So the new year is here, and happy new year to all my readers. Whoever or wherever you are. I have been thinking about what my resolutions are going to be this year regarding my programming skills. And I think I’ve come up with some good ones.
Master a programming language
One of the biggest things I’d really like to do this year is to learn a programming language quite well. So for this year, it’s going to be C++ AND C#. I work day in day out in C++, but at home I code in C#. So I’m planning to get the hang of these languages. I’ve had some success with this of late, where I’ve learned to write something in C++, and then I’ve converted it to run in C’#, and if anything, I’ve learned a lot more doing that. So it’s a quick win as far as I can see. (And with C#, I don’t have to worry about pointers 
)
Get more involved in the .NET community
As you may have read in my last blog post, I attended my first .NET user group meeting. And I really enjoyed it. It’s something I plan to do more of this year, and hope to attend more events, and get to know more folks. I’ve met some incredible people at these things and I’ve learned a lot as well. So I’ll be getting more involved in community this year, and by the year’s end, I will have given a Grok talk on some topic or other.
Learn to use version control
I want to have my code hosted somewhere properly this year, and learn how to run a source code repository properly. It’s not something I’ve really thought of all that much, so I’ve got myself a github account, mainly thanks to seeing the good stuff Phil Haack is doing over there (@haacked) so I can play with my own repository and learn how to do stuff like branching, merging and all that. There’s a build manager at work that does all that, so I don’t see that side of things.
Use a build tool
This goes hand in hand with my last resolution. I’ve never used a build tool so I’m looking to learn, and I’m open to any recommendations anyone has on what would work with C#, as on my linux box, I’ll just use Make, but I don’t know which would be the best for C#.
Write something someone else will actually use.
Yup! I plan to write something useful. I’ve got a couple of ideas for the windows phone platform, and so I’m actually in the process of designing them. I’m keeping some kind of diary of what I’m doing at the moment, so that’ll appear on the blog soon enough. So watch this space!
Read more and blog more.
My problem is, Call of Duty is too damn tempting, so this year, I’m looking at cutting down on this, and actually read some programming books. Notes of which I’ll put up on my blog, and I’ll keep a list of what I’ll have read this year too. So that should be good. And this will mean I blog a whole load more.
I’m looking forward to what 2012 will bring, I’ve already got some dates for Developer Developer Developer days in my diary, and I’m hoping to make a few more of them this year. I made it to two last year!! Which was great. This year, I’ll head there with a bit more knowledge, so who knows? I may even do my grok thingy whatsit at one of them.
As ever, would appreciate thoughts, comments etc
