Keola's Thoughts

Blog Purpose

2011-10-27T18:12:00.000-07:00

My blogging has been erratic and without purpose. There has been no reason behind any of the blog posts I've written. I want there to be a purpose and a future goal for my blogging. I've decided to work on my online presence. My goal is to create a professional persona to help me asses my strength and weaknesses of my programming capabilities.

The purpose of my blog is to showcase my learning. I will start detailing everything I'm working on.

Demonstrate my willingness and curiosity to continue increasing my programming knowledge.
Demonstrate I understand content related to programming.
Demonstrate my researching ability.
Demonstrate my writing ability.
Demonstrate my critical thinking ability.
Demonstrate my creativity.
Through my writing, develop and demonstrate my unique professional personality and character.
Develop and demonstrate my social media skills.
Begin developing my professional brand, not as a job-seeker in my field, but as a thought leader in my field.

My writing to this point has not clearly demonstrated any of these standards. One of my goals is to be able to clearly articulate in my writing what I'm working on so that everyone can understand. When I write what I'm working on, I want the newbie to the professional to understand what I'm explaining. I always hacking on something, whether it's Java or Rails or CSS and XHTML, I will have something to write about. It will take a lot of deliberate practice to get my writing to this point.

Apache Ivy

2011-10-26T16:45:00.000-07:00

In researching Apache Ant and how to create a build.xml file, I discovered Apache Ivy. Apache Ivy is a dependency manager that can easily be integrated with Apache Ant.

The main and most frequent way to use ivy is from an ant build file. However, ivy can also be called as a standalone application. If you use ant version 1.6.0 or superior, you just have to add ivy namespace to your project (xmlns:ivy="antlib:org.apache.ivy.ant") attribute of your project tag, and you can call ivy tasks.

 <project name="sample" default="compile" xmlns:ivy="antlib:org.apache.ivy.ant">

The build will use Apache Ivy to download, install, and manage third party libraries of the different tools needed for the project. The retrieve task copies resolved dependencies anywhere you want in your file system. Below is an example of adding checkstyle to the project.

1:  <target name="install-checkstyle" description="Install checkstyle."> 
2:    <ivy:retrieve module="checkstyle" organisation="com.puppycrawl" revision="5.4" pattern="${basedir}/lib/checkstyle/[artifact].[ext]" sync="true" conf="bundled" type="jar,report"/> 
3:   </target>

Build System

2011-10-18T19:25:00.000-07:00

The build system is extremely important. It provides a standardized way for anyone to build the system. Users can build and test the system without an IDE. Developers can build and test the system using their IDE of choice. This automated build is helpful in preventing errors, testing, and deployment. Developing a robust build system can ease the process when maintaining a large and/or complex software system.

My build system will need to become a template. As a template, I can adapt it to any project I create. The build system will be modular and extensible to become as big or as small as needed. It will integrate any third party build tools. It will handle junit, checkstyle, and any other third party build tools that the build system requires. It will be able to download, install, and manage all third party libraries needed. It will support web application development.

Below is the beginnings of a build file. It contains two targets, clean and compile. It's very simple in what its doing. I am studying the Ant manual to learn how to integrate the third party build tools and libraries into the build system.

1:  <project default="default">
2:   <description>
3:   The build file.
4:   $Id$
5:   </description>
6:  
7:   
8:   <property name="src.dir" location="${basedir}/src"/>
9:   <property name="build.dir" location="${basedir}/build"/>
10:  
11:  
12:   <target name="clean"
13:    description="Delete build/ directory.">
14:    <delete dir="${build.dir}"/>
15:   </target>
16:  
17:   <target name="compile" 
18:    description="Compiles the code.">
19:    <!-- Ensure that the build output dir exists. -->  
20:    <mkdir dir="${build.dir}/classes"/>
21:    <!-- Now compile the system. -->
22:    <javac srcdir="${src.dir}"
23:        destdir="${build.dir}/classes">
24:    </javac>
25:   </target>
26:  </project>

Configuring My Java Build Environment

2011-10-13T21:00:00.000-07:00

In my efforts to improve my programming skills, I have decided to get back into Java programming and building large projects. My previous involvement with a large Java project was seven years ago as a university of Hawaii student with the CLEW system. The Collaborative Educational Website (CLEW) was a web application development framework for collegiate department websites.

Environment Configuration

The current laptop I will be working on is a Toshiba Satellite A505 running on Windows 7 64-bit. It has a 1.60 GHz processor, 4 GB RAM, and over 100 GB of free space. My first step is to create a high quality Java software development environment. I downloaded and installed the Java 7 JDK and JavaDoc documentation. I added %java%/bin to my computers PATH variable. I downloaded and installed the Eclipse 3.6.2 IDE. I chose "Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers" to work on the Java projects. To improve the performance of Eclipse, I modified some runtime options. Increase the heap space for Eclipse. I have at least 2GB RAM. In the eclipse.ini file, I changed -Xms=40m to -Xms=512m and -Xmx=512m to -Xmx=1024m.

To verify my configuration was working, I wrote a couple of basic programs in my eclipse IDE. I wrote the generic HelloWorld program that worked fine. I wanted to try something else so I searched online and found a simple program to implement called FizzBuzz. FizzBuzz is a program that prints the numbers from 1 to 100. But for multiples of three print "Fizz" instead of the number and for the multiples of five print "Buzz". For numbers which are multiples of both three and five print "FizzBuzz". I was able to implement a working FizzBuzz program. My initial configuration was working.

Build System

This is the point in my configuration where I am stuck. The build system I used for CLEW included apache ant, jakarta tomcat, junit, checkstyle, and other tools. Are these tools still relevant?

In my research for build tools, the top two I came across were Ant and Maven. Ant is open source, Java-based, extensible, and uses XML configuration files. Maven is project management technology that uses convention over configuration. Ant is still very popular and I am familiar with the Ant concepts. Every project requires an Ant build file, build.xml. Each build file is composed of targets. Each target is composed of tasks. And targets can have dependencies.

I downloaded and installed Apache Ant 1.8.1. I added %ant%/bin to my computers PATH variable.

Now What?

Next in configuring my Java build environment will be to include the different tools to help build a working project. I will look into junit, checkstyle, and other tools currently being adopted. When I get a build environment up and running, I will begin my Java programming.

Learning by Doing

2011-01-13T19:22:00.000-08:00

After graduating from the University of Hawaii, I fell into a programming funk. I didn't know what to do, how to get started, or where to get help. I felt like none of the courses I took prepared me to take a project from development through to distribution. I missed not having access to Professors, TA's, classmates, and friends. I finally took action and contacted my mentor for guidance.

His advice was to just start hacking. Do anything. Think of an idea and try to implement the program. Work by trial and error. If you encounter an error, try to figure it out with research and fix the problem. There is no better way to learn then to just do it.

I found the following on a website the echoes this sentiment.

Program. The best kind of learning is learning by doing. To put it more technically, "the maximal level of performance for individuals in a given domain is not attained automatically as a function of extended experience, but the level of performance can be increased even by highly experienced individuals as a result of deliberate efforts to improve." (p. 366) and "the most effective learning requires a well-defined task with an appropriate difficultly level for the particular individual, informative feedback, and opportunities for repetition and correction of errors." (p. 20-21) The book Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics, and Culture in Everyday Life is an interesting reference for this viewpoint.

This concept of learning by doing would have been nice to have done while at UH. Looking back I feel my focus was more on completing assignments before the due date to get the best grade to pass the class to get to graduation. I didn't immerse myself into the subject to fully understand it and relate it to a real world problem. Because of this, I didn't have the right mindset or ask the right questions. I would've liked to learn by doing with the class, during class, with the professor giving feedback and correcting errors as he instructs. My ideal situation would've allowed more natural learning and less lecturing.

I've been thinking a lot about my student self. I feel I approached learning all wrong. I put more effort into getting through my courses then being in the moment and participating. I've come to realize my goals were geared towards doing what I needed to do to move up instead of understanding the material. It would've been amazing to be given a difficult task and allowed to fail without the consequence. My failure would have been an opportunity to teach me where I went wrong and how to correct the mistake for next time instead of failing me with no idea or explanation why my work was unsatisfactory and forced to retake the course.

