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Weekly Recap 1528/5000, Domain-Driven Design, Intermittent Fasting, and Sparkfest.
- Read: Objects on Rails by Avdi Grimm.
- Reading: Domain-Driven Design by Eric J. Evans.
- Reading: Your Brain at Work by David Rock.
- Wrote: A post on all the books I’ve read.
- Writing: A post on how to focus as a software developer.
- Biked: 200km. YES.
- Coding:
- Finished reading Objects on Rails, a book I purchased several years ago, but didn’t understand at the time. I understood everything this time around. Yay!
- Continued with Habits Two (I scrapped the old Habits One because it was on an outdated version of Phoenix.)
- Reading Domain-Driven Design (software architecture book), and learning a lot. I’m implementing some of the ideas in Daryllxd (personal improvement app). I was able to split out parts of the app into their own layers, learning about some gems (
dry-rb,doorkeeper) in the process.
Life updates
When the week started, my objective was to continue learning Elixir, but something came up and I spent the past five days reviewing Rails and adding features to my personal improvement app. I’m currently creating a web front-end so I can share this app with other people. I’ve just spoken to Justin about it and it looks like he’s open to the idea. So I’ll have at least 2 users (my brother and me), which is more than enough.
I’m still trying to figure out how to combine programming with personal development, but these types of apps are the ones I want to build, at least as a side project.
Intermittent Fasting
I experimented with intermittent fasting (IF) this week. IF is very simple: you can only eat within a certain time frame. My time frame is from 11am to 5pm every day. The first two days were hell but my body’s beginning to adjust. I can still do productive things in the fasting window. In fact, it’s around 10am at the time that I’m writing this blog post. The last 30 minutes before 11am are where things fall off the rails–the anticipation of the next meal saps my productivity away.
So far, the results have been phenomenal. Over the past few weeks, my weight has been at 73.x kg, sometimes even reaching 74. Even while cycling at least four times a week, my progress has plateaued. In the past week, things have taken off. I was able to reach 72.x (72.5) for the first time since I started tracking my weight. That’s awesome! It means I’m at my sub-goal of reaching less than 160 pounds. Not bad for someone who was at 180 last year.
I think I’ll continue with IF for the next few weeks and see how it goes.
Getting out of the Comfort Zone, and Asking More Questions
I attended Sparkfest. I’m currently out of time re: writing so I’ll write this later. I learned a lot.
- Bam Aquino on Negosyo Center.
- Dan Matutina re: design.
- Arriane Serafico an authentic social media.
- Felipe and Sons and Quiddity founders re: expanding.
- Practicing stoicism re: lost headphones.
- Hacker News questions and the x-day streak.
- Reddit questions.
Life updates (Code)
Last week, I tried to get as far as I can with learning a new programming language, Elixir. I was able to create a basic web app using its framework, Phoenix. For this week, I try to apply last week’s learnings as I move back to Rails. While I like Elixir, honestly, there’s a lot more jobs which require Rails right now, and I need to practice mechanics just in case I’m tasked to create a quick sample app in a technical interview.
No worries though, I’ll still code in Phoenix from time to time. I’ll try to spend at least 5 hours a week as to keep myself sort of fluent in its syntax. After all, the Phoenix web app (Habits Two, a habit tracking app) is something I really want to use.
Elixir’s Phoenix framework clearly separates business logic from both the database and the web component. Rails, at least in the way its default folder structure is designed, doesn’t. That has lead to developers creating new patterns and even new frameworks on top of Rails to create further separation. I get what the Rails team is doing re: putting things in one place to make it easier to develop web apps faster, but based on my experience seeing several Rails apps grow past several thousand lines of code, things can get really messy. I do not want to debug a five-hundred line User class anymore. (It’s actually sad that that’s not even the largest User class I’ve seen).
This Week
See you later guys, I NEED TO EAT!