Better Programmer In Six Months- III

This is part of my series where I capture my journey for becoming a better software developer in six months. The first post from July is here and from August is here.

August (and September)— Review

August and September went slower than expected partly due to vacation plans and mostly because of loss of motivation. Here is task wise review

1. CS50 — This moved much slower than expected but I was able to complete lectures 6 and 7. I am now left with completing lecture 6 assignments and complete lecture 7.
2. Algorithms and data structures — I submitted about 10 questions on leetcode vs my target of 40 in two months. My frequency on leetcode went down drastically in the last two months and hence the submission rate.
3. Complete “The Pragmatic Programmer” — I was able to complete the whole book last week. The struggle for completing this book was hard because of the second half of the book is a complete drag with outdated information.

Learning — I think a lack of planning and motivation was a real cause of productivity going down. I will try to plan this month in a more detailed manner assessing my availability and items at work.

Plan — October

Algorithms and Data structures — I plan to target dynamic programming and graph questions this month which I find really hard. I plan to complete 50% of the coding blocks dynamic programming course this month.

Design Patterns — I will start to read and work on 4 basic design patterns — MVC pattern, Delegation pattern, Strategy pattern and Singleton pattern.

Swift apprentice — This is one book I am going to read and work on in the coming months and will start with basic and collection types.

Grokking the object-oriented design interview- This is something new that I am going to start and plan to complete this along with system design in the next 3 months.

I realize a need for focussing and gaining knowledge in a timeboxed and planned manner. I will probably be editing this post and adding specific questions and topics that I am going to target.

Thanks for reading.