Twelve Weeks at the Recurse Center

It's been four weeks since I finished my batch at the Recurse Center and I'm finally getting around to publishing what I did in weeks seven through twelve. I wrote about the things I did in my first six weeks here http://ryanriddle.github.io/six-weeks.html.

In weeks seven through twelve

• I added atomic transactions to my database using a rollback journal
• I added isolated transactions to my database using locks
• I learned Ruby does not have read-write locks
• I tried and failed to implement read-write locks in Ruby
• I learned how to use the system call fcntl to get locks on files and I gave a presentation on it
• I rewrote the isolated transaction code to use MVCC
• I learned about isolation levels
• I learned when and how to use condition variables and I used them to implement serializable, isolated transactions in my database
• I learned about concurrency models that do not rely on locking like software transactional memory
• I contributed to http://pump.io
• I hacked around with BEP44 for storing arbitrary data on the BitTorrent distributed hash table
• I played with a Clojure library called Overtone for making music
• I used React Native to create an Android app to help me catch the bus

There are also things I never got around to doing. When I started my batch I wanted to work on crypto, machine learning, and gpu programming. Looking back the things I wanted to do but didn't don't seem important. What's important to me is I learned a lot, I had fun, and I met great people. And the things I still want to do, like GPU programming, I can still do. I just have to make time. Never graduate!