This was an ok-ish week, all told. My weekend was not as productive as I'd wanted, but I do keep having to remind myself that I should take time for relaxation sometimes.
Learning Paths 📚
Docker
I wrapped up the Swarm section of my Docker bootcamp, and am ready to move on to learning about Kubernetes. Since that topic will be completely new to me, I'm looking forward to gaining some exposure and guided practice with what seems to be a pretty ubiquitous container orchestrator.
Algorithms
Not surprisingly, I'm having to do some catch-up on a few topics to stay on top of this course. It starts off with sorting and recursive algorithms, and I took some time to understand and then write a mergesort algorithm in Python this week. I've also begun learning "Big-Oh" notation.
Linux Upskill Challenge
While looking around for something I could pick up and drop easily during stochastic down times at work, I discovered this reddit-based Linux learning sequence. Instead of going one day at a time, I've been working at my own pace through the instructions, getting more comfortable operating in Linux (an Ubuntu AWS EC2 instance in one of my accounts, launched specifically for this purpose). Much of it has been review of things I have already seen, but there's always at least one or two new things each "day."
Projects 🔨
As a form of note-taking: I want my next project to involve several tools that I don't have in my stack quite yet: Docker for sure, possibly an orchestrator, and likely something like Ansible and maybe Jenkins. I see those names all over the place, and while I know (more or less) what they do, I haven't learned how to use them. Yet.
Job Search 🔎
No happy news this week.
A kernel of a thought is formulating about what I should do to help improve my job hunt. More on that next time.
4 applications; 0 interviews; 4 rejections
Wrap-up 🍩
Parts of this week felt like more of a grind than others, and that's bound to happen most weeks. I know where I can improve my time management, so I will work on that next week and not worry too much when I need to rest.
Onward and upward!
Top comments (2)
These are really awesome notes, Alex! It's really nice to follow along the journey and see what you're thinking to learn next, etc. I'm sure for lots of people this would be super useful 🙏 🙏 🙏
I think Linux is a tough one to learn, there are basics and fundamentals, but a lot of weird nuances and edge cases to get used to, it's also hard to know when to stop... how much linux is enough linux...
Agreed about Linux! I'm getting comfortable with the common admin tasks and trying not to dive too deep yet (because there's so many other things I feel like I need to learn). I figure if I hit those edge cases, I'll ask for help or look up how to do things.