I used to think I was a programmer who did "sysadmin-stuff". Nowadays I interact with too many real programmers to believe that.

Or rather I can code/program/develop, but I'm not often as good as I could be. These days I'm getting more consistent with writing tests, and I like it when things are thoroughly planned and developed. But too often if I'm busy, or distracted, I think to myself "Hrm .. compiles? Probably done. Oops. Bug, you say?"

I was going to write about working with golang today. The go language is minimal and quite neat. I like the toolset:

• go fmt
  • Making everything consistent.
• go test
  • Making testing an obvious and natural part of libraries and code.
  • My personal puppet dashboard went from 0% code-coverage to ~60% coverage in the space of a few hours.

Instead I think today I'm going to write about something else. Since having a child a lot of my life is different. Routine becomes something that is essential, as is planning and scheduling.

So an average week-day goes something like this:

• 6:00AM
  • Wake up (naturally).
• 7:00AM
  • Wake up Oiva and play with him for 45 minutes.
• 7:45AM
  • Prepare breakfast for my wife, and wake her up, then play with Oiva for another 15 minutes while she eats.
• 8:00AM
  • Take tram to office.
• 8:30AM
  • Make coffee, make a rough plan for the day.
• 9:00AM
  • Work, until lunchtime which might be 1pm, 2pm, or even 3pm.
• 5:00PM
  • Leave work, and take bus home.
  • Yes I go to work via tram, but come back via bus. There are reasons.
• 5:40PM
  • Arrive home, and relax in peace for 20 minutes.
• 6:00PM-7:00PM
  • Take Oiva for a walk, stop en route to relax in a hammock for 30 minutes reading a book.
• 7:00-7:20PM
  • Feed Oiva his evening meal.
• 7:30PM
  • Give Oiva his bath, then pass him over to my wife to put him to bed.
• 7:30PM - 8:00pm
  • Relax
• 8:00PM - 10:00PM
  • Deal with Oiva waking up, making noises, or being unsettled.
  • Try to spend quality time with my wife, watch TV, read a book, do some coding, etc.
• 10:00PM ~ 11:30PM
  • Go to bed.

In short I'm responsible for Oiva from 6ish-8ish in the morning, then from 6PM-10PM (with a little break while he's put to bed.) There are some exceptions to this routine - for example I work from home on Monday/Friday afternoons, and Monday evenings he goes to his swimming classes. But most working-days are the same.

Weekends are a bit different. There I tend to take him 6AM-8AM, then 1PM-10PM with a few breaks for tea, and bed. At the moment we're starting to reach the peak-party time of year, which means weekends often involve negotiation(s) about which parent is having a party, and which parent is either leaving early, or not going out at all.

Today I have him all day, and it's awesome. He's just learned to say "Daddy" which makes any stress, angst or unpleasantness utterly worthwhile.

Tags: golang, personal | 1 comment