Notes - Week 8, 2024

• I spent Monday fixing our CI pipeline. As it turned out, the images we used had recently been upgraded to use Drupal 10.2. Apparently, this version had a bug which caused non-fatal errors to be thrown that were fatally failing the pipeline. The solution? Ignore them. Ah the chicanery...
• After spending too many hours debugging the test framework of the GovCMS Golang CLI app I have been building, I managed to solve a bizarre issue within 5 minutes. It was quite a weird situation on the whole, and I have written about it in this post.
• Despite technically being a junior, it appears I have found myself naturally taking on more and more of a lead role on this project. My senior engineer and project manager seem quite happy for me to run with it, so I have been organising meetings with different stakeholders to really understand what people's need are. My project management skills that I developed from my previous role are starting to come in handy!
• This week was also the start of the university semester. I am studying part-time (2 courses) while working full-time. It is demanding, but not unmanagable. I find university learning lays a strong foundation of computer science skills while also filling the gaps in my knowledge left by engineering work alone. Last year the purpose of this Master's was to gain a foothold in the software engineering profession; now since I have such a role, it is to deepen my knowledge and work towards becoming a well-rounded and complete engineer (if such a thing exists).
• Squeezing this all in is not easy though. I might try to write a post at some point about how I try to find balance between everything. In the meantime, I'd be curious about how others in similar situations do it. If this sounds like you, email me at hi@jackwrfuller.au, I'd love to hear from you.
• On a personal note, I managed to win a three-hour tennis match on Saturday! It was the final round of the league I am playing in, and this win secured my spot in the finals. I was playing a fit and tenacious middle-aged Belgian. He sliced and diced everything, which I find such a cowardly way of playing tennis, though probably because it is so effective against me! Nonetheless, I came back from a set down to win 57 64 61. The duration of the match took its toll later however. While trying to climb the stairs to my front door, I was shocked by the strongest leg cramps I have ever felt. I could not bend my legs at all, and I was writhing in agony, unable to move, for a full 15 minutes until they finally subsided. Later while lying down on my bed, the rest of my body gave in to the cramps! The moral of the story is: always have some hydralyte before and during a match! I learned this lesson years ago, but in my hubris didn't think I would need it. So take it from me - if you ever suffer from cramps in sport, 'Hydralyte Sports' works true miracles.