20th April , 2018

Spring review of my goals

Progress on current goals

So it's been about 3 months since the new year and I've been working towards my 5 major goals this year. Here's a rundown of the goals I had and how I've been working towards them thus far.

Become a better computer scientist

I have taken two courses on computer science so far. I haven't finished either of them, but I have learnt about the Big O notation, which illustrates how efficient an algorithm is. I've also learnt basic sorting algorithms such as merge sort and quick sort, wich arrange a list in o(nlogn). I've also learnt searching algorithms such as binary search and data structures such as linked lists.

I've taken a break from learning these fundamentals the last month or two whilst I've been learning GraphQL, Apollo and improving my React skills, which although isn't basic computer science is definitely helping me appreciate my craft more and making me want to learn how to make efficient programs using fundamental concepts.

Get more work in the blockchain space

This one could almost be ticked off already. After spending the last month teaching and doing smaller contracts, I have started work at ENS full-time! I'm excited for this opportunity to head up the front-end of the ENS apps, which will include an app to take all 3 current ENS applications (registrar, manager and subdomain registrar) and combine them into one streamlined app. One of the things we want to add is notifications so you know which transactions have actually gone through. I'm currently working on a GraphQL architecture for blockchain.

Build an open source project

As part of ENS, I will also be working on ethereum-ens an NPM package initially built by Nick Johnson that gives an easy Javascript API to the ENS contracts. Part of my job will be to improve the library so it is more useable and adds things like events which aren't included in the original library.

The other side of my job will be to improve on the original ENS manager application and integrate it into a larger application. This will also be entirely open source, so I'm doing a good job on this on this year!

V10 climber on the moonboard

The new moonboard is harder than ever. This could be a hard one to get. I was consistently doing V8s on the old moonboard, with 3 benchmarks completed. On the new one, I've finished all but one V7 benchmark, but haven't even come close to touching any of the V8 or V8+ benchmarks.

I've been lifting weights the last 3 months which has improved my posture and has increased my shoulder strength. I feel much more comfortable taking dynos one arm and doing deep gaston locks, which would help for a lot of V8+ moves.

Also started fingerboarding again and training 3 finger drag a lot more which I measured as a 13 second max hang with 25kg extra weight, which currently equates to +40% bodyweight. I did 4 finger half crimp after and maxed at +28.75kg, however the fact I had done 10 sets of 3 finger drag may have affected the overall performance of that test.

Take a trip back home

Bought my ticket, will be back in June for almost 3 months :) Looking forward to this one a lot! Short-term rental is very expensive, but it looks like a friend might have space in his house, which will be nice to stay with friends instead of a random AirBnb.

Adding extra goals

Since a few are already coming into a fruition there are a few extra things I might want to add to this:

Get better at designing and implementing UI and web animations

I've already booked a ticket to a workshop in Brighton to be taught by Sarah Drasner and Val Head who are two of the most recognised in the industry for web and UI animations. I'm currently reading Val's book on designing UI animations and have just finished a course by Sarah on Frontend masters.

Learn Framer

On the design front, I'm really enjoying using Framer, a design and code tool that integrates the best parts of Sketch and then allows a code view to easily prototype all kinds of basic animation. From there you can even add in a library such as greensock to do more heavy duty timeline animations.