3 min read
It was another hackathon of one last night as I tried to get more accomplished on the project. Supposedly this project is too big to finish by the end of the internship but I'm hoping to get a significant amount done and documented. I'm less stressed now because I thought I was supposed to be done with it by then end. That's the norm anyway.
I've moved into the next phase which requires learning another new language. I already spent a month learning C++ and now I have to learn Go if I'm going to make any more progress for the rest of the internship. It's an internally developed language mostly used inside of Google. Most people here though either use C++, Python, or Java.
The language's mascot, the Golang gopher (it doesn't have a name). Most of the time it's blue. I swear it's doing "The Thiller".
So far I'm not a big fan of it. It looks like a backwards version of C plus plenty of extra weird things thrown in. After trying to build the first file I had too many errors to even display. This was my attempt at trying to translate existing Python code to Go. It feels like being a student back in my intro to computer science class from my first semester.
Go was developed in order to help software developers produce code faster. Ironically it's slowing me down a lot though, but that's because I've never used it before and even though I tried "A Tour of Go" twice, I got bored after 10 minutes both times. "But what about Python?" Well for one, what I'm working on was literally all in Python. Considering I'm redoing the entire thing using a framework written entirely in Go, Python is not an option.
Everyone once again left the office early for dinner elsewhere. Except me, obviously. I was getting annoyed because my Go code wouldn't compile. It wasn't even that big of a file, only a couple hundred lines. Yet some places I would have 2 errors on the same line.
It had taken all the way until dinner to translate only a small part of the Python code and then roughly half the night to fix all the errors AND get all the build files to work with my addition to directories. I do get a prize for my troubles though.
I can't decide if it's cute or creepy
Some people on the second floor have one of these on their desk. One person even has 4 in 3 different colors. Another person got one for checking in Go code. I thought my desk was pretty empty (it's literally just my dual monitor workstation and a paper with notes) so I asked about getting one. I was told to ask someone on the Go team who said I could have one on Monday. I'm hoping by then my now-compiling Go code will be reviewed and checked in by the end of that day, but I'd imagine that's a stretch.
After another all-nighter, I slept most of the day today. In total between today and yesterday I worked 23 hours straight. I don't mind at all though since I want to make sure I don't leave the internship feeling like I could have tried harder or done more.