Week 6: October 14th to October 18th

What I Did This Week:

- Finished PR #605
- Studied ConfigToolWidget and a bit about how layouts and resizing works in Qt.
- Opened Issue 630 and PR 631, to create tests for my changes to the TalkEditor
- Studied PyTest and UnitTest
- Updated my Project Proposal to reflect my slight change in plans (specifically, my sudden interest in unit tests)

What I Plan to Do Next Week:

- Work on PR 631.
- In the process, learn more about PyTest and unit testing in general

Problems, past and upcoming:

- I've been very sick this week. It didn't help that I had a midterm and a couple assignments due this week. But I survived, and managed to get some stuff done this week.
- Next week, on Saturday and Sunday, I will be attending the Simon Fraser University Choir Retreat -- I am the Bass section leader, so it is important that I show up for this overnight trip. This means I will definitely miss the Sunday hangout (that's partly why I wanted to volunteer to take minutes this week -- I knew I wouldn't get a chance on the 26th)
- I was planning to meet with Ted Kirkpatrick (the professor representing UCOSP at SFU) this week, but I (unfortunately?) found myself with a ticket to see a lecture by the Dalai Lama on Tuesday at the same time. Whether we reschedule, or I just send him an e-mail update, remains to be seen.

Discussion:

Some people are embarrassed by things they wrote when they were 14 years old. I'm embarrassed by things I wrote a month ago.

When I wrote my Project Proposal (see: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D98OpJsXvnOMHOWmZkRnb5Xp26Upv2jfMaMP3VYP3WQ) I guess I was thinking "Documentation! I'm good at writing stuff, so yeah, let's do that!" As it turns out, I did some coding, and it turns out I kind of like it -- the experience reminded me of why I enjoy programming in the first place.

When I wrote my project proposal, I was working under the assumption that I would fail at everything I tried. I still think that that's a good way to plan things: people are terrible planners, and it's impossible to predict how a program will evolve, so if you assume you'll come across huge roadblocks every step of the way, you'll come pretty close to predicting your progress on average. In that respect, I think my project proposal comes pretty close to a realistic timeline of what I wanted to do at the time. What I didn't expect was how much my interests would change. I still believe in good documentation, but now that I've had a taste of coding, I want more. That surprised me.

In the interest of keeping my promises, I will keep doing the documentation-related things I mentioned in my Project Proposal (which, when you get right down to it, doesn't add up to a whole lot of time). I'll have time to pursue my other interests within the project as well.