Weekly summary #16

Summary of the sixteenth week of my #SeniorDevRevamp project. Reading, reading, reading with a cherry of rest on top.

Overall summary

This week was concentrated around two books that were long on my to-read list – “Java concurrency in practice” and “A philosophy of software design”. Both are seen as classics, and the fact that it took me so long to read them, embarrasses me a little 😉 The latter was an easy one in terms of the lecture – it is short, concise and does not require that much in-depth thinking. Especially as my job for the last couple of years was refactoring legacy codebase. My opinion about this book is ambiguous, and I have put that in my review of it.

Concurrency book on the other hand, was a way tougher one. Bigger in size, and way more challenging when it came to the topics. However, I am glad that I have finally read it. Not that I am involved with concurrent code every day! It is more about “the feelz” that I got from it. I had the same feeling after reading “Designing Data Intensive Applications” by Kleppmann. It is not based on the sole fact that I memorized all the theory or samples.

It is more about getting to know the foundations of the specific topic (here – concurrency), which is rather far away from the everyday practice. In general – I recommend the lecture to every seasoned Java developer. No matter if you work with the concurrent code or not. My review of the book will be published soon. There were also some minor things – I mention them in the day-by-day section.

What’s next?

With me quitting my regular job, I am concentrating right now on the recruitment process that I’ve enrolled in yesterday. I am applying only for one company at the moment, and I hope to meet all the requirements in order to get there. As I’ve mentioned in the previous weekly summary – right now it’s all about growth for me, and the company I have chosen fits perfectly into that picture. 

Day by day list

• 23-09-2024: ANKI as usual. Continued to read “Java concurrency in practice” (2 chapters) and “A Philosophy of Software Design”.
• 24-09-2024: ANKI in the morning. Two next chapters from “Java concurrency in practice”, and finished “A Philosophy of Software Design” – review can be found here.
• 25-09-2024: ANKI to keep up the momentum. Continued to read “Java concurrency in practice” (4 chapters). I also put technical stuff aside and watched/read a lot of different sources about learning/knowledge retention/etc.
• 26-09-2024: ANKI as usual, and that was it. I had a lot to do lifewise, so I did not do any technical stuff.
• 27-09-2024: ANKI in the morning. Finished “Java concurrency in practice”, and wrote a review of it. I did some follow-up with reading concurrency-related chapters from the “Well-grounded Java developer” book. Finally, I have prepared for the upcoming PostgreSQL administration course (unfortunately it’s only in Polish) by going through preparatory materials.
• 28-09-2024: As usual, some flashcards in the morning. As every weekend I have taken some time to catch up with all the content sources that I am following.
• 29-09-2024: It is my name day today, but ANKI must be there as usual. However, I have taken a day off. That’s what the celebration days are for 😉