It wasn't all bad. I had a few courses that allowed me to learn by doing. We worked on real world projects. I was able to receive informative feedback and correction on errors. In one of these classes I was introduced to pair-programming. Pair-programming is a great concept.

Over the past year of I've been learning a new programming language and hacking away implementing a variety of programs. I am gaining a deeper knowledge of Ruby on Rails, CSS, and XHTML. In this process I'm learning more about utilizing the MySQL database, how the MVC paradigm works, how to work with plugins and gems, authentication, uploading images and videos, dynamic select menus, and many more things. I am coming to the conclusion that a year of learning by doing has given me a better understanding then the majority of Computer Science courses I took at UH. Out of the 15 or more ICS courses I took during my time at UH, only two were helpful, ICS 413 and ICS 414.

I will be continuing my learning by doing. My current project is a web application using Rails. My ultimate goal is to get my webapp online. I also plan on getting back into Java development. My last foray with Java was using the Struts web application framework, eclipse, ant, tomcat, mysql, and cvs. I will be looking into what I need to develop with Java and if any of the preceding tools are still relevant.

Whatcha Been Doin? A Conversation

2010-12-16T16:35:00.000-08:00

It's the holiday season and we are visiting with family and friends. We are out gathering with people at parties or games or whatever. While hanging out with everyone we talk to each other.

One of the early questions asked to begin a conversation is "what you been up to lately" or "what do you do." I've participated in and listened to some conversations that began this way. Over the past month I have engaged in a dozen or so conversations and listened to a bunch more that began this way. I will note that I am not the best conversationalist.

When family, friends, or strangers came up to me and ask me that question, I fill them in on the hacking and trading I've been doing. I get two responses to my answer, "that's great" and they walk away or "that's great" and they change the subject. I did not get one person to pursue further into what I'm doing or exhibit any interest in what I've said. I've come to the conclusion that it could be one of two things, 1) hacking and trading are not interesting for the people I talked with or 2) my delivery in explaining what I'm doing was not clear and understandable for anyone to continue with that conversation topic. I believe the problem is with the latter.

In listening to other similar conversations, the response was much different. The questioner was engaged with the answers and continued with follow up questions to gain a deeper knowledge of the subject. I too became fascinated with what people are doing.

So, I've been trying to figure out why my delivery failed. As I noted earlier, I am not the best conversationalist. I don't participate in many conversations because I have a weak and soft voice and many people have a difficult time hearing me, especially in loud areas. I wing it every time I tell people what I'm doing so its probably not succinct and a little confusing. I need to practice.

I'm looking to improve in this area. In my research I've come across the concept of Branding. I will be working on Brand Me. I want to be able to articulate what I'm doing better. Maybe then I will get people interested in learning more.

The Past Couple of Weeks

2010-10-04T19:19:00.000-07:00

My mom came up to me and said, "do you realize for the past couple of weeks you've been on the computer from the moment you get up until the time you go to bed." I did not realize that. I've been so focused on what I've been doing, time has flown by. I am enjoying the work I am putting my time and effort into. All I've been doing is trading and hacking. I want to get better in these two disciplines.

I spend time on my trading looking at charts for patterns, support and resistance levels, and direction. I look back at my previous trades to check if I'm following my trading rules. I do research for my trading journal project.

I spend time on my hacking working on my project. I'm teaching myself Ruby on Rails. My Rails web application is for a youth club basketball team. I can add players with an image and their information. I can add leagues with each league having many games. I can add albums with each album containing many photos. I have a calendar that shows the current month that I can add events to which will show up for that day. I can add stats for each player that corresponds to a game. I add basic stats and the model does the calculations for individual and game stats. I am currently working on adding videos to my web application. I've used plugins and gems. I'm also learning and using CSS. When I encounter a problem I search for a solution, which can happen in a day or a month. This is FUN!

I wasn't actually on the computer all day, it just seems that way. I took some time to watch the Blue Angels. I took a couple hours here and there to go watch my nephews play basketball and football. But then I'm back on the computer. So much fun.

The Process of Finding Standout Ideas

2010-10-02T14:08:00.000-07:00

How do you know if you have a blockbuster idea? As an example, is my Trading Journal idea a standout idea?

Some people have said to "just get started" on your idea and you'll discover if it's a blockbuster idea. Is that the best move? I read an article The Idea Virtuoso... that touts the process that university professors of research labs use to find the best idea. Having deep knowledge and expert feedback can differentiate between mediocre and great ideas. This reminded me of Dr. Johnson being awarded a grant to research the smart grid. What was his process to settle on that idea to get awarded that grant?

It seems like meeting with a group or team to brainstorm and discuss all ideas are needed to identify the best possible projects before getting started. This commitment to understanding the idea and seeking feedback will help you follow ideas you feel have a strong possibility for success.

It's called the idea-centric approach. You research your ideas to discover if there is an audience out there that sees value in an idea. When the standout idea emerges, the focus of your efforts goes toward implementing that idea. In this approach, you need to learn or know the field and seek expert advice.

Adding Video to my Rails Web Application

2010-08-09T18:44:00.000-07:00

My Rails web app has been going well. I've been able to figure out some things and get them to work. My current task is adding an upload and convert video function. I want to shoot video then edit the video and upload the video to my web app. I consulted google and was told FFmpeg was the way to go. FFmpeg is a complete, cross-platform solution to record, convert and stream audio and video. I consulted google on how to combine FFmpeg with Rails and was lead to Converting Videos with Rails: Installing FFMPEG. The problem is, this is an example of how to install FFmpeg on Ubuntu. I don't have Ubuntu. I'm on Mac OS X 10.4. I found Installing and Using FFmpeg on Mac OS X and followed the instructions with no success. This is where I'm at and what I'm doing.

Check - It Works!

2010-05-10T20:25:00.000-07:00

I figured it out. I have attributes in my Stat database table that the user doesn't provide input for. The value, for the hidden attributes, is gotten from the other attributes that the user does provide input for.

What I did:

In the Model:

before_validation :cache_virtual_columns

def total_points

((twopfgm * 2)+(threepfgm * 3)+(ftm * 1))

end

def field_goal_percent

sprintf("%0.3f", ((twopfgm+threepfgm)/(twopfga+threepfga.to_f)))

end

private

def cache_virtual_columns

self.total_points = total_points

self.field_goal_percent = field_goal_percent

end

In the Form:

%= f.hidden_field :total_points

%= f.hidden_field :field_goal_percent

When a new Stat record is created, it checks the Model and before doing validations does the cache_virtual_columns method. cache_virtual_columns has the total_points and field_goal_percent DB columns equal the value in their method. This updates the Stat record to contain values for each attribute.

“Always two there are, a master and an apprentice.”

2010-05-06T16:59:00.000-07:00

“Do or do not... there is no try.”

I'm having a blast hacking away on my project. Rails is a fun language to learn. Lately I've been hitting a wall on the execution side. I will be working and get to a point where everything I do isn't working. I know what I want to implement and have an idea of how it should be implemented but nothing seems to work. I run searches to find an example of what to do but come up empty. Things get dark when I am unable to figure it out.

“Beware of the dark side.”

Here's my dilemma, I have a form for a user to enter stats. The user enters 2 point field goals made/attempted, 3 point field goals made/attempted, free throws made/attempted, offensive/defensive rebounds, and others. I have other model attributes that the user doesn't provide input for on the form. They are total points, field goal %, 3 point field goal %, free throw %, and total rebounds. I'm thinking the model can take the attributes the user entered, obtain certain values and perform the calculations to populate the extra attributes all before the record is saved.

For example, to calculate the points scored for the current stat record being created;

# before record saves, do total_points method

before_save :total_points

# calculates total points of current record

def points

@twopoints = :twopfgm * 2

@threepoints = :threepfgm * 3

@onepoints = :ftm * 1

@twopoints + @threepoints + @onepoints

end

private

# update :total_points attribute of record with points

def total_points

stat.update_attribute(:total_points, points)

end

This doesn't work. I'm in the process of figuring this out.

To Boldly Go Where No Man(Me) Has Gone Before

2010-05-02T19:48:00.000-07:00

Captain's log, Stardate 542010.5.

I've been working on my project for week's. The past couple days have been uneventful but I've made excellent progress. I am figuring out the relationships between League, Game, Player, and Stat. I've been learning about nesting resources and nesting models in one form. I've split them into pairs.

League has many Games. Game belongs to League.

