Graduation thoughts and leisure time

I returned my master's thesis for inspection last Friday. Finally there's some leisure time ahead.

We'll stay in Sanna's summer cottage on a Sipoo island from today until Sunday. I need mail access for checking if my inspectors have sent any comments about my thesis. My cellphone's email application will suffice. I cannot afford to miss any comments because we are unsure if we can get the inspection process done before the deadline of May 28th. It seems improbable now. Missing the deadline will move my graduation date to September.

Not graduating this spring has both cons and pros. If I had my degree now, the TKK summer trainee salary would be higher than for not having the degree. On the other hand, should I graduate next autumn, I think I may pay my HYY membership fee for the whole student year 2009-2010, which in turn would grant me the public transportation discount of 50% for one additional year, which means a lot in savings! But having the degree now, again, would perhaps help me in search for the next job - a quest that I must begin during the summer.

Ok, that's enough pondering. Now, in which books I want to lose myself on the island? I'll take two works from Pekka Himanen: HIMeros and "The hacker ethic", Steppenwolf from H. Hesse and Hofstadter's GEB, that I've been slowly reading for a couple of years.

Thesis working hours

A Python script follows, that shows the working hour statistics.

import sys
from subprocess import *

p1 = Popen(["git", "log"], stdout=PIPE)
p2 = Popen(["grep", "^Date"], stdin=p1.stdout, stdout=PIPE)
p3 = Popen(["awk", "{printf \"%d \", $5}"], stdin=p2.stdout, stdout=PIPE)
output = p3.communicate()[0]
hours = output.split()
stats = {}
for h in range(0,24):
    stats[h] = 0
for h in hours:
    stats[int(h)] += 1
for k in stats.keys():
    print "%02d: %s" % (k, "*"*stats[k])

And the results...

00: *****
01: ***
02:
03: **
04:
05:
06:
07:
08:
09:
10: **
11: *****
12: ************
13: ************
14: **********************************
15: **********************
16: ************
17: **********
18: **
19: ***
20: ***
21: **
22: *
23:

Thesis development

Today's result of playing with git-archive, shell scripting and gnuplot:

f(time)=wc -w

On self study plans, again

Referring to my previous post, I have now, in the past few days, advanced deep into SICP's interpreter chapter (ch 4). Today I began reading the DIY Scheme interpreter tutorial previously mentioned. I managed to read the first five chapters, and I'm very satisfied so far. The tutorial does not try to teach elementary functional programming concepts, but maintains its scope by just showing how to write real software in Haskell.

Nowadays I'm rather busy writing my LLVM thesis and thus I have not yet got an opportunity to start reading RWH, a promise made a few posts ago.

Job needed

The job market is not the most active right now. However, I'm soon going to send some applications to certain promising places. Both University of Helsinki and Helsinki University of Technology are providing some research group and software developer summer trainee positions. I'm applying there but the number of available positions isn't plenty and I assume people are applying there en masse due to current economy.

Fortunately I'm still unfinished with my thesis so my current unempoyment is not harmful -- it's actually hastening my graduation. But I miss working as a software developer. Past four years in software business have been fun and I want to be there again, soon.

Saviour VCS

I have been writing my master's thesis for a few months now. I'm using git. Today it came to my rescue, really. I rm'd the wrong file, namely, the .tex file that contains my thesis as a whole. After a millisecond in shock, I recalled that I really am using a vcs. 1) man git-checkout 2) *magic* 3) back in business.