Focusing my efforts, managing my time, and figuring out what my priorities in life are.
regex, on the big scheme of things, is a pretty easy problem to solve. If you think about them in terms of state machines, they become easier to grasp your mind around.
Doing nice visual design stuff. I'm apparently not all that great at it, but frankly don't really notice (I like the look and feel of this site, for instance) so it's not like I have anything to benchmark against.
I'm already good at using my time wisely. I have some specific things I need to work on in terms of translating that into increased income. I think it will all come, eventually. (However, I was born without a patient bone in my body so I'm not very content about my expectation that "it will come, eventually.")
Making money, overcoming presentation anxiety, selling, art.
Edit: If you need help on the regular expressions you might want to pick up the mastering regular expressions book from o'reilly. It's a great book for that: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596528126/
see I don't know why people hate on {perl,awk,sed}. To me, these are the best tools available for data munging and they're just too damn convenient. However, I always get the feeling that my efficiency takes a hit when I try to be too clever.
don't get me wrong. I love perl. and I use awk almost every day (mostly because I can't be bothered to remember the syntax for cut). I just find it a little weird to say regex regex regex is the only thing to improve about yourself. regexes are powerful things, but they aren't the answer to all problems. I cringe when people brandish a zero-width negative look-behind assertion when a simple index() will do. there is an interview problem I like to give that involves string prefixes and when perl people start off down the regex path, I know that they've been lured into a quagmire.
btw, if you haven't read it, the friedl book is great and I consider it the definitive text on at least the practical matters of regular expressions (and it even covers a good chunk of the CS theory behind them as well).
18 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 49.6 ms ] threadregex, on the big scheme of things, is a pretty easy problem to solve. If you think about them in terms of state machines, they become easier to grasp your mind around.
Edit: If you need help on the regular expressions you might want to pick up the mastering regular expressions book from o'reilly. It's a great book for that: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596528126/
btw, if you haven't read it, the friedl book is great and I consider it the definitive text on at least the practical matters of regular expressions (and it even covers a good chunk of the CS theory behind them as well).
- getting into shape (it's needed, but I'm starting that tomorrow)
- persisting (in everything, 2years ago I was getting in a better shape, but see #1)
- live greener (we already use 1/2 of electricity a normal family uses, but I know we could do better)
That's it. And the best part is I can do all 3 things, it's not something I will never be able to do. Better start working on them!