so you keep working on it, even when you really don't wanna. (Or worse, and too frequently: you really really don't wanna, and so you do something truly time-wasting instead.)
Right now I enjoy some variety because of the contracting job that I'm obligated to do, and I have no trouble letting myself context-switch into it three days a week. But that's still a task with the morphology of sitting on my ass planning and typing code, and anyway, that's my day job. It's also the only part of my week-by-week schedule from a couple months ago that I've stuck to; since writing that plan, I have spent exactly zero Sundays on video projects, for example.
OK, listen: Tomorrow, monday, after work, I'm gonna map out a plan for the next two months. On the Volity blog I called a shot that had me hitting a certain milestone with the web client by September 15. I'll scatter some subgoals between now and then, and then see if that doesn't show some places where I could fit in some other activity as well.
[1] No, I didn't try setting up an onFailure handler. But really, this seems like a job for exceptions. And now you'll explain to me how the architecture makes that impossible, sure, sure.