Player has many Stats. Stat belongs to Player.

This gives me these routes.

/leagues

/leagues/:id

/leagues/:league_id/games

/leagues/:league_id/games/:id

/players

/players/:id

/players/:player_id/stats

/players/:player_id/stats/:id

Now I am able to create a league with many games and players with many stats. I'm working on getting the players with their stats to belong to a specific game in a specific league. I want to access players on its own so I'm hesitant to nest it. Plus, Rule of thumb: resources should never be nested more than 1 level deep. So I shouldn't do Games to Players to Stats.

I would like to have the form below to create the box score for each game. It will also track each players stats.

It would start with a drop-down menu to choose league. Selecting a league will activate the drop-down menu of games in that league. Selecting a game will do something that will allow me to get the form to choose a player from a drop-down menu and add their stats for that game. And do this for multiple players.

When I view the game I see

May the force be with you.

Secret Society of ...

2010-04-27T17:05:00.000-07:00

Greetings to All of my Followers ... both of you ... whom I follow more

Hope all is well in your kingdoms.

I call to order the meeting of the Hackers Guild.

Take your seat at the round table.

First order of business, the rules. The first rule of Hackers Guild is you don't talk about Hackers Guild!

Now repeat the mantra:

I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my computer go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will hack you.

I've been locked up in my room hacking away learning what works and what doesn't work with Rails. I've gotten close with google searching, Stack Overflow, and the API's. I've made friends with different gems and git and github for plugins. I'm learning a lot and getting things to work. I just don't know if it's the best way. I got file upload for images working but not for videos. I got authentication up and running. I got a calendar to contain events.

This is all my deliberate practice to learn what I need to implement my own software. My current task is implementing a basketball stat tracking system for one team with a group of players. I've broken it down to 4 models. The models are League, Game, Player, and Stat. I will be able to create a new League that will contain many Games. Each Game will contain the Stats of each Player for that Game. Similar to a box score but only one team. I also want each Player view to show the career stats for each league or year. I'm working on figuring out the relationships between the models. That will help with the routes. I'm also figuring out how to handle fields that require calculating two or more attributes to get the value. Like field goal %, you take the number of field goals made divided by field goals attempted to get the value.

This is my focus.

Is there anything else to discuss?

This closes the meeting of the Hackers Guild.

Live long and prosper

Social Networking

2010-03-30T18:58:00.000-07:00

I am now on Twitter, Facebook, TechHui, and Blogger. I have no idea what to do with them all. How do I utilize them and for what purpose? Facebook asks "What's on your mind?" Twitter asks "What's happening?" TechHui asks "What brings you here?" Are random thoughts alright? It seems like the way to keep friends and family up to date. I guess I'm still trying to find my voice. What do I want to say?

Practicing Hacking

2010-02-19T14:48:00.000-08:00

I am a big believer in deliberate practice. I've done my research and understand the concept. It is "activities designed, typically by a teacher, for the sole purpose of effectively improving specific aspects of an individual's performance (Anders Ericsson)." It's designed to improve performance, it's repeated a lot, feedback on results is continuously available, it's highly demanding mentally, it's difficult, and it requires specific goals.

Integrating Deliberate Practice

Deliberate practice seems straightforward, but I'm having a difficult time integrating it with learning a programming language. I have no problem implementing deliberate practice with sports or playing a musical instrument. These fields have better rules and objectives when measuring success. It is clear to me on how to improve performance for these fields.

If I wanted to improve my dribbling in basketball I would practice with one hand at a time standing still then while moving slow then by moving fast. After I improve I would increase difficulty.

If I wanted to improve in playing the guitar I would practice each chord individually and then practice transitioning from one chord to another.

Knowledge Work

The previous fields are more on the physical side. Learning a programming language is more knowledge work. How do you optimize performance on knowledge work? I'm trying to figure out a systematic approach for building a deliberate practice strategy for learning a programming language.

My Current Process

I am in the process of learning Ruby on Rails. I want to build web applications. I've been hacking on my application getting things done and figuring stuff out but I do not feel I'm becoming a expert Rails programmer. As soon as I solve my task I have forgotten the process I used to figure it out. I see the finished code but cannot quite remember what searches I did that yielded results and what searches didn't. I also wonder how to repeat the process to deliberately practice that new solution. And if my solution is the correct way to do it.

Will building applications and continuous hacking create an expert programmer?

Self learning

2010-01-09T19:17:00.000-08:00

Self learning has been challenging. Building my blog website application from scratch has been fun but has not been the smoothest experience. I know what I want to implement and need to work to implement the features. The problem is that the work schedule is in my head and not written down. My focus is jumping from one thing to another thing. I'll be working on the layout of the comments and notice something in the comment form I want to improve and switch jobs. And neither one gets fixed. I will be figuring out a schedule of work to do and follow it.

Adding Date and Time to my Rails Blog App

2010-01-05T17:20:00.000-08:00

For my blog posts and comments I wanted to display the date and time. Fortunately, the models automatically add the attribute created_at of datetime during the migration to the database. This allows me to just call the created_at attribute from the posts and comments table to display them after they have been created.

I got my first problem when I added it to my view. It appeared as 2009-12-14 08:25:51-1000. That's not what I wanted. I wanted December 14th, 2009 8:25AM. And this gave me another problem, the time was 10 hours off. I wanted Hawaii time so it should have been 2009-12-13 22:25:51-1000.

After a lot of searching I was able to piece together a solution. I have rails 2.3.3.

To format date and time I modified config/enviroment.rb. Looking at this file I found config.time_zone = 'UTC'. I didn't know what UTC was but above it had Run "rake -D time" for a list of tasks for finding time zone names. So I ran 'rake -D time' in my terminal and was given 'rake time:zones:local' which I ran and was given Hawaii as my time zone. So I changed config.time_zone = 'UTC' to config.time_zone = 'Hawaii'. This gave me my date and time but not the right format.

I wanted December 14th, 2009 8:25AM. To get this I had to create my format. I eventually found rails module for conversions. I then had to figure out what %Y-%m-%d meant. When I found the meaning I wrote the code below to display my date and time format. I also found to get 1 to display as 1st, 2 as 2nd, 14 as 14th, 23 as 23rd I had to add ordinalize to the day.

ActiveSupport::CoreExtensions::Time::Conversions::DATE_FORMATS.merge!(

:time => '%I:%M%p',

:date => lambda { |time| time.strftime("%B #{time.day.ordinalize}, %Y") }

)

Format Meaning

%a The abbreviated weekday name (“Sun'’)

%A The full weekday name (“Sunday'’)

%b The abbreviated month name (“Jan'’)

%B The full month name (“January'’)

%c The preferred local date and time representation

%d Day of the month (01..31)

%H Hour of the day, 24-hour clock (00..23)

%I Hour of the day, 12-hour clock (01..12)

%j Day of the year (001..366)

%m Month of the year (01..12)

%M Minute of the hour (00..59)

%p Meridian indicator (“AM'’ or “PM'’)

%S Second of the minute (00..60)

%U Week number of the current year, starting with the first Sunday as the first day of the first week (00..53)

%W Week number of the current year, starting with the first Monday as the first day of the first week (00..53)

%w Day of the week (Sunday is 0, 0..6)

%x Preferred representation for the date alone, no time

%X Preferred representation for the time alone, no date

%y Year without a century (00..99)

%Y Year with century

%Z Time zone name

%% Literal “%'’ character

In my view I added:

%= comment.created_at.to_s(:date) %

%= comment.created_at.to_s(:time) %

Now every post and comment has a correct date and time.

Keola's Blog Application

2009-12-17T16:59:00.000-08:00

For the past 16 days I’ve been hacking away on my blog application. My goal is to go from development to production. I want to get version 1.0 online by February 1^st. I’m not quite sure what’s involved in taking a website public, but I am going to find out.

The site will be a two-column layout containing a header, navigation, content, sidebar, and footer. The navigation bar will have a home, about, contact, and blog page.

The blog engine is similar to the “creating a weblog in 15 minutes with Rails 2” screencast with a few minor tweaks. I added a few more attributes to the comment model to get a name, email, and website.

I also am building this application without using the scaffold to generate things. I want to understand the Rails convention. I want to fill out the controllers, views, routes and whatever else is needed. It’s running, so I’ve been pretty good about adding what is needed.

