Don’t you hate it when at the end of a long day, whatever that means for you, you ask yourself “So what did I really get done today?” and then the mental math just doesn’t seem to add up? I know I can be really hard on myself and I know that I got more done than I give myself credit for but I just wish I thought “I did too much today.” more often.

So I started the day finishing one Code School course and then starting another. Three videos in all and the accompanying exercises for each. If you’re not familiar with Code School courses, each course consists of about five to seven, five to fifteen minute videos each followed by eight to ten practice problems. I have a habit of pausing the videos often to look up associated material in an effort to understand the topic better. Needless to say, this can really slow things down. But then maybe I get more bang for my time buck. I just need to not get carried away.

Then while eating my tuna melt with chips for lunch, I decided to look up information about the Twitter API. I had no intention of this going beyond the last chip on my plate. So much for intentions. About three hours later I was still experimenting on IRB with the Twitter API via the ‘Twitter’ Ruby gem (after about an hour of troubleshooting) and the Foursquare API via their developer site. What I was most curious about was what data one could access and what form did it take. At the end of it all, I decided that I will not pursue the Twitter API becuase of the limitations they place on the public API. I concluded it would become a problem. Foursquare looks more promising even if I may wind up duplicating some functionality that already exists on their site. But then the end goal is learning new things and practicing coding so whatever.

So I never got to working on the “fundraise” app today as I intended but then I did research the APIs pretty thoroughly which I would have done later. So I guess I can call it a draw.

Tomorrow I will finish that second Code School course, get in some Eloquent Ruby reading, but then the rest of the day is all about “fundraise”. It’s been a good while since I’ve spent so much time in one day working on dev stuff. It felt good but I have to be smarter about it. I will be tomorrow.

“Pick your battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.” - Jonathan Kozol