BPI inside

As anounced some time ago I'm now in the first week of my vacation. I managed to come to a conclusion with my managers so that for now the plan is to be present for two weeks at work followed by two weeks of vacation. This cycle is for now set up to repeat the rest of this year.

And what could be better than extreme rainfalls as start of my vacation. It's now raining since Saturday and the forecasts say it will continue for the upcoming days.

At least I've got some time now to finish some exercises for the University.

Posted by Kosi2801 on 11:02 PM tagged as Holiday | Permalink | Comments (0)

For one of my lectures at the university we had to process a project. I chose a software project with a topic I suggested myself and possibly could also later use at work.

Meanwhile my project has grown to a not-so-bad framework and I'm really thinking of opening it to the public after it has been completed at the university.

I already checked it with the university I just have to talk to some people at work on that issue.

So expect a new java project on SourceForge.net in the next weeks.

Posted by Kosi2801 on 11:55 PM tagged as Computer/Programming, University | Permalink | Comments (0)

Whheeeeee, the hard weekend is over and I think it has been quite successful. All exams have been held, all presentations are performed including one surprise-presentation which was scheduled just the day before.

Since the stressful time was over, I set up a bit of sports activity. Namely playing Badminton with a studying colleague today morning.

This was my first intensive physical exercise since quite some time (think of years), nevertheless I think I did quite well. I could keep up with the condition of the others and my reactions were fast enough I think. I just had some problems with targetting and concentration on the rules how to switch positions after each move which I think are the main reasons why I've always been on the team which lost each match :) But I became better over time and the last match was already very close on the edge of victory.

I hope, that this was not only a one-time event and that I continue with some sports in the future.

Posted by Kosi2801 on 8:17 PM tagged as Personal | Permalink | Comments (0)

As you have noticed it's already the time of the semester where all the homework, projects and preparations for exams accumulate towards the same date.

The upcoming weekend is again the most pressing date of this semester as this is one of the last presence lectures for some of our lectures. And the last presence lecture is often used for end-term exams.

Furthermore there are some presentations and handins to be finished by Saturday.

What's currently taking most of my time is my project work for this semester. I don't know if I've already hinted somewhere in a post on that but let me give you a short intro.

I'm creating a framework for Java which allows developers to define the structure of any file in some sort of description language, hand this and a file containing data in this format to a parser which is created out of the description language and get out a data structure which contains the contents of the file in an easy accessible way for the developer.

Initially the project was about researching such frameworks, comparing them to each other and create a prototype implementation for an application within our company. After I have handed in the description and plan for my project work I found out that there is no framework existing for the Java language which comes even near the functionality I've been looking for. Nothing. Nada. I just found something similar to that implemented for Python, it's called Construct and resembles quite exactly what I've been looking for. So I decided to resurrect my old lexer and parser know-how and create a framework on my own. Since I've already worked on a thesis in the past which involved creation of a C++ parser I knew that finding the right tools to use and creating a language from scratch is not something one can pull off without a great deal of theoretical background in that area. I already knew which problems I probably will be facing and how to avoid several caveats and until now it turns out that I'm not very far off of my expectations.

Just that I need some more time to get it finished :P

Nevertheless, what I've also been thinking of is that maybe I'll open source this framework if there aren't obstacles for that like copyright or usage issues with the university or my employer for which I'm implementing this.

Maybe there will be updates on this in the future... maybe.

Posted by Kosi2801 on 7:02 PM tagged as Computer/Programming, University | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday I read an article about object oriented languages (don't remember which one, seems it wasn't so important) when I recognized a small note on that article which mentioned a programming language I haven't heard of for quite some years.

Profan²

Profan² was the first programming language I encountered which supported GUI elements, about 13 years ago. I used it to program basic stuff (don't remember anymore, what exactly) on Windows 3.11. Before that I've only been programming BASIC and Assembler on my C64.
When I read about it it gave me a quite nostalgic feeling and some nice memories on my first steps in the creational world of IT and I'm happy to see, that one of my "childhood toys" is still existing today :)

Posted by Kosi2801 on 8:53 AM tagged as Computer/Programming | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday I was one in the department who got the order to get rid of accumulated holiday and compensatory time. The target was set to have at most 10 days combined by the end of this year.

I personally have collected quite a large backlog over the last few years which means now I've got quite a hard time to shrink this pile of time. In fact, I could go on vacation for four months straight.

I'm not very happy with that because I like to work and be productive and tinker with problems and optimize stuff and so on. But I can also understand the position of our company because they have to keep the monetary value of these holidays and overtime hours aside and it builds up quite some weight on the balance sheet.

So, now I'm busy planning how I'm going to distribute that time and thinking about what I'm going to do in that spare time.

If you had four additional (and unexpected) months in your life, how would you spend them?

Posted by Kosi2801 on 5:57 PM tagged as Career, Corporate | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our moving action is now almost completed, just one or two boxes still not completely emptied and some waste to get rid of.

We've now also got new company in the apartment, namely Blacky and Sheila, two nice and active cats which keep us busy all day long when we don't know what to do with our time.

Both have their specialties, as every cat has, like Sheila following anybody like a dog or Blacky always trying to cover under something like chairs, carpets or blankets. But both are very open to visitors :)

There are no photos available yet, but if there is time, there will be pictures.

On the bad side, the moving has cost us a lot of time which is missing now for the university work. A lot has accumulated but we think when we make not everything perfect and polished, it will be doable.

Posted by Kosi2801 on 12:03 PM tagged as cats, Personal | Permalink | Comments (0)