Week 92: Unwelcome Guests

A week of book clubs, reading again, new team members, learning to code, summer birthdays, Kalimotxo Blondes, and a new housemate.

Posted on by Rowan Manning.
Tagged with BooksWorkHouseRust

  • I’ve been reading a lot this week. “A lot” for me is “any reading at all”, I picked up The Invisible Man because it was free and I knew I liked The War of the Worlds. I’ve since moved on to The Book of Dust and am very close to the end of book 1, I’m enjoying being in Philip Pullman’s world again. It’s been a really nice change of pace away from just binging TV and I hope I can sustain it. A lot’s been released since I last had a big fiction stint.

  • In non-fiction, Alice started a book club at work and I have read the first two chapters of The Pragmatic Programmer (20th Anniversary Edition). I’m enjoying it a lot so far and I’m starting to make notes in the margins for things I want to come back to which feels way more organised than I’ve ever been with a programming book.

  • Andy joined my team at work which brings us up to three permanent senior engineers. It feels like we suddenly have so much more scope to improve the reliability of FT.com. Andy’s been here for years and previously lead our Platforms team so he’s got a lot of useful knowledge/experience 💪

  • Outside of work I’ve found myself with a bit of spare time and a willingness to learn something new. The Pragmatic Programmer advises engineers to “learn at least one new language every year”. I disagree with this on quite a few levels, however, it was exactly what I fancied so I’ve been working my way through The Rust Book. It’s been a lot of fun! I can understand some of the hype and the guide is very well put together, I probably need a small project to learn some more practical stuff but that can come later.

  • What’s up with everyone being born in July eh 👀? We had pizza to celebrate Kara’s birthday and then a picnic in Victoria park for Gallal’s. Sainsbury’s had stopped stocking hard seltzers so I fell back to Kalimotxo Blondes which makes for a fun time. Surprisingly not suffering much?

  • I’ve seen a mouse in our flat twice. It runs under the fridge. Not impressed. I’m giving humane traps another go but I don’t have high hopes, the peanut butter remains untouched but it’s early days.