thinking work June 10, 2012
Posted by mareserinitatis in grad school, research, solar physics.Tags: grad school, productivity, programming, solar physics
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I have to give a presentation next week and older son took off for the summer, so between getting slides together and getting stuff and people shuttled to the airport, it was a rather busy weekend. There was some code I wanted to work on but didn’t have the chance.
It’s funny, though, because I was still thinking about it, and I actually think I made good progress on a plan of action. I realized I had three options: fix it, rewrite it, or throw my hands up in despair and give up. (Okay…last one is very low on the list of possibilities, but I can’t say it’s non-existent…there have been days.) I’m not sure I can fix it, but I have an idea of how to go about doing it. It’s a piece of code without commenting, but I know what it’s supposed to do, and I have an awesome ‘cookbook’ of numerical algorithms that explains it. (Need a spline written in a jiffy….I’m your woman!) I also suspect that in the process of trying to fix it, I’ll figure out a way to rewrite it a bit more efficiently, likely with less effort than fixing it will take. And I planned out how I can verify everything, as well.
While I didn’t have much time to work on it directly, I got my resources together and know what I’m going to do so I can hit it first thing after work tomorrow. I wonder if I made more progress by spending my ‘off’ time thinking about it than if I’d just dived in. I guess I should know in a couple days. But it’s funny how stepping away from something and letting your mind idle on it can result in something worthwhile.
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