The past couple weeks have been fun. I’ve gotten further along then I planned. Everything is flowing. Next I will share some things I discovered.

Taking Action - Start to Finish

2009-12-01T16:08:00.001-08:00

Imagining something you might like to have or do is a dream. A dream written down and clearly visualized is a goal. A tangible, measurable step written down and committed to is an action. You will not achieve a dream if you don't systematically work through the actions that lead to the goals that lead to the dream.

It's easy to get passionate about setting goals. We all get excited about our dreams. Taking consistent action on them on a daily basis until they are done is another story. How do we stay motivated with the same passion and excitement to follow through on the everyday tasks required to achieve the goals? How do we overcome any obstacles that occur?

Whenever we conceive the goals we want to achieve, we each enter our own process to accomplish these goals. My process involves imagining my goal as a finished product, researching and planning by gathering information to be prepared to work on the goal, and taking action to achieve the goal while maintaining the passion and self-discipline to follow through to the end result.

I have noticed that I easily get distracted and stuck in the researching and planning phase. I'm always looking for more and more information, but rarely implement what I've already learned. I am acknowledging that there are profound barriers between reading and DOING. I know that the solution isn’t “more,” but actually using the knowledge I've gained. I need to get to the action phase sooner. FAILURE is OK! I'll be learning while doing.

After taking action there is always an obstacle or two that try deter you from reaching your goal. At this point it becomes difficult and the excitement fades. This is when the self-discipline needs to kick in. I use my ability to be resourceful and work on solving the obstacle. If I'm having trouble figuring out how to overcome the obstacle, I seek out help. Two people are better then one and three people are better then two.

Today is the day I begin taking action. I've been learning Rails for a couple months and am still researching and planning. All I've been doing is reading up on Rails, CSS, and XHTML as well as following a bunch of tutorials. I haven't even started my own application. I've worked on a store application which had a buyers side with a shopping cart and a sellers side to handle the products and sales. I worked on a digg like application where users could submit articles and vote on them and view the most popular ones. I've done many different blog applications. And many more tutorials. Today I start hacking on my applications and less on tutorials. Maybe even find someone else's and contribute to it.

My dream is to create a website with all my web applications. My first goal is to create a blog for my website similar to the ones I read everyday. My actions will be to build the blog beyond what the tutorials teach.

Rails MVC

2009-11-11T17:19:00.000-08:00

Ruby on Rails is an MVC framework for web application development.

The Model View Controller principle divides the work of an application into three separate but closely cooperative subsystems.

The Model is responsible for maintaining the state of the application. When the state is transient, data will last a few transactions with a user. When the state is permanent, data will be stored using a database. A Model will maintain the data. The Model enforces all the business rules and logic that apply to the data. The Model acts as both a gatekeeper and a data store.

ActiveRecord plays the role of Model in Rails. It is the module for handling business logic and database communication. It maintains the relationship between object and database and handles validation, association, transactions, and more.

The View is responsible for generating a user interface, normally based on data in the Model. The View handles graphical user interface objects and presentation logic.

ActionView plays the role of View in Rails. It is the component that handles the presentation of pages to the client. A presentation of data in a particular format, triggered by a controller's decision to present the data. They are script based templating systems and very easy to integrate with AJAX technology.

The Controller orchestrates the application. The Controller receives events from the outside world (normally user input), interact with the Model, and display an appropriate View to the user. The Controller handles user interface and application logic.

ActionController plays the role of Controller in Rails. It is the component that handles browser requests and facilitates communication between the Model and the View. The facility within the application that directs traffic, on the one hand querying the models for specific data, and on the other hand organizing that data (searching, sorting, massaging it) into a form that fits the needs of a given view.

The MVC process:

The browser, on the client, sends a request for a page to the controller on the server.
The controller retrieves the data it needs from the model in order to respond to the request.
The controller hands the retrieved data to the view.
The view is rendered and sent back to the client for the browser to display.

Following a set of conventions and partitioning your functionality appropriately, code becomes easier to work with and your application becomes easier to extend and maintain.

Separating a software application into MVC:

improves scalability
make maintenance easier
promotes reuse

That's the simplistic overview of Rails and the MVC architecture pattern. Thats what MVC means, and thats how rails accomplishes it. Rails starts with the skeleton of an application already prepared. The configured skeleton application along with the MVC design creates a robust language.

Retaining Information

2009-10-29T17:52:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. What is the best way to retain everything of a subject you are beginning to learn? Before you can retain any information, you first need to be able to comprehend the information. Do you need to understand what you are learning before you can expect to retain any knowledge? My goal is to preserve the knowledge of the Rails syntax, the built-in operators and libraries, and "how to use it."

I have always thought that if I read a bunch of books on a certain subject I would comprehend and retain all of the information. I have come to find this is not true. After finishing reading any material, we retain about 50%. But, 48 hours later we lose 90% of what we retained. So if we don't continue reading the material, we will forget most of what was learned.

The only thing I can think of to retain knowledge is to use it everyday. Put it into practice at least an hour a day. If you want to retain information read, immediately take action and put it to practical use.

What about reactivating old knowledge you have but have not used in a while. Will it come back when you need it or would you need to start back at the beginning.

I am working on getting better at retaining what I learn. I'm still in search of the answer.

First Rails Tutorial

2009-10-20T14:27:00.000-07:00

My Setup

I am using TextMate for my editor. I am using the Terminal to access the command prompt. I am using online Rails 2.x tutorials to become familiar with the language, the different commands, and the file system.

The Tutorial

I chose Creating a weblog in 15 minutes with Rails 2. In 15 minutes, it goes from scratch to complete weblog engine with comments, ajax, an ATOM feed, an XML and JSON API, tests, an administrative interface, and much more.

This tutorial showed me a lot of what Rails can do. It gave some insight into Rails MVC archetype. I was able to experience how easy and quick a Rails application can be created. Every change was immediately updated and viewable without having to compile first. I guess that’s what is meant by convention over configuration.

The tutorial was a little fast. It also provided an abundance of information quickly. It didn’t include how to enhance the look of the webapp. The tutorial did provide me with a basic understanding of what’s involved in creating a Rails application.

Other Things I Learned

To use the MySQL as the database, I used the command rails –d mysql appName when creating a new application.

To create the database, I used the command rake db:create RAILS_ENV=’development’

The Game Plan

2009-10-14T21:58:00.000-07:00

After reading "10 tips for advancing from a beginner to an intermediate developer" that was shared by Austen, I began to focus more on where I wanted to take my programming. The article mentioned deliberate practice. I've been interested in this concept for a while so I researched it and wrote out what I discovered on deliberate practice. I am going to apply deliberate practice to my programming. I aim to advance from a beginner to an intermediate developer.

My plan is to become fluent in a programming language. I chose Ruby on Rails. I will enjoy building robust web applications. It is still growing and there is support for any help I may need. My deliberate practice will focus on learning the syntax, the built-in operators and libraries, and “how to use it.” I will be using online tutorials to get started. There are tutorials to build blogs, storage, and stores. I will be hacking away at these and anything else that comes my way. This will help me begin to learn the syntax, the built-in operators and libraries, and “how to use it.” When it starts to make sense, I will break it down to deliberately practice a certain part until I understand it.

I have been working on getting my machine ready for this plan. I have an iMac OS 10.4 (Tiger). I first had to find Xcode 2.5 to load. I finally found it at the Apple's Developer Connection. I then used Hivelogic's tutorial to build Ruby, Rails, Mongrel, and MySQL. Mine is a little different then the tutorial.

Put all software in usr/local and set path

installed readline 5.1

installed ruby 1.8.6

installed rubygems 1.3.5 (different)

installed rails 2.3.3

installed mongrel

installed subversion 1.6.5

installed capistrano

installed mysql 5.1.37

IT HAS BEGUN! The plan is in effect. This plan will help me get to my end game. I will become an intermediate developer and attain the ability to build my Trading Journal.

Deliberate Practice

2009-10-13T14:37:00.000-07:00

Talent is the possession of a repeatable skill. A talented individual can perform a skill in a specific domain over and over and over again flawlessly. How does one become talented? Is it an innate gift grown in certain individuals? Or is it built from the ground up? Talent is acquired through the concept of deliberate practice. Anyone can become talented if they put in the practice time. Not just any kind of practice but deliberate practice.

