2009 goal review – spring equinox

At the start of the year I published my goals for 2009. Rather than just treat it like a new year’s resolution and ignore it until the following year, I decided to review those goals quarterly.

Complete 25 of the Project Euler problems.
I decided to start using Python to tackle some of these, and managed to get a few more done, taking my total to 33. Haven’t done anything on this for a while. The next Project Euler milestone is when you complete 50. I’m not sure I’ll manage that, but maybe I’ll revise this goal to try and complete 40.

Get a Master ranking in Experts Exchange for at least one other zone.
I’ve now got Master ranking in Coldfusion Markup Language, ColdFusion Application Server and ColdFusion Studio. I’m almost at the ‘Guru’ level for the Coldfusion Markup Language.
New goal: get one more Master ranking, and improve both Coldfusion Markup Language and ColdFusion Application Server to Guru level.

Join the gym.
No progress.

Blog at least once a week on average. I’d also like to do more Coldfusion-related blog posts.
I’ve made 36 posts this year, five of which are about ColdFusion.

Get involved in something open source.
I submitted a few minor issues to a handful of projects on RIAForge.org, and submitted a suggestion for the VarScoper tool to its author.

Start using some kind of source control.
No progress.

Install and start using Railo.
No progress.

Start using MySQL.
No progress.

2009 goals

Following on from what I achieved in 2008, I decided to try setting some goals for 2009.

I had an idea that instead of setting New Year’s resolutions, which could be quickly forgotten about until 12 months later, I’d review these goals periodically through the year. The natural way to do that would be at the Spring equinox, Summer solstice, Autumn equinox and Winter solstice. This year those dates are March 20, June 21, September 22 and December 21.

So, some goals, in no particular order:

• Complete 25 of the Project Euler problems. I’ve done 23 so far, and I think I can get at least a couple more done.
• Get a Master ranking in Experts Exchange for at least one other zone. I’ve currently got Master ranking in the Coldfusion Markup Language zone. I reckon I can get Master ranking in at least one other zone, and perhaps improve the Master ranking to Guru.
• Join the gym. I joined for two months last year. This year I think I’ll get a six month membership, starting in March or April.
• Blog at least once a week on average. I’d also like to do more Coldfusion-related blog posts.
• Get involved in something open source. e.g. look at the ColdFusion Open-Source Project List that Brian Rinaldi maintains and pick one or more projects to get involved in. Criteria should perhaps limit it to projects that have public bug/issues tracking, and that I consider relevant/useful.
• Start using some kind of source control. I’m currently reading the Pragmatic Programmer, which advises that even if you can’t convince your team to use it, you should try and use it individually.
• Install and start using Railo.
• Start using MySQL. These last two goals are connected, as ideally I want to use Railo and MySQL on one of my sites which is currently using an Access database and Coldfusion 5 (!), and just about surviving with a pretty high level of traffic.

2008 in review

So, as 2008 draws to a close, what are some of the things I have achieved in the last twelve months?

• I started this blog in July, and made over 65 posts since then.
• I was more active in posting comments to other people’s blogs.
• I’ve been active on Experts Exchange.
• I completed 23 of the Project Euler problems.
• I joined the gym (briefly).
• I went to Mauritius on holiday.
• I went to Shetland on holiday.
• I’ve taken a few thousand photos, and posted over 1300 of them to Flickr.
• I bought myself an Xbox 360.

There were probably other things I’ve forgotten or aren’t worth mentioning here. I didn’t really have any goals for the year apart from the two holidays, so most of these things just happened by chance more than design.

For 2009 I think I’ll try and have a set of goals to work towards… more on that later perhaps