2010 – A New Year, Some New Goals

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Like most people, I assume, every new year I come up with a set of goals that I would like to accomplish during the upcoming year.  But I never seem to write them down, so I always forget what my plan was by the time February rolls around.  So starting this year, I am going to make a list of the primary things that I want to achieve in 2010.

Geek-related

  • Blog more!  I tend to blog when I learn something new and I have not written a post recently (which I guess means that I have not learned anything).  I have been busy working on finishing my basement for the past few months, but that is no excuse.
  • Deep dive into compiler and language principles.  I have always had an interest in writing a compiler/language and would like to focus on that in the coming year.   I don’t think that there is any better way to become a better developer than to understand the concepts and ideas that define the basis for our work.
  • Deep dive into concurrent programming.  This and the language/compiler topic above should keep me plenty busy during the year.  This goal involves a lot of subtopics: parallel computing, functional programming, scalability, concurrency, etc.  I would just like to get a better grasp of these concepts and how they can help me to write better code.

Personal

  • Ride in RAGBRAI in July.  My father-in-law has done this event for 10 years now, and since I have gotten into cycling recently, I figure I should join him in the fun.  It is an annual event in which you ride across the state of Iowa.
  • Play in some competitive golf events.  I currently plan to participate in some of the state golf association tournaments in 2010 and would like to actually do well in these events.  This is going to require a lot of practice and play in the next few months to prepare.

Now this gives me a place throughout the year to look at the goals I have laid out for myself.  These items should keep me quite busy for a while and I will write some posts as I work to accomplish these goals.  I might even add to this list if I think of some more things.