Role of Deliberate Practice

Deliberate practice means pursuing a well-defined task, appropriate for the individual's level, allowing for opportunities of errors, error correction, and informative feedback. Contrast deliberate practice with playful interaction, where individuals seek simply to enjoy an activity. Deliberate practice involves setting specific goals, obtaining immediate feedback, and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome. Deliberate practice is designed specifically to improve performance. The key word is "designed." Practice is well designed when it's specific & technique-oriented with high-repetition paired with immediate feedback.

The essence of deliberate practice is continually stretching an individual just beyond his or her current abilities. That may sound obvious, but most of us don't do it in the activities we think of as practice. By contrast, deliberate practice requires that one identify certain sharply defined elements of performance that need to be improved, and then work intently on them. The great performers isolate remarkably specific aspects of what they do and focus on just those things until they're improved; then it's on to the next aspect.

The top performers practice hard, in a really specific way. Nobody makes the list of true greats effortlessly. Accomplished people devote hours upon hours to deliberate practice. This isn't just poking around on the piano because it is fun; it is consistently practicing to reach specific objectives say, to be able to play a new piece that is just beyond your reach.

Deliberate practice is repeated a lot. High repetition is the most important difference between deliberate practice of a task and performing the task for real, when it counts. Repeating a specific activity over and over is what people usually mean by practice, yet it isn't especially effective. Two points distinguish deliberate practice from what most of us actually do. One is the choice of a properly demanding activity just beyond our current abilities. The other is the amount of repetition.

The top performers practice consistently. K. Anders Ericsson, author of a landmark study on this topic, says "elite performers in many diverse domains have been found to practice, on the average, roughly the same amount every day, including weekends."

Engaging in a designed learning experience just once or twice doesn't cut it. It has to be done over and over and over again until it's automatic. That takes hours of repetition. The norm is about four hours of practice per day every day! Anders Ericsson also adds that during repetition you need to pay as much attention to the methodology as to the goal. Sloppy execution is not acceptable to top performers.

Ericsson's primary finding is that rather than mere experience or even raw talent, it is dedicated, slogging, generally solitary exertion - repeatedly practicing the most difficult physical tasks for an athlete, repeatedly performing new and highly intricate computations for a mathematician - that leads to first-rate performance. And it should never get easier; if it does, you are coasting, not improving. Ericsson calls this exertion "deliberate practice," by which he means the kind of practice we hate, the kind that leads to failure and hair pulling and fist pounding.

Here's a great way to think of it. Many people, when they want to learn how to play a guitar, pick it up and try to bang out some awful rendition of Stairway to Heaven. They'll practice at that song some, trying it over and over again, and they might eventually figure out how to make it passable, but playing anything else is going to be rather difficult and the person (unless they have obscene natural talent) will never get good enough to play in front of others and earn a positive reaction. On the other hand, if you sit down for an hour and just work on a single chord, then spend another hour just working on one other cord, then spend two or three hours alternating between the two, you'll begin to master the basics of how to actually play a lot of things. Add a third chord to that and you can play most of Tom Petty's songbook. Add a couple more and you can play virtually every well-known pop and rock song of the last sixty years.

The difference between the two approaches is that the latter one focuses solely on technique and has specific technique-oriented goals associated with it. This technique won't directly teach you how to play Stairway to Heaven, but it will teach you how to intimately know a particular chord and how to switch back and forth with other ones almost intimately, and that skill can be used to play Stairway to Heaven and any other song you might think of.

Feedback on results is continuously available. Obvious, yet not nearly as simple as it might seem, especially when results require interpretation. In many important situations, a teacher, coach, or mentor is vital for providing crucial feedback. Great performance comes mostly from deliberate practice but also from another activity: regularly obtaining accurate feedback.

Every learner needs feedback. It's the only way you know whether or not you're getting close to your goal and whether or not you're executing properly. While there may come a time when you're accomplished enough to assess your own performance, you'll need a coach, mentor or some other third party to help you analyze how you did. "The development of expertise," writes Anders Ericsson and colleagues, "requires coaches who are capable of giving constructive, even painful, feedback. Real experts are extremely motivated students who seek out such feedback."

Going to the driving range and hitting a bucket of balls is definitely not deliberate practice. It may be fun, and you may get a bit better, but it's not the route to becoming the best you can be. There is a methodology and there is a very clear goal. More often than not a coach or teacher selects the goal and the method.

Experts are not casual about their domain. They build their lives around deliberate practice and practice every day, including weekends. But experts also report sleep and rest as critical elements of their results, and they avoid overtraining or overexertion.

Self-Regulating Deliberate Practice

Before the work. Self-regulation begins with setting goals - not big, life-directing goals, but more immediate goals for what you're going to be doing today. The best performers set goals that are not about the outcome but rather about the process of reaching the outcome. With a goal set, the next step is planning how to reach it. Again, the best performers make the most specific, technique-oriented plans. They're thinking exactly, not vaguely, of how to get where they're going.

In the research, the poorest performers don't set goals at all; they just slog through their work. Mediocre performers set goals that are general and are often focused on simply achieving a good outcome. The best performers set goals that are not about the outcome but rather about the process of reaching the outcome.

During the work. The most important self-regulatory skill that top performers in every field use during their work is self-observation. Even in purely mental work, the best performers observe themselves closely. They are able to monitor what is happening in their own minds and ask how it's going. Researchers call this metacognition - knowledge about your own knowledge, thinking about your own thinking. Top performers do this much more systematically than others do; it's an established part of their routine. Metacognition is important because situations change as they play out. Apart from its role in finding opportunities for practice, it plays a valuable part in helping top performers adapt to changing conditions.

After the work. Practice activities are worthless without useful feedback about the results. These must be self-evaluations; since the practice activities took place in our own minds, only we can know fully what we were attempting or judge how it turned out. Excellent performers judge themselves differently than most people do. They're more specific, just as they are when they set goals and strategies. By contrast, the best performers judge themselves against a standard that's relevant for what they're trying to achieve. Sometimes they compare their performance with their own personal best; sometimes they compare it with the performance of competitors they're facing or expect to face; sometimes they compare it with the best known performance by anyone in the field. Any of those can make sense; the key, as in all deliberate practice, is to choose a comparison that stretches you just beyond your current limits. Research confirms that too high a standard is discouraging and not very instructive, while too low a standard produces no advancement.

Characteristics of Deliberate Practice

The most cited condition concerns the subjects' motivation to attend to the task and exert effort to improve their performance. In addition, the design of the task should take into account the preexisting knowledge of the learners so that the task can be correctly understood after a brief period of instruction. The subjects should receive immediate informative feedback and knowledge of results of their performance. The subjects should repeatedly perform the same or similar tasks.

When these conditions are met, practice improves accuracy and speed of performance on cognitive, perceptual, and motor tasks.

In the absence of adequate feedback, efficient learning is impossible and improvement only minimal even for highly motivated subjects. Hence mere repetition of an activity will not automatically lead to improvement in, especially, accuracy of performance.

To assure effective learning, subjects ideally should be given explicit instructions about the best method and be supervised by a teacher to allow individualized diagnosis of errors, informative feedback, and remedial part training. The instructor has to organize the sequence of appropriate training tasks and monitor improvement to decide when transitions to more complex and challenging tasks are appropriate. Although it is possible to generate curricula and use group instruction, it is generally recognized that individualized supervision by a teacher is superior.

Throughout development toward expert performance, the teachers and coaches instruct the individuals to engage in practice activities that maximize improvement. Given the cost of individualized instruction, the teacher designs practice activities that the individual can engage in between meetings with the teacher. We call these practice activities deliberate practice and distinguish them from other activities, such as playful interaction, paid work, and observation of others, that individuals can pursue in the domain.

Deliberate Practice Requires Commitment

As it turns out, expertise requires about ten years, or ten to twenty thousand hours of deliberate practice. This has led scholars of elite performance to speak of a 10-year rule: it seems you have to put in at least a decade of focused work to master something and bring greatness within reach. Experts-in-training allocate about four hours a day to deliberate practice.

The top performers gain experience over the long haul. Most successful people average ten years of practice and experience before becoming truly accomplished. Even child prodigies generally work at it for a decade or more. Bobby Fischer became a chess grandmaster at 16 years old, but he'd been studying since he was 7. Tiger Woods had been working on his golf game for 15 years when he became the youngest-ever winner of the U.S. Amateur Championship.

