ObAdvogato
Wow, long time no update, eh? Guess I slipped back into putting
diary-like stuff on my
weblog --
hafta work on that.
C++
I've ended up giving up on the C++ study group at work -- I
wasn't
really getting anything out of it, and I think I've picked
up enough
that (a) if I have to hack on somebody else's C++ code I
won't be
totally lost and (b) I'm not going to be using C++ for any
of my new
projects anytime soon -- I'll stick with Perl and C, thanks
much.
It's still not clear to me how much of my disgust with
the language
is due to the language itself, and how much is due to the awful
C++ Primer, but I'm pretty much beyond caring.
I'm currently making another assault on Goerzen's
Linux Programming Bible. Previously, I've crapped
out about eight or ten chapters in, but I'd really like to
absorb more of the 'C mindset', so I'm giving it another go.
hackery
My recent upgrade to the Helix^WXimian Gnome 1.4.1 .debs
broke GMC in
a number of interesting ways. This was a PITA, since I'd
been storing
links to check out later as desktop URL files. So, I sat
down, thought
for about schemas for about 15 minutes, did a bit of
CGI/Perl/SQL
hacking, and whipped up a little bookmark mananger. I
realize that
this has been done tons of times before, but I've played
with most of
the bookmark utilities on freshmeat.net at one time or
another, and
found most of them unsatisfying for one reason or another.
Plus, it's
nice to have a little project like this, where I can hack in new
features one at a time, but still keep a decent overview on
where the
whole thing is going, so that it doesn't end up as a huge
mess (he
said, crossing his fingers...)
Actually, I think I can see a way to easily extend this
into the
poor man's CMS/weblogging tool that I've been thinking about
for a
number of months. Now I just have to decide if it's
worthwhile to do
-- I'm not sure I'd stick with a tool where I had to do
extensive text
editing in a browser. OTOH, getting the backend in place
with a CGI
interface that talks to it is probably a good precursor to
making the
backend talk to XEmacs. On the gripping hand, I am
gonna
keep fooling with the damn thing, so I might as well try to
plan ahead
a bit...
career
It's getting to be time for me to start thinking about what
I want to
be when I grow up (most would say I'm a bit late...) I've
got about
one year left in my current post-doc. My options are to
extend the
post-doc (which I could easily do, for another year, or even
two), try
to get a Real (scientific) Job at the current workplace,
try to get a
Real Job somewhere in the biotech/bioinformatics industry,
or try to
get a job completely unrelated to science -- systems
administration is
the current leading contender in this category.
The Big Decision I have to make is between one of the
first three
and the last one -- I'm reasonably sure that any of the four
alternatives are open to me, but the last one is a much,
much bigger
step than staying in science. There are quite a few things about
sysadmin work (or what I've seen and heard about sysadmin work,
anyway) that appeal to me -- I like making things work the
Right Way,
I like having a variety of different issues to deal with
during the
day, and I like 'interrupt-driven' work. The money would be
as good or
better than staying in science, so that's not really a
factor -- it's
just going to be a pretty irreversible step.
Ah well, it's certainly not something that needs to be
decided
overnight. Any
advice?