Quick Blog Update: I added a “Things I Enjoy” page for some of my hobbies. The next updates will probably be either be my checklist of things to do or a page with some of my previous works. On to the post:
It’s something anyone who has ever written a computer program deals with: the time the computer needs to translate your “words” into the sequence of 1s and 0s it understands. It’s always too long to sit idly and wait, but yet too short to start on something else.
courtesy of the awesomeness that is XKCD
If that comic was actually what I do during compile time, with an appropriate Star Wars score in the background of course, life would be pure awesome. The reality is something slightly more practical:
- Pray/Hope: A lot can go wrong with your code…a missing semicolon, an extra parentheses…will all generate a whole page of errors.
- Pray/Hope some more: I emphasize this because even if your code does compile, it does not mean it will run correctly or do anything remotely close to what you want
- Think about my code: This is probably the most practical thing I do since there are always ways to make code more efficient
- Read: I catch up on my scientific happenings (like the Higgs Boson!!) but also read stuff from other fields. My biggest interest in the humanities is probably game theory and all its applications to sociology/human psychology.
- Write: This refers to writing stuff besides code of course, like this blog post for example. I do sometimes write more code though, if I feel like making a script to make life easier or working on something from Project Euler.
Usually by the time I figure out what to do, the code is done compiling and it’s time to fix the errors. It’s a vicious cycle.