Some expert domains are predominantly physical (sports and typing) while others are cognitive (chess and mental calculations). Intriguingly, the time required to become an expert is remarkably consistent across domains. Little evidence exists for expert performance before ten years of practice. The number of years of experience in a domain is a poor predictor of attained performance.

The framework explains expert performance as the end result of individuals' prolonged efforts to improve performance while negotiating motivational and external constraints. In most domains of expertise, individuals begin in their childhood a regimen of effortful activities (deliberate practice) designed to optimize improvement. Individual differences, even among elite performers, are closely related to an assessed amount of deliberate practice. Many characteristics once believed to reflect innate talent are actually the result of intense practice extended for a minimum of 10 years. Analysis of expert performance provides unique evidence on the potential and limits of extreme environmental adaptation and learning.

Research on the effects of the time of day shows that simple perceptual-motor performance is enhanced in the afternoon and early evening, whereas intellectually demanding activities are enhanced in the morning. Systematic studies confirm that performance of elite athletes is reliably higher in the afternoon and evening than in the morning.

Deliberate Practice Grows from Environment and Encouragement

Great performers have been shown to believe that their persistent effort will lead to success; researchers call this self-efficacy. Parents and teachers can build self-efficacy in kids by giving them effective encouragement (vs. empty praise), by helping them find effective strategies for mastering an activity, and by helping kids model their practices on the behavior of others who have succeeded.

Big performers often don't display the most "talent" when they're starting out. What they do display is self-regulation, an ever-growing base of knowledge, and powerful mental models for organizing, accessing, and using that knowledge.

It helps to start young. The world's top performers more than likely started when they were children. Because it takes years of continuous deliberate practice to become world-class, it makes sense that if you want to make the Olympics at eighteen you have to start when you are six. That doesn't mean we are doomed to being average if we don't start until we are in our twenties. But it does mean that we can't expect to perform at an expert level until we're in our thirties, assuming we practice every day. It takes practice, and practice takes time.

Study so intense requires resources - time and space to work, teachers to mentor - like most elite performers, almost invariably enjoyed plentiful support in their formative years. In fact, it came to be seen that great talent as less an individual trait than a creation of environment and encouragement.

It helps to have support. Studies of top performers strongly suggest that you have to have a supportive environment in order to develop expertise. A supportive family is very common in the stories of world-class performers. Coaches, mentors, and teachers, while tough and demanding, are also important sources of support.

Finally, most retrospective studies have found that almost all high achievers were blessed with at least one crucial mentor as they neared maturity.

Deliberate Practice Requires a Certain Mindset

The most contentious claim made by Dr. Ericsson is that practice alone, not natural talent, makes for a record-breaking performance. "Innate capacities have very little to do with becoming a champion," said his colleague, Dr. Charness. "What's key is motivation and temperament, not a skill specific to performance. It's unlikely you can get just any child to apply themselves this rigorously for so long."

But it isn't magic, and it isn't born. It happens because some critical things line up so that a person of good intelligence can put in the sustained, focused effort it takes to achieve extraordinary mastery. "These people don't necessarily have an especially high IQ, but they almost always have very supportive environments, and they almost always have important mentors. And the one thing they always have is this incredible investment of effort."

Take intelligence. No accepted measure of innate or basic intelligence, whether IQ or other metrics, reliably predicts that a person will develop extraordinary ability. In other words, the IQs of the great would not predict their level of accomplishments, nor would their accomplishments predict their IQs. Studies of chess masters and highly successful artists, scientists and musicians usually find their IQs to be above average, typically in the 115 to 130 range, where some 14 per cent of the population reside - impressive enough, but hardly as rarefied as their achievements and abilities.

Focusing Your Practice. For superior performers, the goal isn't just repeating the same thing again and again but achieving higher levels of control over every aspect of their performance. That's why they don't find practice boring. Each practice session, they are working on doing something better than they did the last time. By improving one specific technique at a time, you gradually improve your overall ability over time.

In fielding practice Alex Rodriguez would ask for grounders to his right and to his left, and he would ask for fielders at second for a double play and at first for throws across the diamond. In batting practice, he would focus on specific disciplines - grounders the other way, liners to the gaps, and so on.

It's all about how you do what you're already doing - you create the practice in your work, which requires a few critical changes. The first is going at any task with a new goal: Instead of merely trying to get it done, you aim to get better at it.

Armed with that mindset, people go at a job in a new way. Research shows they process information more deeply and retain it longer. They want more information on what they're doing and seek other perspectives. They adopt a longer-term point of view. In the activity itself, the mindset persists. You aren't just doing the job; you're explicitly trying to get better at it in the larger sense. Again, research shows that this difference in mental approach is vital. For example, when amateur singers take a singing lesson, they experience it as fun, a release of tension. But for professional singers, it's the opposite: They increase their concentration and focus on improving their performance during the lesson. Same activity, different mindset.

Practice can build new thought patterns-and can also reinforce existing thought patterns. By doing something over and over or repeatedly thinking about something in a specific way, you actually change the way your mind works. Remember that the goal of practice is to stretch yourself and to increase your control over your performance.

During deliberate practice experts work on their weaknesses and not just on their strengths. These days we hear a lot how we should ignore our weaknesses or find someone else who's good at what we aren't. That message is not consistent with what those who study expertise have found. To quote Anders Ericsson: "Deliberate practice is different. It entails considerable, specific, and sustained efforts to do something you can't do well-or even at all. Research across domains shows that it is only by working at what you can't do that you turn into the expert you want to become."

Deliberate Practice is Mentally Demanding

It's highly demanding mentally. Deliberate practice is above all an effort of focus and concentration. Continually seeking exactly those elements of performance that are unsatisfactory and then trying one's hardest to make them better places enormous strains on anyone's mental abilities.

It's hard. This follows inescapably from the other characteristics of deliberate practice, which could be described as a recipe for not having fun. Doing things we know how to do well is enjoyable, and that's exactly the opposite of what deliberate practice demands. Instead of doing what we're good at, we insistently seek out what we're not good at.

While we should absolutely love what we do, deliberate practice is not designed to be fun. What keeps the top performers going during the often-grueling practice sessions is not the fun that they are having, but the knowledge that they are improving and getting closer to their dream of superior performance.

It requires intense concentration and focus. Even when the type of activity requires intense physical effort - as in athletic sports - the limiting factor is often more mental than physical. It seems that we are more likely to tire from mental strain than physical strain. That's why deliberate practice sessions are often only about two to four hours.

What you want - really, deeply want - is fundamental because deliberate practice is an investment: The costs come now, the benefits later. The more you want something, the easier it will be for you to sustain the needed effort until the payoff starts to arrive. But if you're pursuing something that you don't truly want and are competing against others whose desire is deep, you can guess the outcome.

What do you really believe? Do you believe that you have a choice in this matter? Do you believe that if you do the work, and do it with intense focus for years on end, your performance will eventually reach the highest levels? If you believe that, then there's a chance you will do the work and achieve great performance. But if you believe that your performance is forever limited by your lack of a specific innate gift, then there's no chance at all that you will do the work. What you really believe about the source of great performance thus becomes the foundation of all you will ever achieve.

Deliberate Practice Improves the Mind in its Domain

Whenever you get the chance, try to work on your cognitive abilities. Cognitive abilities allow us to process the sensory information we collect, giving us the ability to analyze, evaluate, retain information, recall experiences, make comparisons, and determine action. By practicing to increase your cognitive ability, you'll be better prepared for all the other tasks you perform.

Current theories propose that initial performance is mediated by sequential processes, which with additional practice are transformed into a single direct (automatic) retrieval of the correct response from memory.

Evidence suggests that performance during the initial, middle, and final phase of skill acquisition is correlated with different types of abilities in each phase, initial performance being correlated with general cognitive abilities and final performance with perceptual-motor abilities.

It is plausible that after extended practice, the ultimate reaction time on a simple task depends on the speed of the neural and motor components of the response process in a simple reaction.

The important implication is that experts can circumvent any basic limits on the serial motor processes constraining a novice by using advance cues to prepare movements. What distinguishes expert performers is mostly more and better-organized knowledge, which had to have been acquired. Most important, expertise shows that experts can acquire cognitive skills enabling them to circumvent the limits of short-term memory capacity and serial reaction time.

