Weeknote 18: Posh new mug

Drinking a second tea out of my nice posh new mug (shout out to Wan Ceramics). Ideal weeknote writing conditions.

Ok, just one more writeup on release automation

I can't help it, it's what I've been working on. Last week I spoke about improving the release validation script to account for pre-releases and this week, between reflection week activities, has been rounding that off and responding to review. The code is looking lots cleaner following that review and we're starting to establish some concrete policies via our code. For example, not allowing pre-release identifiers other than 'beta' or 'internal' to stop us from releasing anything bonkers.

The next time I get the minerals for it, I'm interesting in doing more to refine the script and maybe restructure it to be a bit more sensible. However I also wonder if I should show some restraint. It came up in retro this week that there's a risk that if devs working on specific parts of our codebases treat those parts as their babies, then the rest of the dev team don't get a real chance to work on them and understand them. Writing up issues and encouraging the rest of the team to have a stab at some of the lingering bits is probably better practice.

My learning

I've been thinking recently about L&D in my role and why I've been struggling with it over the past year or so. The reason I've landed on is that I don't and haven't ever responded to non-active learning. That's your reading articles or course materials, watching videos etc. I very rarely have the patience for it. I've learnt the most when I've had a project to sink my teeth into. I think about this release automation stuff I've been doing recently and how much it's been an 'excuse' to learn about github actions. It wasn't an excuse at all! It was a learning exercise as much as it was my actual job!

My dang life

I actually only worked a 4 day week this week and was off yesterday. My wife took the week off to cash in annual leave that'd she'd otherwise be losing with the turn of the financial year and so I took Friday off for us to go on a day trip to charming Whitstable. The weather wasn't exactly beach weather but it's still nice to get out of the city and enjoy a little seaside town. Big up the very tasty Whitstable Oyster Company (who need to sort out the SSL on their website) and the custodian for the Whistable Community Museum who kindly and patiently talked us through their Peter Cushing exhibit.

Other than that, a few nice, indulgent food outings to note. On Wednesday, since my wife was home with me for a change, we popped out for a walk and a takeaway breakfast from N5 Kitchen which is a great little brunchy spot between Clissold park and Highbury. I made a brief appearance at Natalie's leaving drinks on Thursday (good luck with your teaching gig!) before venturing to far off Stretham for a lot (a lot) of Brazilian-style pizza at Marinatto.

We also finished the original run of Twin Peaks yesterday. That last episode is exactly what you'd expect from a Lynch joint. It's the end so restraint is out the window. The numerous scenes of Sheryl Lee screaming her lungs out have been stuck on my mind. So cool. Next up is the 2017 revisit which I'm going to try and not put too much expectation on after the mixed bag (but still overall great) of that 2nd original season.