BRAIN-DUMP-2022-02-20T11:00:32-05:00
Hackernews, useless work, organizing anything; mind-to-keyboard stream.

I find myself going back to news.ycombinator.com each day to get my technical
news. Each time I go, which is maybe 1-3 times a day, there is rarely anything
of actual relevance to my life.

In some instances, at the back of my mind, I feel: why am I checking?...

As I write now, I realize the full question: why am I searching for stimulating
news?

Am I not happy or preoccupied with everything else I have?

I go back to work, disappointed that yet again there is nothing interesting.

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This project is a mess. Weird, outside of work I have these ideas of what great
project organization looks like. Functions and relevant structures in modules.
Some how, functions, relevant structures and more end up in a module, but
creating another file and what to call it and where to place it in the file
system becomes the real problem.

As the project grows, this issue grows.

Attribute the problem to using a lot of different technologies. Incoherence.

Like clock work, have the thought of, "do I really even know what I'm doing".

Of course the answer is yes. The indeterminancy comes from comparing myself
to establish projects which have had years and many people work on them.

As you learn the problem space, you learn the relationships between its objects.
As you learn, the project organization begins to take proper form, realizing
those shared utilities can actually be placed somewhere with a proper name.

Function names should be overloadable. "+" works in many contexts.

Still in this moment I'm not there yet. The size of my project makes me think
back to the line limit on Temple OS - I don't know why. I look it up: 100,000
lines. I'm not even near that. 6,000 lines for me. Except I wrote those lines
all within 3 months. TOS had 10 years.

Maybe there's a relationship between code-output, time, and the feeling of
project complexity. Is a 10 year old, 100,000 line project more complex than a
1 year old, 100,000 line project? Gut-feeling: no.

TOS was a useless project though. "Useless". If TOS was useless then so are
video games and literature and anything other than what contributes to survival.

I live more to survive. I live to explore my reality. I live to learn.

But my time is important too. I should use what exists to try and go as far
with my goals as possible. Except I will never learn fully that way. And I
want to learn. Retirement is not a choice. It doesn't matter where your learning
has stopped, but that I learned anything at all.

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I am overworked.

Hackernews is useless. Community is comforting.