So what do elite performers attain through all that deliberate practice and sensitive mentoring? What makes a genius? The crème de la crème appear to develop several important cognitive skills. The first, called "chunking", is the ability to group details and concepts into easily remembered patterns.

Apart from chunking, the elite also learn to identify quickly which bits of information in a changing situation to store in working memory. This lets them create a continually updated mental model far more complex than that used by someone less practiced, allowing them to see subtler dynamics and deeper relationships.

Its models agree nicely with what neuroscience has discovered about how we learn. Eric Kandel of Columbia University in New York, who won a Nobel prize in 2000 for discovering much of the neural basis of memory and learning, has shown that both the number and strength of the nerve connections associated with a memory or skill increase in proportion to how often and how emphatically the lesson is repeated. So focused study and practice literally build the neural networks of expertise. Genetics may allow one person to build synapses faster than another, but either way the lesson must still be learnt. Genius must be built.

This ability to place information into patterns, or chunks, vastly improves memory skills. By practicing in this way, performers delay the automation process. The mind wants to turn deliberate, newly learned skills into unconscious, automatically performed skills. But the mind is sloppy and will settle for good enough. By practicing slowly, by breaking skills down into tiny parts and repeating, the strenuous student forces the brain to internalize a better pattern of performance.

Delayed Gratification

2009-03-27T17:43:00.000-07:00

For the past few months I’ve been struggling with the principle of delayed gratification. Delayed gratification is the ability to wait in order to obtain something that one wants. I believe I’ve been impressive with my impulse control. I have been dependable taking care of the right responsibilities. There is a point though where I can no longer delay gratification. I want what I want. I believe it’s become a need and I deserve a reward for being good. I think it‘s time to buy a new laptop.

I came across an interesting study that was done in the 1960’s by Stanford University psychology researcher Michael Mischel. His study demonstrated how important self-discipline is to success.

The study began with a group of children 4 years old. He optionally offered them one marshmallow immediately, but instead if they could wait for him to return later, they could have two marshmallows instead. He left for approximately 20 minutes. His theory? The children that could wait would demonstrate they had the ability to delay gratification and control impulse, both significant and important traits for attaining wealth and being financially successful. As you would expect, some children took one marshmallow, and other children decided to wait and received two later.

Fourteen years later, the simple study demonstrated the significant differences between the two groups of children. The children who delayed gratification and waited until Dr. Mischel’s return were more positive, persistent when faced with life difficulties, more self motivated and were able to delay immediate gratification in order to pursue their longer term goals.

The children who chose 1 marshmallow didn’t fare as well. They were more indecisive, mistrustful of others, less self confident and often more troubled in general. They were more obviously unable to delay immediate gratification.

Comparing the SAT scores of the 1 marshmallow students to the 2 marshmallow students showed that students that chose 1 marshmallow scored an average of 210 points lower than the 2 marshmallow students. Why? 2 marshmallow students are able to sacrifice immediate activity in the interest of more focused study time for a longer term benefit. The one marshmallow students were far more impulsive resulting in higher distraction and less focus on their school work. They fell for the old “Hey let’s go out, you can always study later“.

Lack of impulse control has proven to result in less successful marriages, low job satisfaction, bad health, overall frustration in life. All of these result in something that has significant negative impact on being wealthy: low income.

Responsibility

2009-03-26T18:10:00.000-07:00

Everyone has responsibilities. Some are more important then others. It’s the choices that are made toward these responsibilities that determine a responsible or irresponsible person. It can be difficult being responsible in determining what are the right choices. I can pay rent or take care of a health problem. What’s the best or responsible choice in this situation? They both had to be and were done. Responsibility becomes the decision between want versus need. Taking care of the needs before the wants.

The acceptance of personal responsibility is what separates the adult from the child. It's the great leap forward into maturity. Responsibility is the quality of the fully integrated, fully functioning human being. Responsibility goes hand in hand with success, achievement, motivation, happiness and self-actualization. It's the absolute minimum requirement for the accomplishment of everything you could ever really want in life.

Our great aim in life is to develop character. Character is composed of self-esteem, self-discipline, the ability to delay gratification, and the willingness to accept full responsibility for our life and everything in it. The more we say to ourselves, "I am responsible," the stronger, better and finer a person we become. And every part of our life will improve at the same time.

Silver Bullet R.I.P.

2008-10-31T22:38:00.000-07:00

My laptop is coming to its end. I've had trouble over the years, but lately it has gotten fatal. A couple weeks ago while working, the dreaded blue screen appeared telling me of a fatal error. I tried to shutdown and immediatelly restart which has worked in the past, this time it didn't. My hard drive was corrupted. I did backup a lot of the hard drive so it didn't hurt too much. What hurt me was I didn't get around to backing up my rails Trading Journal project I've been hacking. OUCH! I will also miss all my bookmarks of websites I discovered. I hope to discover them again. I got my laptop up and running a week later and was off to work again with a fresh start. A few days later my screen became choppy then went black. Silver has been in a coma since. I don't have a backup computer so I've been borrowing others to continue with my trading. I have not been able to do any hacking. It is time to get a new computer and a backup.

Before I roll out and buy a new laptop, I would like to know what happened to Silver and how long it will be before my new computers are affected and can I prevent it. My laptop was old which probably led to overworked and run down components. I must have caught a virus or two and been overrun with spyware. I have read that many lock-ups and blue-screens-of-death can be traced to insufficient power supplies, low quality RAM, and the like. Does that mean old components cannot handle new applications that continue to come out? Will I need a better Motherboard or Processor or whatever every year? So, if I have lock down security, update drivers and increase everything my computer should live forever.

My focus now is what kind of user am I. My computer is mostly for trading and software engineering. I search the web and watch online videos and shows. I also run multilpe applications at the same time. So what computer is best for me? What's the minimum? Do I want a Mac or PC? I am not familiar with the Mac. The PC doesn't offer XP anymore and I would have to switch to Vista. From what I checked, they both work with the software I download and use.

I'm probably over thinking it. I assume most computers these days bought off the shelf will contain everything I need. Now, I just gotta figure out what it is I need. Wish me luck!

Joined

2008-08-29T00:36:00.000-07:00

I joined my first two groups of TechHui. The first group is UH ICS Students. This group is to focus on the needs of UH ICS undergraduate and graduate students. I like the idea of this group. Every student needs some type of support. Each student enters the program with different strengths and abilities. They are all at different levels when it comes to languages, programming, and understanding. The second group is UH ICS Mentors. This group is to bring together University of Hawaii ICS Alumni (and anyone else) interested in mentoring current UH ICS students. This group gives me a feeling of trepidation. Can I be a helpful mentor? Will I myself be able to answer the different type of programming questions? Have I advanced to that level of being a mentor? I just don’t want to be a detriment to a student. It’s probably fear and I need to get over it. I’m probably further along then I realize.

I like the idea of these two communities. It would have been nice to have them around and established when I entered the program. I came in unfamiliar with languages, programming, and how to understand it. The Professors and TA’s helped some but they were responsible for many students. I tried to find a professor to be an advisor and mentor to guide me through the ICS program but it didn’t work out that way. It took me a few tries to get through some classes and move on in the program. I didn’t grasp the information of what I was learning until I met Aaron and took ICS 413 and 414. I began pair programming and learned to think for myself and not rely on others to get me started. I discovered you learn by hacking and trial and error. It would have been extremely helpful to have this when I entered the program. That’s why these groups are good.

Hello World!

2008-08-12T14:24:00.000-07:00

It works! I got the simple Hello World program to work. I don't receive anymore errors. I can now start hacking away at my Trading Journal project. The program wasn't connecting to the database. I upgraded to mysql 5 and got it running. It began working when I changed the database name in the yml file to a database name I created in mysql.

I'm learning Ruby and using the Rails framework. I'm using NetBeans IDE for the Ruby projects. Now its time to hack away and become familiar with the Ruby language and Rails application. I'm also gonna check on what more NetBeans can do with Ruby, Rails, and the database.

