Break Time

The semester has finally ended, and not a moment to soon. Don't get me wrong, I love school, but it's definitely time for a little break. So what have I learned this semester? Heres a brief rundown:

• I really like programming networked applications
• I'm not so crazy about doing computer graphics stuff
• Java is an outstanding programming language, despite what its critics say
• Python is a great programming language, but no replacement for Java, despite what its proponents say
• A less ambitious project that is finished and works is better than a potentially amazing project that isn't finished and doesn't work
• Operating systems programming is very difficult
• It's easier to blog about some topic you are interested in than to give random updates on your life

I am pleased with the outcome of this semester. For one, I got to do a lot of really cool stuff. I got to do an independent study project and learn a lot about operating systems, I got to compete (and get seriously humbled) in a programming competition, I got to present my work at a research conference, and I got to accept an award for all of the above (and more). Now I get to relax a while, hang out with Tab during the day, maybe play some video games, and I get to read some stuff just for fun. Granted, most of what I read will probably be about computers and programming, but the point is I will be doing it just because I want too. In particular, I plan on doing some reading on data structures to get prepared for my algorithms class next semester and I just bought a really cool book on design patterns. In general, I feel like the amount of stuff I want to study is just overwhelming. There is really no possible way I could learn about all of things I would like to learn about, so I just try to pick out things that I think are the most essential and start with them first.

Another exciting note, I just totally wiped Windows off my laptop and installed Linux on it. You would think that after three years of using Linux it would be old hat by now, but I am still totally amazed at its superiority over Windows. To indulge my geekiness a little, I didn't just toss in a Linux install disk and install over Windows, instead I downloaded a copy of Dariks Boot and Nuke and performed a complete and total annihilation of all of the data on my hard disk. Was this necessary? No. But I like to play with toys, and what's more fun than a toy that so thoroughly destroys a hard drive that not even the most sophisticated of data forensics devices can retreive anyting from it (can you say a ridiculous number of passes over the entire disk using a psuodo-random number generator)?

Well that ends my rant, I hope to cover some of the things I mentioned a little more thoroughly later, but until then, this Wii isn't going to play itself.