365 scripts in 365 days

Mikołaj Sodzawiczny

Mikołaj Sodzawiczny / January 20, 2023

3 min read

I'd assume that most of software engineers have some kind of long-term plan on getting their skills up. Either through courses, little personal projects, books or their own SaaS they promised 5 years ago to build out but they ended up not having the resources to do it.
I will be the first one to admit that doing something after work is hard and I mean it, like extremely difficult. I have dozens of projects that I abandoned and I don't feel like I am learning new things... and this kind of sucks!

So what's the solution?

I created a project called 365scripts (it is what it is) where I'll try to publish 1 script a day for a year. This will test my ability to focus and stay consistent but the main goal is to learn scripting. I really want to know my stuff and be able do just write my own stuff for automation and not constantly google everything - even though there are scripts there which weren't written by me but I still took a lot of time to disect them.

graphic of bash - bourne again shell

What are the rules?

There are no rules except that they all have to be a script. What is a script?

a program or sequence of instructions that is interpreted or carried out by another program rather than by the computer processor

So yeah, I am planning on writting a lot of Bash (since underneath there's always a dirty bash script) but also Python, Rust and maybe Perl (???). I've never used the last one and I don't think I've ever seen anyone using Perl in real life but I am all for experimenting.

Biggest concerns

  1. Honestly, I don't think I can come up on my own with 365 scripts or even 365 ideas. Maybe once I get started the ideas will start flowing into my head.
  2. Time allocation is a big one, because I am working full time and I also want to spend time with my amazing partner so I have to fit it somewhere and since I usually learn stuff about programming after and before my work I'll either have to become more focused or resign from something
  3. Doing something everyday is scary

Summary

I think I have summed up my thoughts about the project really well and since I tend to overthink my blog posts I'll finish here and I will try to justify to myself that I am doing a correct thing

Have a good one