Positive Focus

2008-06-22T18:02:00.000-07:00

Throughout the day, week, and month while living life do you remember the positive happenings or the negative ones. Have we been programmed by newspapers and the news who report more negative then positive stories as well as people around us that let us know more about our mistakes or something we've done wrong then our positives. At the end of the day, what do you remember more? I went to listen to a speaker who talked about positive focus. At the end of the day discuss with family the positive things that happened during the day. And of course, saying positive things to others can only help. I always try to be positive about everything but when asked to name three positive things that happened to me over the past 30 days, it took me a while. The three negative things that happened to me came quicker. So, let's focus on the positive.

Home of the Future

2008-05-17T19:38:00.000-07:00

Disney has teamed up with Microsoft, HP, software provider Lifeware, and home builder Taylor Morrison to create an attraction featuring digital home technologies of the future. The home of the future is suppose to open this month at Disneyland in Tomorrowland. Disney’s new ‘smart’ house is set to look like a normal suburban home outside, but inside is set to feature cutting-edge hardware, software and touch-screen systems to simplify modern living. Lights and thermostats will automatically adjust when people walk into a room. Closets will help pick out the right dress for a party. Counters will be able to identify groceries set on them and make menu suggestions. The system will allow residents to transfer digital photos, videos and music among televisions and computers in different rooms at the click of a button. Other applications still in development could include touch-screen technology built into appliances, furniture and counter tops. The home will also feature new uses for devices that many people may already own, as well as technologies that are still five or 10 years down the road.

I find this fascinating. The technology that is here now and possible for the near future is exciting, knowing what is coming. But isn't this technology here and now. Is this the "Home of the Future" because we have to wait for the future before we can afford the technology to put in our home? Are there more futuristic ideas out there for the "Home of the Future" that can be thought of? No matter, I still like the idea of the technology.

Finding Features

2008-05-07T21:31:00.000-07:00

I am in the process of finding features for my trading journal project. This is fun. I currently use a trading journal that was given to me by a fellow trader. It was created in an Excel worksheet with good parts and bad parts. I finally got to a point where I want my own trading journal that caters to my needs. I am finding features for comments, current account information, current and actual trade information, trade summary, and I am adding additional features. The description for each feature is taking time. Even though this trading journal is for me, I would like it to be easily understood by everyone. I am trying to create my ideal trading journal with features I want. I want to improve the trading journal.

Conceiving Believing Achieving

2008-05-03T18:51:00.000-07:00

Whatever the Mind can Conceive and Believe it can Achieve

I have discovered a passion for software engineering and trading.

Entering into college I thought of working with computers as a possibility but didn't know exactly what I could do with them. I was then introduced to computer science. I became hooked when I took ICS 111 from Dr. Johnson. Although I didn't pass that class, it was fun and interesting as well as eye opening to me what programming can do. I became a believer in computer science after taking ICS 413 and 414. In these classes I met and was mentored by Aaron, introduced to pair programming and working with a team, got to work on a real project that was being utilized at the time, and needed to be a dependable teammate. This made me aware of the possibilities and software engineering.

In the mid 90's I began to learn how to trade the equity markets. I learned how to trade stocks and options. I was taught how to find fundamentally sound companies and how to technically trade their chart. There are many different technical indicators that can be used together or separately to find an opportunity as well as different patterns that can appear on a chart. This got me excited about the possibilities. I became a believer immediately. Recently I was introduced to currency trading. I'm a believer in it. I found out trading isn't as easy when using real money. Money can be lost quickly unless you take other steps to protect yourself. Creating a plan with rules, keeping a detailed trading journal, and using proper money management will help in protecting yourself.

This passion has caused me to want to combine the two. I am beginning a project to use my software engineering skills to create my own trading journal. This is a big endeavor for me. Luckily I'm not alone. I am receiving help from my mentors. I'm excited and ready to go.

An Inspiring Lecture

2008-04-11T20:50:00.000-07:00

Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving talk, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals. I found it very inspiring with his positive message. Maybe you've seen it or maybe you haven't, check it out here.

Randy Pausch is a computer science professor. He has created an educational software that teaches younger students programming. I have not tried it yet but check it out here.

Developing a Software Project Plan

2008-04-09T20:36:00.000-07:00

I have not written a project plan. Is it important to know how to write one? I think the contents of the plan would include an overview and design structure. The overview will have a mission statement and a list of goals. The design structure will have the system implementation with the classes and methods.

The Best of Tech

2008-03-26T18:59:00.000-07:00

I've been wondering who are the best technology companies creating the best long lasting stuff. I have no criteria I'm following. I'm just thinking out loud. I'm probably going to miss some obvious ones. Apple seems like the head of the pack with the iPod and iTunes, popularity of the iPhone, and the Mac computer. Google seems to be in the mix with its searching and sharing capabilities. Is Microsoft still in the mix? They have Windows and the X-Box. But have they brought out anything that has caught on since? Sony is still out there with the Playstation and all the electronics. Amazon changed online shopping. Ebay changed online selling. Are there any up and coming companies out there creating the next best thing?

Static vs Dynamic Typing II

2008-03-22T18:01:00.000-07:00

After receiving feedback and reading more about it, I'm coming to the conclusion that static vs dynamic typing has more to do with writing code, lines of code, and the benefits of run time checking vs compile time checking. Static and dynamic typing classify values and expressions into types differently. Java is statically typed and Ruby is dynamically typed. It seems like a program written in Java will contain more lines of code then the exact same program written in Ruby. This is because of the type checking. I'm not familiar with Ruby yet, but, supposedly you have the ability to write less code because all of the code dealing with the types of objects and casting will be removed. The run time check seems to give more flexibility when writing the program and dealing with types. Static typing, with compile time checking, allows program errors to be caught earlier and program execution to be more efficient. Dynamic typing, with run time checking, is more flexible although slower running and more prone to program errors.

Static vs Dynamic Typing

2008-03-17T19:04:00.000-07:00

I thought I knew the differences between static and dynamic typing. I was wrong. I thought it was the way you declare the variables and functions in certain ways. Whether assigning types to values or expressions. Static typing refers to types declared in a program at compile-time. Dynamic typing refers to types declared in a program at run-time. There is more to it though. I'm still trying to understand what it all means. Some languages use static typing and others use dynamic typing. I think C uses static typing and Java uses dynamic typing. There are many differing views on the subject. Some think static typing is better for testing then unit testing. Others disagree. I'm still researching to get a better understanding of the difference.

Communicating With Others

2008-03-12T17:22:00.000-07:00

Communicating with people is a very important skill to have. Getting someone to understand what you are saying seems simple. Having the right vocabulary and speaking the right language can make it easier. Whether talking about software engineering(SE) or stocks and options or currencies or anything else, having some idea of what you want to say helps. I guess a good start would be to know your audience. Are you talking to someone that is familiar with the subject. For those that don't get it, you could always break it down in layman's terms. For example, when speaking with a fellow SE, is it important to be able to discuss an idea or problem in technical terms using the correct vocabulary? Or is layman's term alright as long as you get your point across and you are understood?

I was talking to a friend telling him I recently graduated with a degree in ICS. I was trying to explain what I learned and what I can do but he just didn't get it. We figured it was because I was speaking a different language. It reminded of school when I tried discussing project ideas with professors. They didn't get it either. I need to work on being a more effective communicator.

Java Hacker

2008-03-10T18:29:00.000-07:00

I'm a Java guy. Java is the language I learned the best during my ten year at the university. I also tried and wrote small one-time programs using C++, Coldfusion, Lisp, Python. I don't remember these very well anymore. My Java knowledge increased by working on big projects utilizing a lot of the language. I know what I was taught. I first learned how to write a program and get it running using an applet. Then I learned the MVC paradigm and how to get a program running using a web application. I hope you understand what I mean. There must be other more sophisticated ways to get an application running. How do I learn them? Are web frameworks still good? Is there a 2nd language I should become familiar with? My one goal is to be able to get an application up and running from scratch. All I have to do now is learn how to do this.

A Whole New World

2008-03-08T20:51:00.000-08:00

It has begun! My journey into the online world. I'm starting with reading blogs and blogging. I've been introduced to google reader. It's nice having all the blog posts brought to one place. I'm subscribed to programming and hacking blogs. I am hoping these will keep me aware of what is happening and what is new. And maybe become a better programmer. Some things I've read are new to me but I'm learning. It's nice to be apart of a community.

My New Blog

2008-03-07T15:57:00.000-08:00

Today I started being awesome with blogging.