#100DaysOfCode - A retrospect

By: Kannan Ramamoorthy On: Wed 04 September 2019
In: Practice
Tags: #100DaysOfCode #Clojure

About:

This is more of a retrospect on the #100DaysOfCode challenge that I took. A challenge in which, I have committed publicly to practice, read or write about Clojure.

This is not a technical post. But more a note of my own experience on the challenge.

Motivation:

One or more or all of the below might be the motivation to take up the challenge,

  • I’m known to myself as a person good at doing focussed work for short span but a person who is not consistent over a prolonged period to do anything on my own. I wanted to change that self-perception and wanted to improve my consistency.

  • Most of the professionals (especially sports, martial artists) have a 'practice time' to perfect their profession. And a 'performance time' in which they showcase/use what they have practiced. But I’m having a feeling that I’m not spending enough time to improve my craftsmanship.

  • Having heard from one of my mentor spoken about the people who have the persistence to sit with a problem for months or years. (ex, Einstien sat with the problem of "The general theory of relativity" for 10 years).

  • About a year back I got introduced to Clojure by one of my colleague and my mentor. Bought a Clojure book and made almost no progress. Somehow wanted to gain good exposure to Clojure.

  • Having read The Practicing Mind which emphasis on focusing the 'Process rather than Product'.

  • Having known about 100DaysOfCode at the right moment as a trigger.

In no way, I’m comparing to some of the greatness mentioned above. Those are just motivations. I realize that I have a long way to go!

Start:

After being thought about starting it for a while, at first the thought seemed like a 'huuuge' commitment. So initially, I just started reading and tweeting about Clojure for 3 days without giving a committing (Yeah! its 103 days in total). It went easy and started with it.

Some tricks:

  • I focussed only on spending an hour honestly, without keeping any hard commitments. Because when starting with something new, it is possible to judge something as easy and get frustrated with not solving an easy problem.

  • I had 2 modes of learning,

    • Active Mode - Practice, Read or Write about Clojure

    • Passive Mode - Watching Clojure talks

  • At times my personal work demanded more time and energy, I switched to 'Passive Mode' so that all I have to do grasp the talk and take notes for my later readings.

  • Started with and followed a proper material so that the initial path is well defined.

  • While watching the talks or reading, for the things that I’m not clear, made a note under 'What?'/'How?'/'Why?' with a hope that I’ll get to know it as I progress in my learning.

  • Apparently, had to sacrifice the entertainment time and greatly reduced the time that I spend to help my wife.

Outcome?

Below are some of the visible outcomes,

  • Written a couple of articles on Clojure.

  • Done some minor contributions to borkdude/jet, boot-clj/boot-new, borkdude/sci, and Clojure docs.

  • Got exposed to new paradigms such as FP, CLP.

  • It changed my thought process in a numerous way, which I’ll explore more and express in upcoming days.

  • And one more tool to my toolbox.

Next?

Having set enough context and exposure, will continue my explorations in silence and share if there are anything worth sharing.

Thanks:

Thanks for all the people who served as Signboards and motivations. Above all to my beloved wife who accommodated my commitment as part of our schedule. _/\_
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For any feedback or corrections, please write in to: kannangce@rediffmail.com

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