the weekend that was

The weekend was pretty much spent writing more code in fortran, trying to get accustomed to the syntax and thinking in that language. That's another interesting thing that I noticed now that I'm writing the same code in multiple languages. Not only is the syntax and the code different, the thought process in itself which leads to the code is different. I guess this is one of the reason people argue as to which programming language is better and which is worse, depending on the thought process it stimulates in a programmer. I'm still getting used to the thinking in fortran. And it's been an interesting road too. I couldn't find useful resources online to help me start writing code in fortran, I guess I didn't search for long enough or hard enough. Either way, I ended up looking up code passed on to me by my professors, which I had blindly used as part of my data analysis routine, for syntax and usage. It was a bit like learning a language by reading the sign boards in a new country/city. There are a few things that you recognize and you then try making sense of everything else around the word that you recognize, trying to understand the parallel in your own language of comfort. It was interesting nonetheless.

And in the background, I was installing a new code base that I intend to learn. Well, installing the dependencies rather, there were so many of them. I have finally boiled it down to one dependency issue, which I'm trying to resolve. Honestly speaking, the whole process is in itself a bit putting off. There should be a better way of installing dependencies for software not listed in the canonical repositories. Atleast a better way to tell the user.

I am also putting pen on paper, trying to prettify my notes on radiative processes in astrophysics, which I should also latex for later use. Theoretical intuition is something that I still haven't been able to develop, mainly because I haven't practiced for long enough, which is why I need step by step solutions to problems. I was able to solve these equations now and I would prefer having the solution online, so I can refer to it when the need arises.

There are a couple of mails that I'm waiting for people to respond on, a couple of things slated for next week. One thing that I shall do starting this week is to write a full length article once a week, instead of talking about my day or my week or my work. Hopefully it won't take me more than a couple of hours to write every week. And I feel confident in talking about this before I actually implement it given that I've actually maintained a(n) (almost) daily blog for the last 3 months.

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