I started off the year not expecting to do much programming. Compared to some months in 2021, I barely programmed, but I did end up programming much more than I expected. Let’s take a look at what I worked on in the first sixth of the year.

Python Programs

End of Year Video Games Helper

Coming off of last year in which I finally used Python to pull my last.fm data and create graphs, I decided to do the same for my End of Year Video Games blog post. I haven’t posted the code to Github, but here it is:

As I did last year, I’d like to take a look at how well my predictions matched up to what ended up happening:

• Working on my Extra Life Donation Tracker: Yes! I made a bunch of releases last year to fix various bugs for my users. I also finally broke out the Donor Drive Code into its own project so that my code could be used as the basis of non-Extra Life Projects
• Moving Prophecy Practicum to Django: Yes! I did this and my colleague has been using it for about 6 months now. I have some quality of life issues to fix that will help me get better at Django and maybe CSS.
• Redoing flickr views project: Nope. Completely forgot about this.
• Progress on my Unity Game - Eric’s Comet Cleaners - None.
• Learning new programming languages: Yes! Haskell and Go, through Advent of Code problem solving. Also got better at Ruby and Perl.
• Electronics: Some Adaboxes, but no work on my BBQ ThermostatKids: A little more Scratch with the twins. No “real” programming languages with Scarlett.

Compared to last year I had 10 more commits to Github. Pretty consistent!

In these last two months of the year I only worked on Advent of Code.

November

In November I worked through part of the 2016 problem set. I didn’t get too far because of how many languages I was doing at this point. Eventually I decided to allow myself to get a bit further in Python and then catch up with the other languages. Whenever I’d get stuck I’d go back to the other languages. Overall, once I’d figured out Python - Ruby, Perl, and Golang would be pretty easy. Haskell would still be hard, but I started getting the hang of it near the end of the month.

Across both September and October I got a decent amount of programming done. I just about finished the Learn You Haskell for Great Good book (got up to just before Monads) and started Head First Go. Once I had enough Go language to get started on AoC, I knew I’d be ready for the 2016 problem set. Let’s get into the nitty gritty!

Python (not Advent of Code)

Impractical Python

I finished chapter 11 which contained my old friend the Monty Hall Paradox. I’ve had a version up on my site for a very long time based on a PHP tutorial in Linux Format Magazine. This time I was able to code it in Python as well as creating a GUI version. Chapter 11 also touched upon The Birthday Paradox.

Throughout the spring and summer of 2021 a few of the times that I mentioned on the Advent of Code subreddit that I was doing the 2015 problem set in all 3 languages, some folks said they’d be interested in a writeup on the experience. Now that I’ve finally finished 2015 (my first set of 50 stars!) it’s time for that writeup. Before I continue, I’d like to thank everyone on the subreddit who has helped me. I have a README.md for each day’s problem and you’ll find my thanks to those who helped me within those READMEs here in my repo.

June was mostly Python, although I did do chapter 1 of Scratch 3 Games for Kids with Sam. He really, really enjoyed it and I anticipate doing the challenge problems and maybe chapter 2 in July or August.

Books

I read the intro and first couple chapters of both Flask Web Development, 2nd Edition and Data Visualization with Python and Javascript, both from a recent Humble Bundle. The Flask book may be useful for learning more about creating a non-Django site and, even if I mostly stick with FastAPI, it should provide some concepts that are applicable across both frameworks. With the data visualization book, I would love to use that to better visualize my annual Last.fm stats.

I had a lot less variety in my programming month, but still had a lot of fun doing it. In fact, Programming consumed most of my leisure thoughts. More about why I was doing it below, but I’ve been reading Programming Perl as well as skimming through Introducing Go and Learn You A Haskell for Great Good!. Ever since some folks used Haskell during last year’s Advent of Code and this guy’s videos that I mentioned in an early 2021 blog post, I’ve been very curious about the language. In fact, at this point I’ve decided that Go and Haskell will be the next two languages I learn.

Back in 2019, when I did my programming retrospective I made a few predictions. How did those go?

• Work on my Extra Life Donation Tracker? Yup! See below!
• Write more C++ thanks to Arduino? Not so much.
• C# thanks to Unity? Yes, but not in the way I thought. I only did minor work on my game, but I did start a new GameDev.tv class.
• Learning Ruby? Well, I wouldn’t necessarily say I learned Ruby. I did finish the book Ruby Wizardry and I took copious notes. But until I do some practice - maybe via some code katas, I don’t think I’ll have solidified it in my mind.
• 3D Game Dev? Nope, not really.
• Rust and Go? Not even close. Although I did make sure to get some books on the languages.

So, what happened? On the programming front, I wanted to continue my journey to truly master Python after having used it at a surface level for the past 15ish years. I dedicated myself to doing the Python Morsels challenges (more on that below) and working through various Python development exercises. Outside of programming, the time I had off from COVID was used to play with my kids and they wanted to play lots of video games. So we took advantage of having way more time than usual to do that. So a lot of my goals slipped. We’ll get to 2021 predictions at the end, so let’s take a look at 2020!

C#

Back when I was doing GameDev.Tv’s Unity 2D class, I really wanted to know how to do multiplayer games (I also wanted some better support on using Xbox/PS3 remotes in games). Well, this year they released their Multiplayer class. So, naturally, I bought it up. I started working on it, resulting in two Github Repos. In the first section we were learned the basics of the Mirror add-on. I’m currently working through the second section, where we will create a basic RTS. I haven’t reached a real differentiation point from the GameDev folks. That may come later after we get past the basics.